pull yourself up by your inkwell: pedro de madariaga's honra de escribanos ...

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Pull Yourself Up by Your Inkwell: Pedrode Madariaga's Honra de escribanos(1565) and Social MobilityCarol D. Harllee aa James Madison University , VirginiaPublished online: 23 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: Carol D. Harllee (2008) Pull Yourself Up by Your Inkwell: Pedro de Madariaga'sHonra de escribanos (1565) and Social Mobility, Bulletin of Spanish Studies: Hispanic Studies andResearches on Spain, Portugal and Latin America, 85:5, 545-567, DOI: 10.1080/14753820802270836

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Pull Yourself Up by Your Inkwell:Pedro de Madariaga’s Honra de

escribanos (1565) and Social Mobility

CAROL D. HARLLEE

James Madison University, Virginia

Is the practice of good handwriting an engine for upward mobility? Can amanual skill also be an honourable one? Towards the middle of the sixteenthcentury in Spain university professor Pedro de Madariaga answered ‘yes’ tothese questions in his Honra de escribanos, published in Valencia in 1565.Promising the public far more than the acquisition of a simple manual skill,the book touted the ability to write as a tool that would increase both culturalcapital and wealth. The work invited readers to aspire to and engage in aprocess of improving or refashioning themselves by means of the pen in twoways: by stressing the economic power and social status related to the penand by insisting that the ability to write is a sign of true masculinity andnobility. I believe Madariaga aimed his guidebook at merchants and artisansin the middle strata of society with dreams of increasing their socialstanding. He also sought to reassure impoverished members of the lowernobility that a man who served as his own scribe would not endanger hisnoble standing. In spite of its audacious claims regarding the practice ofwriting as a means of economic gain and personal power, to this date thework has principally attracted the attention of scholars who study thedevelopment of calligraphy and orthography.1

1 For traditional treatments of the work see Aurora Egido, ‘Los manuales deescribientes desde el Siglo de Oro. Apuntes para la teorıa de la escritura’, BulletinHispanique, 97:1 (1995), 67�94 (p. 80); Abraham Esteve Serrano, ‘El ‘‘Libro subtilissimointitulado honra de Escrivanos’’ de Pedro de Madariaga’, in Homenaje al Prof. Munoz Cortes(Murcia: Univ. de Murcia, Facultad de Filosofıa y Letras, 1977), 151�63; A. S. Osley, Scribesand Sources: Handbook of the Chancery Hand in the Sixteenth Century (London: Faber andFaber, 1980), chapter 10. Rafael Marpartida examines the dynamics of dialogue in RafaelMalpartida Tirado, Varia leccion de platica aurea: un estudio sobre el dialogo renacentistaespanol (Malaga: Univ. de Malaga, 2005), 59�73. Jonathan Goldberg examines Renaissancewriting manuals as reflectors of material culture, including a passing reference to Honra, inJonathan Goldberg, Writing Matter: From the Hands of the English Renaissance (Stanford:Stanford U. P., 1990).

ISSN 1475-3820 print/ISSN 1478-3428 online/08/05/000545-23# Bulletin of Spanish Studies. DOI 10.1080/14753820802270836

Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Volume LXXXV, Number 5, 2008

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In this essay I will examine how the book beckons the reader to betterhimself while at the same time promoting the profession of scribe. Takenwithin its historical and social context the work underscores the increasingimportance of writing in sixteenth-century Spain and, especially, how onewriter links writing with upward mobility for him and for the reading public.I begin with general comments regarding the nature of the work and,particularly, what distinguishes it from similar coeval texts. The body of thisessay then explores how Honra de escribanos attempts to affect the reader.First, the manual exalts good penmanship as an engine of increased wealthand a sign of masculinity. Second, it strives to increase the status of thescribe by promoting him as an agent of stability for church and crown.

Honra de escribanos consists of three parts: the first emphasizes theimportance of writing in general while promoting good penmanship, thesecond is a manual that teaches this same skill, and the third is a treatise onspelling. The book belongs to a flood of practical books published in thesixteenth century in Europe, including correspondence manuals, almanacs,how-to books, cookbooks, and the like. In fact, these works constitute asignificant percentage of early printed books in the vernacular, an importantfact that has been studied but perhaps is not as firmly fixed in our mentalmap of sixteenth-century Europe as it ought to be. In his examination of theimpact of literacy on Western culture Harvey J. Graff, for example, remarksthat a ‘veritable avalanche of treatises aimed at a variety of forms of self-helpand improvement, from praying to singing and accounting, rolled fromsixteenth-century presses’.2

Whereas in the late Middle Ages literacy had been primarily limited tothe nobility and intellectuals, as the sixteenth century progressed the needsof the growing state apparatus, changing business practices, the increaseduse of the printing press, and other factors helped create an interest in and athirst for reading and writing that gradually extended beyond these upperstrata of society into the merchant and artisan sectors. The profusion ofpractical books fed the interests of these newer readers in Spain and acrossEurope.

What little is known about the author of Honra de escribanos comes fromthe text itself. Pedro de Madariaga was a disciple of fellow Vizcayan Juan deYcıar. He began work as university professor of calligraphy in 1562, heclaims in the Prologue, after many years of study in the liberal arts and aftertravelling throughout Spain and Italy. The book provides the first treatise onthe reformation of Castilian orthography after Antonio de Nebrija’s Reglas deorthographıa (1517), and is the only text up to that point to treat bothcalligraphy and spelling in any detail.3

2 Harvey J. Graff, The Labyrinths of Literacy: Reflections on Literacy Past and Present(Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), 121.

