Mechanical Artefacts: Automatons and Marvellous Chambers in the Gran Conquista de Ultramar

Published 2023-06-21
Section Papers

Authors

Keywords:

automata – mechanical marvels – technological marvels – artefact – Swan Knight, automata, mechanical marvels, artefact, swan knight, technological marvels

Abstract

Two marvellous machines are described in the Gran Conquista de Ultramar: the throne room where Khosrow II keeps the Holy Cross, provided with a system of wheels and pipes that produce a series of sensory effects, and the automaton that gives his verdict on the disputes that take place in the council of the emperor Otto. Both devices differ radically in their construction and operation, the way in which they are explained, the appraisement they receive and their textual function. The objective of this paper is to analyse and contrast both passages, and thus to identify two possible orientations of the mechanical wonder in the Castilian chronicle and, by extension, in the late medieval imaginary.

Author Biography

María Eugenia Alcatena, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Graduate and PhD in Literature from the University of Buenos Aires. Serves as
professor in the chair of Medieval Spanish Literature, the Master of Medieval Studies and the
PhD program at the UBA and at the ISP Dr. Joaquín V. González. Has directed or integrated
various research group projects (PICT, UBACyT, FILOCyT). Your main line of
research focuses on the configuration and narrative functions of the marvelous and the
supernatural in Castilian medieval literature, and from there it radiates to other issues and matters
related. Together with María Dumas, he translated, annotated and prefaced the Lives of Santa Osith and Santa Fe (Siruela,
2021).

References

Fuentes primarias

Cooper, Louis, ed., La gran conquista de Ultramar, Bogotá, Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1979.

Hippeau, Célestin, ed., La chanson du Chevalier au Cygne et de Godefroid de Bouillon, Paris, Auguste Aubry, 1874.

Honorius Augustodonensis, Speculum Ecclesiae, en Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, 172, Paris, J. P. Migne, 1854.

Lachet, Claude, ed., Les Enfants-Cygnes suivi de La Chanson du Chevalier au Cygne, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2023.

Querol, José Manuel, ed., La leyenda del Caballero del Cisne, Madrid, Castalia, 2014.

Santiago de la Voraginé, La leyenda dorada, Madrid, Alianza, 1982 (reimp. 1999).

Fuentes secundarias

Barbero, Sergio, “Representación iconográfica de una dioptra en un tapiz flamenco del siglo XV”, Óptica pura y aplicada, 47:1 (2014), pp. 51–62.

Bautista, Francisco, “Sobre la materia carolingia en la Gran conquista de Ultramar y en la Crónica fragmentaria”, Hispanic Research Journal, 3:3 (2002), pp. 209–26.

Bautista, Francisco, “La composición de la Gran Conquista de Ultramar”, Revista de Literatura Medieval, 17 (2005), pp. 33–70.

Cacho Blecua, Juan Manuel Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, Amadís de Gaula, Madrid, Cátedra, 1987.

Carrasco Tenorio, Milagros, La Gran Conquista de Ultramar. Edición crítica y estudio filológico del Ms BNE 1187, Lausanne, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des lettres, 2020. Tesis doctoral disponible en: https://serval.unil.ch/resource/serval:BIB_50E819C5C891.P001/REF.pdf [fecha de consulta: 15/08/2022].

Daston, Lorraine, y Katharine PARK, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750, New York, Zone Books, 2001.

Domínguez, César, “El maestre Hans Giesser y el trabajo editorial, de la Grant estoria de Ultramar a la Gran conquista de Ultramar”, en Deyermond, Alan Proceedings of the Tenth Colloquium, London, Queen Mary and Westfield College, 2000, pp. 115–30.

Domínguez, César, “La Grant estoria de Ultramar (conocida como Gran conquista de Ultramar) de Sancho IV y la Estoire de Eracles empereur et la conqueste de la terre d’Outremer”, Incipit 25–26 (2005-2006), pp. 189–212.

Domínguez, César, “Gran Conquista de Ultramar”, en Dunphy, Graeme Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2010, pp. 726–27.