3 Esteve Serrano, ‘El ‘‘Libro subtilissimo intitulado honra de Escrivanos’’ de Pedro deMadariaga’, 152.

546 BSS, LXXXV (2008) CAROL D. HARLLEE

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Before any book can have an effect someone must take it and read it. Tothat end Madariaga brings his rhetorical capabilities to bear on the potentialreader in the prologue in order to make the text appear indispensable to him.The prologue to Honra de escribanos incorporates well-known tropes toconvince readers to engage with the book: it contains new material neverbefore seen, Madariaga claims, and is easy to read. He further emphasizesthe accessibility of his text by stressing its universal utility and its simplicity.These claims are present in a number of dialogues of a self-help nature: aconspicuous feature of many is the authors’ promotion of their works in theparatexts.4 In a final rhetorical flourish at the end of the prologue,Madariaga invites everyone to consider himself a scribe since ‘este nombrede Escribano generalmente entiendo por todos los que se sirven de la pluma,aunque no escriban sino una firma sola’.5 The author undoubtedly isemploying hyperbole to make his case to the reader by widening thecategory of scribe beyond professionals. ‘Honra’ in the title refers to thehonour Madariaga believes is due to scribes, to the art of penmanship ingeneral and, by logical extension using his redefinition of the word scribe, toanyone who uses the book to improve writing skills. Both honour andfinancial gain through good handwriting are repeatedly stressed throughoutthe work.

The writer persistently claims that his book is an adequate substitute forthe teacher. Indeed, on the very first page of text immediately after the title-page and his own portrait, he states that the second part of his book ‘ . . . llevauna arte brevıssima, por la cual cada uno puede salir buen escribano enmenos de dos meses sin materias, y sin maestro’. Immediately afterwards inthe Prologue he declares that ‘en veinte dıas lo puede hacer quienquiera sinmas maestro’ (emphasis added). Madariaga explains that his book containsthe same straightforward method to teach writing that he used in theuniversity classroom. The author employs a pair of metaphors in thePrologue to call attention to his role as a champion of accessibility. First,he promises his book will lead his disciples to the fountain so that they can

4 For a reconstruction of the imagined reader of these sixteenth-century printedSpanish dialogues through a study of the paratexts, see Carol D. Harllee, ‘Sixteenth-centurySelf-Help: Reception of the Dialogue in Spain’ (Dissertation, Univ. of Virginia, 2005), 72�110.

5 Pedro de Madariaga, Libro subtilıssimo intitulado honra de escribanos (Valencia:Juan de Mey, 1565), ‘Prologo’. Madariaga’s Prologue has no page numbers and I refer thereader to it as a whole. Subsequent references to the rest of the work are made by pagenumber in the body of this essay. I have modernized the spelling of quotations that are takendirectly from older works according to the following rules: I have regularized use of ‘b’ and ‘v’;substituted ‘s’ for ‘/f ’, ‘c’ for ‘z’, ‘i’ for ‘y’, ‘z’ for ‘c’, ‘c’ for ‘q’, ‘j’ for ‘x’, ‘m’ for ‘n’, ‘h’ for ‘g’, ‘j’ for ‘g’, ‘i’for ‘e’, and ‘e’ for ‘y’ (when ‘y’ means ‘and’); added ‘h’; used ‘u’ when called for; and followedmodern rules for word division and accentuation. I have changed punctuation when theoriginal could impede comprehension. I have not reduced double consonants to one, except forreducing a double ‘n’ to an ‘n’. The copy I consulted is in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, callnumber R/3782.

PEDRO DE MADARIAGA’S HONRA DE ESCRIBANOS (1565) 547

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assuage their thirst whenever they wish. Second, he inserts the vocabulary ofeconomic gain from the very beginning of the work by assuring readers thismanual will show them the underground mine where each can enrich himselfat will.

The author’s insistence on the possibility of instruction through privatereading foregrounds the self-help tenor of Honra de escribano. Its emphasison self-instruction is almost completely unique in Spanish sixteenth-centurywriting manuals, despite the popularity of the self-help or self-instructiongenre at the time. Most of the other manuals written both before and afterHonra primarily attempted to influence the teaching of writing in the contextof schools, though some did so with a nod in the direction of self-instruction.6

Only Andres Brun, in his 1583 work Arte muy provechosa para apprendirde escrivir perfectamente, also attempted to provide a book that wouldsubstitute for the teacher, declaring that ‘[c]on esta instruccion que aquıpongo, en breves dıas podran aprender a escribir buena forma de letra, sinmaestro’.7 Brun has bested Madariaga: the Vizcayan’s two months has beenshortened to a few days. Brun also took the self-help technique a step furthersince various pages in his book function as a workbook on which the learnercan trace letters for practice using his own pen and ink. In the ‘Advertenciasal lector’ Brun extols penmanship in language reminiscent of Madariaga,claiming that writing has provided the means ‘por el cual muchos hanalcanzado dignidades y estados’. His ‘Epıstola del autor al curioso escribano’uses the same rhetorical devices and proofs to stress the excellences of thepen.8 Note that in the title of this Prologue the author addresses thebeginning writer as a scribe. Brun, like Madariaga, flatters his reader byintimating that anyone who knows how to write is already a scribe, merelyneeding to improve his technique.

Madariaga does give instructions for writing masters, particularly in partthree. In the Prologue he instructs teachers as to how they should use hisbook in their classrooms. Perhaps the author was attempting to create thewidest possible market for his manual. As mentioned above, however, inthe preliminaries he insists that his book will be effective without a teacher:the reader is invited to learn by himself at home.

Parts one and two of Honra are written in dialogue, an enormouslypopular form in sixteenth-century Europe. The author’s use of this form isunique among writing manuals and is undoubtedly related to the self-helpnature of the work: it enhances the pedagogical usefulness of the work by

6 See the preliminaries to Juan de Ycıar, Orthographıa pratica (1548) and Artesubtilıssima (1550); Francisco Lucas, Arte de escrevir (1577); and Juan de la Cuesta, Tratado ylibro (1589) for examples.

7 Henry Thomas and Stanley Morison, Andres Brun, Calligrapher of Saragossa: SomeAccount of His Life and Work (Paris: Pegasus Press, 1929), ‘El modo y orden que se ha de tenerpara saber bien escribir’, n.p.

8 Thomas and Morison, Andres Brun, n.p.


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placing the apprentice within a conversation about the topic of writing.A number of sixteenth-century Spanish writers declare in prologues ordedications to their dialogues that a reader could identify with one of thedifferent speakers and would be gratified to find the answers to his ownquestions in the course of the discussion. This aspect of the dialogue appliesparticularly to the discussions on the nature and usefulness of writing in partone of Honra. Furthermore, Madariaga’s dialogues in Book Two can help thereader feel that he is in school with the interlocutors of the work. The give-and-take of such conversations and the occasional teasing between thestudents also maintains the reader’s interest in the work. In my view thedialogue form is crucial to the author’s claims that the reader will be able toimprove his writing without a teacher: the mechanics of the dialogue insertthe presence of the teacher into the text.

Also unique is the broad reach of topics Madariaga addresses in hisapproach to his subject; with good reason A. S. Osley calls him ‘thephilosopher of handwriting’.9 True to his age, the Vizcayan avails himselfof classical and biblical authorities in his apologetic for the necessity of goodhandwriting. The first and third dialogues in part one, in particular, engagein the kind of moral philosophizing based on inherited knowledge very muchin vogue in sixteenth-century didactic or persuasive works. Madariaga alsobrings more contemporary concerns into the debate, however, when heexplores links between the pen and concerns about wealth, social status, andmasculinity. Osley notices the author’s concern with the status of the scribe,commenting that Honra shows that ‘the writing-master had becomeconscious of his worth to society and was seeking a place in the socialhierarchy which would reflect it’.10 To my knowledge, no other writingmanual of the time traverses a similar intellectual and social landscape.11

I

Honra de escribanos is replete with references that link wealth and writing.In the final dialogue in part one, for example, an interlocutor refers to theriches of the Americas streaming into Spain through the port of Seville,reminding the reader that it is the scribe who controls this flow of wealth(38r�v). The pen is compared favourably to the rich mines of the New Worldwhen one speaker declares, ‘no hay pico en las mineras de todas las Indiasque tanto oro saque, como la punta de la pluma’ (38v). These words echo theauthor’s promise in the Prologue to lead the reader to a mine where each canenrich himself. In addition, an interlocutor and defender of the excellencies of

9 Osley, Scribes and Sources, 149.10 Osley, Scribes and Sources, 151.11 Egido claims to see attempts at upward mobility latent in Spanish writing manuals

beginning with Antonio de Torquemada’s Manual de escribientes, but in her article does notprovide evidence for this observation (see Egido, ‘Manuales’, 80).


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the pen named Velgara asserts that, for many, the use of the pen was thebeginning of their rise to nobility:

Pero no quiero contar agora cuantos hijos de carpinteros y herreros, yotros deste jaez han subido en nuestros tiempos a grandes Senores, y acuantos ha sido illustrısimo principio de su linaje la buena pluma: por quehay tantos y son tan frescos que dirıa aquı lo que todo el mundo sabe.(35v)

Before and after this point this speaker had used well-known classical,biblical, and patristic figures to illustrate his argument for writing as asource of monetary gain. Despite the above tantalizing claim, Madariagadoes not have Velgara give specific examples from his own time.

The statements above linking writing to wealth might appear at firstblush to be exaggerations, but I believe they would have carried weight in asociety such as Madariaga’s where merchant families aspired to and indeeddid join the ranks of the lower nobility. Moving up in rank and status insociety was an accepted feature of sixteenth-century Spain. One historiandepicts the reality of social mobility in sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuryBarcelona as something like an escalator, since the potential for upwardmovement in status was a fundamental element of citizens’ conception of howtheir communities were organized.12 The escalator was, of course, risingtowards the apex of status and power, the nobility. In Barcelona and otherareas of the Peninsula, for those who engaged in the requisite behavioursand managed to amass sufficient capital the rise might proceed ratherslowly, but it was well within the realm of possibility. Social climbing wasthus customary and anxieties regarding it were generally expressed onlywhen the parvenus attempted to rise too quickly*one rank per generationwas apparently considered seemly*or in an indiscreet fashion.13 Artisans,especially those masters at the top of their guilds, hoped to acquire assets bysale of their labour or products and eventually move into commerce.Merchants attempted to accumulate ever more capital and rise to the levelof the grandes mercaderes. These wealthy merchants purchased lands andmade investments in order to distance themselves from direct trade, whichwas considered ignoble, all the while hoping to gain or buy the rank of citizenor noble. Sons of merchants and even artisans sought a law or medical degreeat the university, aspiring to increase family or personal status. Theescalator was slowly but constantly rising. Many apparently believed that

12 James S. Amelang, Honored Citizens of Barcelona: Patrician Culture and ClassRelations, 1490�1714 (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1986), 63. The background for thisdiscussion of social mobility comes from Amelang, Chapters 2�3 and Ruth Pike, Aristocratsand Traders: Sevillian Society in the Sixteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell U. P., 1972), Chapters2�3.