Domínguez, César, “Las Estorias de Ultramar en el taller historiográfico de Alfonso X. Identificación, catalogación e hipótesis de trabajo”, Boletín de la Real Academia Española, Tomo 92, Cuaderno 305 (2012), pp. 21–57.

Duce García, Jesús, Antología de autómatas en los libros de caballerías castellanos, Alcalá de Henares, Universidad de Alcalá, 2016.

Eco, Umberto, Historia de las tierras y los lugares legendarios, Barcelona, Lumen, 2013.

Gómez Redondo, Fernando, Historia de la prosa medieval castellana, vol. I. La creación del discurso prosístico: el entramado cortesano, Madrid, Cátedra, 1998.

Gónzalez Gonzalo, Antonio Joaquín, “La exaltación de la Santa Cruz: dos tapices del Museo de La Seo de Zaragoza. Lectura desde el espíritu caballeresco”, en Lucía Megías, José Manuel, María Carmen Marín Pina y Ana Carmen Bueno Serrano, eds., Amadís de Gaula: quinientos años después. Estudios en homenaje a Juan Manuel Cacho Blecua, Madrid, Centro de Estudios Cervantinos (2008), pp. 349–83.

Kang, Minsoo, Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2011.

Kieckhefer, Richard, La magia en la Edad Media, Barcelona, Crítica, 1992.

Le Goff, Jacques, “Lo maravilloso en el Occidente medieval”, en Lo maravilloso y lo cotidiano en el Occidente medieval, Barcelona, Gedisa, 1985, pp. 9–24.

Lliteras, Margarita, “El cavallero del Cisne (Gran conquista de Ultramar): nueva edición de Echenique y los problemas relativos a la extensión y título del texto”, Thesaurus, XLVIII:2 (1993), pp. 393–401.

Lliteras, Margarita, “La cronología temporal como técnica de integración del Cavallero del Çisne en La Gran Conquista de Ultramar”, en Alvar Ezquerra, Carlos, y Florencio Sevilla Arroyo, eds., Actas del XIII Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas, Madrid 6-11 de julio de 1998, vol. I, Madrid, Castalia, 2000, pp. 168–74.

Northup, George Tyler, “La Gran Conquista de Ultramar and its Problems”, Hispanic Review, vol. 2 (1934), pp. 287–302.

Ramos, Rafael, “Gran conquista de Ultramar”, en Alvar, Carlos, y José Manuel Lucía Megías, eds., Diccionario filológico de literatura medieval española. Textos y transmisión, Madrid, Castalia, 2002, pp. 603–8.

Sánchez-Prieto Borja, Pedro, “El castellano escrito en torno a Sancho IV”, Alvar, Carlos, y José Manuel Lucía Megías, eds., La literatura en la época de Sancho IV (Actas del Congreso Internacional “La literatura en la época de Sancho IV”, Alcalá de Henares, 21-24 de febrero de 1994), Alcalá de Henares, Universidad de Alcalá, 1996, pp. 267–86.

Truitt, Elly, Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.

Zalama Rodríguez, Miguel Ángel, y Jesús Félix Molina, “Tapices de Juan II de Aragón y Fernando el Católico en La Seo de Zaragoza”, Boletín del Museo e Instituto Camón Aznar, 109 (2012), pp. 285–320.

How to Cite

Alcatena, M. E. (2023). Mechanical Artefacts: Automatons and Marvellous Chambers in the Gran Conquista de Ultramar. Revista Chilena De Estudios Medievales, (23), 7–26. Retrieved from http://revistas.ugm.cl/index.php/rcem/article/view/521

License

Those authors who have publications with this journal accept the following terms:

  1. The authors will retain their copyright and guarantee the magazine the right of first publication of their work, which will simultaneously be subject to the Creative Commons Recognition License that allows third parties to share the work as long as its author is indicated and his first publication in this magazine.
  2. The authors may adopt other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the published version of the work (for example: depositing it in an institutional electronic archive or publishing it in a monographic volume) as long as the initial publication in this journal is indicated.
  3. Authors are allowed and recommended to disseminate their work through the Internet (e.g., in institutional electronic archives or on their website) before and during the submission process, which can produce interesting exchanges and increase citations. of the published work. (See The Effect of Open Access).