13 Amelang, Honored Citizens, 63.


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one needed merely to attain a firm footing on the lowest step and the restwould follow as a matter of course. Both reader and author were familiarwith this social environment, a setting that undoubtedly would havebuttressed Madariaga’s claims to provide an upward path for his disciplesthrough the material contained in his book.

There were serious impediments to social mobility, however, andespecially for those wishing to join the ranks of the nobility. By about 1550the Consejo de ordenes militares, a powerful council established by the crownto represent the three military orders of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcantara,had fixed the necessary qualifications for entry into the nobility. Suchrequirements included a noble lineage stretching back several generationsthat was devoid first of Jewish and Moorish ancestry (limpieza de sangre,religious or blood purity) and second of persons who gained a living by thework of their hands or by commerce (limpieza de oficios or occupationalpurity).14 The scribe was notably included among the manual professionsconsidered ignoble and was excluded from the nobility by the statues of theConsejo.15 The mere presence of such statues, however, did not mean thatscribes were forever barred from noble status: aspirants to nobilityconstantly sought the means to circumvent both blood and occupationalpurity laws. Elena Postigo Castellanos cites the case of a bishop in Cuzco whowrote a letter to his nephew encouraging him to name another woman as hismother in his application to the Consejo, since the bishop knew this woman’sancestry in detail and the ancestry of the applicant’s mother was ratherobscure. The bishop also sent 1,000 ducados to his nephew so that he mighthave funds to purchase the necessary witnesses for his suit.16

The place of learning in all of this striving is significant for ourconsideration of Pedro de Madariaga’s book. With an understanding of thedesire for social mobility one begins to comprehend the necessity of literacyand numeracy in the middling levels of the social order. While the owner of alocal business might do well without reading, a manager of large tradingconcerns, especially those involving international commerce, could not hopeto prosper without the ability to do sums and send and receivecorrespondence.17 The merchant with his eye on noble status wouldquickly perceive the value of literacy, especially when he contemplated thepolitical power exercised by the nobility. Finally, the artisan or merchantwho understood that he would never amass a fortune large enough to join the

14 Elena Postigo Castellanos, Honor y privilegio en la corona de Castilla: el Consejo delas Ordenes y los Caballeros de Habito en el s. XVII (Almazan: Junta de Castilla y Leon, 1988),133.

15 Postigo Castellanos, Honor y privilegio, 141.16 Postigo Castellanos, Honor y privilegio, 138.17 See J. K. Hyde, ‘Some Uses of Literacy in Venice and Florence in the Thirteenth and

Fourteenth Centuries’, Transactions. Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 29 (1979), 109�29(pp. 113�14).


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investor class might see an opening for his son to rise in rank through auniversity career. If he himself learned to write by means of Madariaga’sbook, this could be a crucial first step towards the son’s further education.The author assures such a reader that the learning process will be quick andrelatively easy while at the same time he holds out hope to artisans andmerchants that having their sons learn to write (and read) can be the meansof stepping on the first rung of a ladder that will give access to the lowernobility.

Earlier in the work two of Madariaga’s interlocutors, noblemen who arealso defenders of the pen, had convinced a merchant of his need to master theart of writing. In the same dialogue they insist that merchants and artisansrequire both wisdom and a solid education in order to succeed. Petronia, anobleman who functions as the teacher figure, states that merchants aremore in need of good understanding than almost anyone else, citing no lessan authority than Aristotle to support this claim (33v). His counterpart in thedebate, Velgara, adds that

uno que no tiene buen juicio mucho dinero convertira en arena, y el quetiene prudencia y entendimiento affrentado, de lodo hara oro; porque nohay arte ni philosophıa que mayor entendimiento haya menester que elmercader. (34r)

Since entendimiento was one of the three recognized powers of the soul andnot thought to be subject to improvement by study, Prudencio naturallystates that there is then no remedy for those who do not not possess it. Quitesurprisingly Velgara disputes this claim, thus challenging the acceptedunderstanding of the time:

No hay recepta que ası cure el entendimiento del hombre como algunosanos de estudio, ni cosa que mas le aperciba para cualquier negocio [ . . .][porque] al mercader le da gran lumbre el haber estudiado. (34r)

According to this speaker, a bit of learning apparently possesses the power ofalchemy and can be useful in filling one’s coffer with gold.

Honra de escribanos also directly addresses the plight of members of thelower nobility with limited financial resources and the need of these hidalgosto educate their sons. In Book Two Florencio enlightens Antigono regardingthe best way to teach and learn writing. It is not, he declares, through tediousand repetitive manual practice, a method he likens to spending years as agalley slave at the oars (46v). Florencio insists that instruction in theunderlying principles*known at the time as arte*will produce better-trained scribes more rapidly. ‘La mano escribe’, he states, ‘pero si elentendimiento no la rige con arte y mana, andara alrededor como lasbestias que les tapan los ojos, y les hacen andar la rueda del molina’ (47r).Madariaga’s book promises to provide this needed arte for the reader.


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Florencio then criticizes writing masters who trap students for years intheir schools when, he contends, with proper instruction they could producescribes in a matter of months. He imagines Antigono as one of these teachersand wonders,

si vos le deteneis aquı los mejores anos de su edad [ . . .] que hara el pobrehidalgo que no tiene para sustentar a sus hijos en vuestra escuela de dos,o tres meses arriba? ha los de hacer recueros, o mocos de espuelas, si nopudieron continuar vuestra escuela diez anos continuos? pues ha de estarel mundo privado de tanto bien? (47v)

Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the impoverishedmember of the lower nobility was a known character in Spanish literature,most famously, of course, in La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). Throughhis interlocutor Florencio the author evokes the dreadful prospect ofdownward mobility for hidalgos and their sons in the real world.

In fact a family could certainly more easily afford Madariaga’s book thanthe cost of sending a son to school. One scholar reports that classes inreading, writing and numeracy in mid seventeenth-century Madrid rangedfrom two to six reals a month. Available data on prices of printed books in thesixteenth century compared to wages of artisans and labourers shows thatHonra de escribanos would probably have cost the equivalent of one month ofsuch classes.18 Some may question the usefulness of this comparison, but aone-time expenditure on a book will always represent less money than anongoing monthly expense for school tuition. Despite Madariaga’s claims thathis book gives readers quality instruction without the presence of a teacher,it is not at all certain that the two means of education would in fact givecomparable results.

As if the promise of wealth and rising status were not enough, Madariagaincludes a case study with powerful emotional appeal to buttress hisargument in favour of learning to write. In dialogue four an interlocutornamed Balcola recounts the story of a woman whose merchant husband hasjust died. She bursts into a private dinner party and begs the men there tohelp her read her husband’s account books so that she may know herfinancial situation. One of the guests examines the books and is horrified tofind them completely unintelligible: her husband did not really know how towrite. He regretfully informs the distraught woman that there is no way ofdetermining either her husband’s financial worth or outstanding debts owedto him or by him (24r�25r). Madariaga is building on the real anxieties ofmerchants and other businessmen regarding their financial futures and the

18 For cost of classes see C. Larquie, ‘La alfabetizacion de los madrilenos en 1650’,Anales del Instituto de Estudios Madrilenos, 17 (1980), 223�52 (p. 251). For prices of someprinted books compared to wages of artisans and labourers see Harllee, ‘Sixteenth-centurySelf-Help: Reception of the Dialogue in Spain’, 65�68.


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need for literacy, or perhaps is attempting to create apprehensions in thereader. As with all such works, one cannot assume that it is a perfectreflection of its surroundings. Whether concerns about writing were alreadypresent in the public’s consciousness or were knowingly created by theauthor, the ability to do sums and to write letters increasingly was becomingfor merchants and others a matter of economic life and death.

In the culminating comments for part one a noble interlocutor, Petronia,inspires his listeners with a summary of all the benefits of good penmanship.The speech is worth quoting at length:

Finalmente esta tan excellente facultad del escribir, es Senora absolutade las sciencias, guıa el timon de las potencias del alma, a los pobres hacericos, a los ignorantes sabios, a los villanos hidalgos, conserva a los reyesen su estado, levanta a muchos hasta el summo pontificado, y a prıncipes:y es otra fortuna mas liberal, mas fiel y segura que la comun fortuna, que(dicen) suele rodar por este mundo. Por que aquella [la comun fortuna]tiene tantas traiciones y vaivenes, que ya no hay lugar seguro ni astuciacontra ella. Pero esta [la facultad de escribir], si una vez toma amistadcon el hombre, siempre le guarda lealtad hasta colocarle en el cielo. (42r)

Note especially the claims that villanos (the lowborn) can becomehidalgos (lower nobility) and that others have risen to the papacy or royalrule*the highest ecclesiastical and temporal positions*through their use ofpenmanship. Petronia depicts the ability to write as a force to be reckonedwith in the changing world of sixteenth-century Spain. With the pen as anally, men can resist even the vicissitudes of fate. Good penmanship,according to Madariaga, is a tool that will allow many, from merchants tohidalgos, to fortify their position in society.

II

Madariaga not only links writing to economic power but also to masculinityand nobility. He argues that the ability to communicate clearly in writing is asign of true masculinity and of nobility, and links both to personal power.

Comments about masculinity first appear in dialogue one. One speaker,Gamboa, states baldly that ‘ninguno se puede llamar hombre entre hombres,si no sabe escribir’ (1v). Another interlocutor protests that he has known menwho cannot write but are so astute in business that they are the mostimportant men in the village; his comments reflect what Madariaga wouldsurely label as an antiquated view of masculine identity. Gamboa quicklyreplies that if this friend knew what he knows about the importance ofwriting, ‘otro nivel dierais a los hombres que se han de estimar por hombres’(3v). When the issue is next raised the underlying anxiety regarding theconnection between real manhood and the ability to write becomes apparent:those who cannot write are slaves to those who can, another speaker


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declares, because they must entrust their secrets to the scribe and mustdepend on him. If a scribe falsifies a bill, for example, one is ignorant andpays more than one ought (39r�39v). It is quite possible that Madariaga hereechoes concerns from The Right Way of Speaking Latin and Greek, a dialogueby Erasmus published in 1522, since Madariaga mentions the Dutchhumanist’s text in dialogue six. In Erasmus’ colloquy an interlocutordeclares that if one uses a scribe for personal correspondence, ‘intimacywill [ . . .] be missing [ . . .]. It is no longer a free discussion with a friend’.Furthermore, use of an intermediary opens the door to deception or fraud:‘[a]ppending a signature is easy, to forge a whole letter very difficultindeed’.19 Although published more than forty years apart, both booksforeground the vulnerability faced by those who cannot write; it isMadariaga, however, who specifically links that vulnerability to adiminished masculinity.

The orator with poor handwriting, another of the vivid case studiesMadariaga employs to dramatize his apology for good penmanship,underscores the centrality of personal power in relation to penmanship andmasculinity. Gamboa claims to know a famous speaker with terriblehandwriting who employed a scribe to transcribe a speech he had beeninvited to give to the pope. Unfortunately, this scribe had an unscrupulousbrother who stole the speech and delivered it before the pontiff. As can beexpected, when the real orator began his address the pope sent him away inshame for plagiarism (13r). This could have been avoided if the orator hadlearned to write adequately. The anecdote neatly signals the changing modesof rhetoric at the time. What began as the art of persuasive oratory inantiquity became the art of persuasive writing during the late Middle Agesand Renaissance. In another dialogue in this book the shift to written modesof communication is emphasized when one speaker quotes the proverb‘hablen cartas, y callen barbas’ (35v), explaining that a signature now carriesmore weight than a man’s word. Madariaga may be linking the shift fromoral to written modes of communication occurring in his day to theimportance of good handwriting.

Even more dire consequences await gentlemen who cannot write. Dialoguefive begins with two gentlemen teasing a third, Bernardo, about hisunreadable handwriting. In order to convince him of the need for nobles to

19 Desiderius Erasmus, ‘The Right Way of Speaking Latin and Greek: A Dialogue/Derecta latini graecique sermonis pronuntiatione dialogus’, in Collected Works of Erasmus,Literary and Educational Writings 4, ed. J. K. Sowards (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press,1978), 347�475 (p. 391). One of Madariaga’s interlocutors mentions the Dutch humanist andhis dialogue on writing (‘y Erasmo el mas docto hombre que ha salido de Flandres en su librode recta pronuntiatione’ [33r]), as well as Juan Luis Vives’ brief dialogue on penmanship in hisExercitatis linguae latinae (1538). Madariaga almost certainly read Vives’ dialogue: he uses aname of one of Vives’ interlocutors (Manrique) and employs an identical insult for badhandwriting (‘chicken scratches’). See Malpartida Tirado, Varia leccion, 60�65. The inclusionof the Erasmus text in Osley’s anthology alerted me to its importance.


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learn to write, the friends recount how during the comunero crisis a certainnobleman received a highly confidential letter from the king, who insisted thatonly the recipient read and reply to the missive. The situation is reminiscent ofBernardo’s at the inception of the dialogue, for the gentleman had to employ ascribe in order to reply to the message. As could be expected, the friendsdeclare, the letter was hardly sealed when its contents were known throughoutthe city (30r). When the monarch heard that his letter was being discussed inpublic he was incensed and had the unfortunate nobleman executed bydecapitation for treason. Bernardo, who by now is paying very close attentionto the details of the story, declares with horror: ‘Ahora concedo que el escribir esmas que arte liberal, y que cuanto mas caballeros, tenemos mas necesidad desaber escribir; que al fin ninguno sabe lo que le puede suceder’ (31r).

The fates of the hapless orator and the headless gentleman dramatize thevulnerability of those who must rely on others to transcribe importantdocuments for them, and furthermore highlights the ever-widening influenceof graphic culture. In this and other examples used to emphasizevulnerability and power surely there are connections to the phallicconnotations of the pen, an established trope in Western letters. AsMadariaga stresses in both the case studies and the reasons provided bythe interlocutors, a man who cannot write gives up control of his goods, hisinmost secrets, indeed his very self to others who, because they have thepower of the pen, may rob or humiliate him. It is a form of violation of hisperson. In the anecdotes the author creates, the consequences of this loss ofcontrol include shame and death. In our contemporary context where literacyis nearly universal it is easy to overlook the force of this argument.Madariaga played on and even heightened the fears of his readers, whoknew that society was changing around them and that writing wasincreasingly crucial to their well being. In Honra de escribanos Pedro deMadariaga makes it abundantly clear that real men use pens.

The extent of literacy among the nobility or any other group during thelate medieval and early modern period in Europe is notoriously difficult todetermine. Every measure used*evidence of the ability to sign one’s name orof book ownership, for example*presents special challenges and limitations.Jeremy Lawrance used a variety of measures to show that the reign of JuanII was a critical turning point in which literacy in the Castilian nobilityreached ‘that necessary minimum beyond which it is proper to speak of a‘‘reading public’’ rather than individual readers’.20 The gradual

20 Jeremy Lawrance, ‘The Spread of Lay Literacy in Late Medieval Castile’, BHS,LXII:1 (1985), 79�94 (p. 80). Lawrance uses a variety of measures to show the existence of animportant number of non-professional (i.e. noble) readers, including post-mortem inventoriesof private libraries, numbers of classical texts translated into the vernacular languages,numbers of extant incunables in the vernacular, dedications of books to nobles, and the like.The variety and number of these measures is convincing evidence of the validity of hispremise.


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transformation of the nobility from warriors who commanded groups ofsoldiers in support of the monarch to courtiers whose desired or evennecessary skills included reading and writing is well known. Most studies ofliteracy in the sixteenth century show a largely literate noble class.21 That isnot to say, however, that all nobles valued learning while this shift wasoccurring. Some fifteenth-century texts show nobles expressing surprise thatone of their peers would also be skilled in letters.22 Pedro de Madariaga’sHonra de escribanos was not the only text in sixteenth-century Castile tochide noblemen for their lack of interest in reading and writing. In hisDialogos familiares de la agricultura cristiana (1589) Juan de Pineda notedthat in Spain

es grado de gran nobleza quedar tan rudos, que aun no sepan firmar loque otros escriben, o si ellos llegan a saber escribir, ha de ser zahorı oadivino quien supiere leer; y si alguno sube de aquı, lo llaman porescarnio bachiller.23

One cannot, of course, extrapolate directly from such comments that thesituation was really as dire as was described. It was clearly enough of aproblem to merit comment by moralists and writers concerned witheducation. It should be noted, however, that such criticisms of the nobilityby the intellectual class allowed the latter to flaunt their supposed mentaland cultural superiority over the former.

Pedro de Madariaga and fellow letrados occupied a precarious position inthe social hierarchy. Many were barred from the nobility by blood oroccupational purity statues, yet they desired increased status andrecognition. The discussions of both masculinity and nobility interspersedthroughout the volume show the author’s attempts to negotiate a place forhimself and other highly educated scribes in a rigidly structured society. My

21 See Philippe Berger, Libro y lectura en la Valencia del Renacimiento, trans. AmparoBalanza Perez, 2 vols (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnanim, Institucio Valenciana d’Estudisi Investigacio, 1987); Sara T. Nalle, ‘Literacy and Culture in Early Modern Castile’, Past andPresent, 125 (1989), 65�96; and Antonio Vinao Frago, ‘Alfabetizacion y primeras letras (siglosXVI�XVII)’, in Escribir y leer en el siglo de Cervantes, ed. Antonio Castillo, Coleccion LEA(Barcelona: Editorial Gedisa, 1997), 39�84. The latter article includes a summary chart ofthirteen literacy studies in early modern Spain on pp. 74�75. For a discussion of book cultureand the nobility, see Jose Marıa Prieto Bernabe, Lectura y lectores: la cultura del impreso en elMadrid del Siglo de Oro (1550�1650), 2 vols (Merida: Editorial Regional de Extremadura,2004), II, 15�39. Prieto Bernabe’s is one of several excellent regional or local studies on readersand books in early modern Spain published in the last twenty-five years.

22 For examples see Nicholas G. Round, ‘Renaissance Culture and Its Opponents inFifteenth-century Castile’, Modern Language Review, 57:2 (1962), 204�15 (p. 209). Thereference cited above is in Juan de Lucena’s De vita beata (1463).

23 Quoted in Marilo Vigil, La vida de las mujeres en los siglos XVI y XVII (Mexico D.F.:Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1986), 53. See also comments from other texts recorded in RicardoGarcıa Carcel, Las culturas del Siglo de Oro (Madrid: Historia 16, 1999), 114.


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discussion of nobility in the next section is thus tightly connected to thepresent analysis of the discourse of masculine identity in Honra.24

In addition, Pedro de Madariaga’s insistence on the need for men tomanage the textual transmission of their words is in keeping withexpressions of appropriate codes of behaviour in other contemporarytexts, particularly as envisioned by humanists or letrados. Mar Martınez-Gongora examined the construction of masculine identity in several didacticworks from earlier in the century and found that authors highlighted self-control as a sign of proper behaviour. These humanist writers gaveparticular attention to control of sexual appetites and speech as signs oftrue masculinity.25 The work of Martınez-Gongora and others is based onthe understanding that masculinity is not determined by biological realitybut rather is created by one’s conduct in response to accepted codesreigning in a particular place and time. As such, masculinity is fragile andchangeable rather than a fixed notion over time, and in a society intransformation such as sixteenth-century Castile could be the locus of muchanxiety.26

Madariaga agrees with the need for self-control expressed in the earlierdidactic texts written by his fellow letrados, yet expands the scope of men’sconcern by insisting that the capacity to govern one’s writing is also adeterminer of male identity. The man who must depend on others tomanage his written communication experiences a dangerous loss ofpersonal power. A scribe might misrepresent him, defraud him, or revealhis most intimate secrets to others. Madariaga’s interlocutors describe thissituation as a kind of enslavement. Furthermore, writing affords a man theability to shape or control his textual self-representation: recall Erasmus’comments that when one uses a scribe to write a personal letter he feels hecannot communicate freely with his friend. The simple act of learning towrite thus provides men with increased personal power, protects them fromcontrol by others, and allows them to shape the representation of the self onthe page.

24 For an analysis of Spanish humanists’ negotiations of social structures, see MarMartınez-Gongora, Discursos sobre la mujer en el Humanismo renacentista espanol. Los casosde Antonio de Guevara, Alfonso y Juan de Valdes y Luis de Leon. (York, SC: SpanishLiterature Publications Company, 1999).

25 Mar Martınez-Gongora, ‘Entre el rigor humanista y la estetica cortesana: el ideal deconducta masculina en la ‘‘Respuesta de Boscan a Don Diego de Mendoza’’ ’, BHS (Glasgow),LXXVIII:4 (2001), 421�38 (pp. 422�26). Martınez-Gongora analyses works by Antonio deGuevara, Cristobal de Villalon and Alfonso de Valdes written or printed from 1525�1545.

26 See Martınez-Gongora (‘Entre el rigor humanista y la estetica cortesana’, 421), whereshe refers to Arthur Brittan, Masculinity and Power (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 3�4; andMichael Kaufman, ‘The Construction of Masculinity and the Triad of Men’s Violence’, inBeyond Patriarchy: Essays by Men on Pleasure, Power and Change, ed. Michael Kaufman(Toronto: Oxford U. P., 1987), 1�29 (pp. 13�14).


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III

Honra de escribanos invites readers to engage in a process of self-improvement by acquiring wealth and insuring personal security throughgood penmanship, and it also assures them that writing is a sign of realmasculinity. But the author also endeavours to raise the status of thescribe*and by extension his own status*in the social hierarchy of the day.Madariaga deploys two arguments toward this end: first, he champions thefundamental place of writing in maintaining stability and order, and second,he promotes penmanship as one of the liberal arts thus linking it to nobility.Madariaga is adding his voice to ongoing debates about intellectual pursuitsand their importance in the surrounding social structure.27

Consider first his claim that writing is one of the liberal arts. In dialoguefive the interlocutors are noblemen, two of whom (Bernardo and Vives) arequite cavalier in their disregard for real education. The other two (Ybarraand Vrqucu) stress that good penmanship is a part of true nobility by arguingthat nobles must learn the liberal arts*in fact, part of what makes themliberal is that noblemen learn them (27v). The link between the liberal artsand nobility was first made by the ancients and Madariaga echoes this long-standing apologetic.28 The speakers then claim that penmanship is one of theliberal arts. One intimates that someone who does not know how to write isnot a true gentleman (26v). Ybarra and Vrqucu provide more evidence infavour of penmanship than can be discussed here, and much that echoespoints made in other ancient or contemporary texts. For example, theydeclare that writing involves the use of two liberal arts: geometry, in order to

27 Various scholars have investigated this topic. For an analysis of the literary field inseventeenth-century Spain and its relationship to power structures that is based upon thetheories of Pierre Bourdieu, see Carlos M. Gutierrez, La espada, el rayo y la pluma: Quevedo ylos campos literario y de poder, Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures (West Lafayette:Purdue U. P., 2005), Chapters 1�3. Fernando Bouza Alvarez traces the increasing influence ofprint culture and the emergence of a Republic of Letters in early modern Spain in his Delescribano a la biblioteca (Madrid: Editorial Sıntesis, 1992). See especially Chapters 2 and 3 fora discussion of the author and of the uses of print by the monarchy. Juan Montero examinesJorge de Montemayor’s interaction with the surrounding literary field and other poets asshown in various epistolary poems in his published works in his ‘Montemayor y suscorresponsales poeticos (con una nota sobre la epıstola a mediados del XVI)’, in La epıstola, ed.Begona Lopez Bueno (Sevilla: Univ. de Sevilla, 2000), 181�98.

28 In a 1531 treatise on education Juan Luis Vives cites Greek physician andphilosopher Galen, who divided the liberal arts, practised by free men, from those that are‘contemptible and vile, that work in manual and physical employment’. See Juan Luis Vives,‘De las disciplinas (De disciplinis)’, in Obras completas, ed. Lorenzo Riber (Madrid: M. Aguilar,1948), 337�687 (p. 345). Madariaga uses the name Vives for one of the noblemen who despiseslearning and he employed the name Manrique, also used by Vives in his dialogue on writing,for the interlocutor who was ignorant about the importance of writing. Madariaga’s use ofthese names is surely meant to be ironic: Vives was known throughout Europe for hiserudition, and in Vives’ dialogue Manrique is the speaker who teaches his friend about propercalligraphy.


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form the letters correctly and in proper proportions, and orthography, whichis one of the parts of grammar. Thus, writing is already contained in theliberal arts (27r). In addition, penmanship is the means by which other artsare practised and transmitted:

Ninguna de las otras me dareis que nos habilite para esta, mas ella sıpara todas: pues no hay alguna sciencia que pueda tener pie sin esta,como esta bien probado en el primero y segundo Dialogo. (27v�28r)

If one accepted definition of liberal arts is that which allows one access to theperfect sciences such as philosophy, metaphysics and theology, how then canthe pen be excluded, demands Vrqucu (27v)? Finally, both Ybarra and Vrqucuuse classical authors to substantiate their case. Pliny included paintingamong the liberal arts, Vrqucu claims (28r). Ybarra resorts to the lives of theancients to demonstrate the intimate connection between writing and bothroyalty and nobility: since monarchs and nobles used the pen, the liberality ofpenmanship is obvious (28r�v).

Debates about which branches of learning to include or exclude as liberalarts were not new. In De disciplinis, a 1531 treatise on education, Juan LuisVives expressed surprise that the ancients omitted architecture from the listand supposed the reason to be that it required manual labour.29 It was fairlywidely accepted in the Renaissance that the seven liberal arts had been fixedfrom antiquity to include grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry,music and astronomy (sometimes called astrology): Vives considers that thisrepresented ‘opinion admitida’.30 In fact, Vrqucu glibly recites exactly thislist to his listeners before he proceeds to add to it. Nevertheless, somevariation in even classical writings was evident: Erasmus contended thatpainting was once counted amongst the liberal arts, and Vives himselfpointed to a discrepancy between Galen, Seneca, and other ancientphilosophers about the inclusion of painting and other plastic arts.31

Contemporary scholar Helmut Jacobs has noted the lively debates duringthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Spain about including orexcluding various fields from this list. By the seventeenth century, he says,writers used the term freely with no clear consensus of exactly what were theliberal arts.32

The liberal arts were of course contrasted with the mechanical arts,whose practitioners were considered vile and were barred from holdingpublic office and from the nobility.33 Far from an esoteric or philosophical

29 Vives, ‘De las disciplinas’, 347.30 Vives, ‘De las disciplinas’, 346.31 Erasmus, ‘The Right Way’, 399; Vives, ‘De las disciplinas’, 345�46.32 Helmut C. Jacobs, Belleza y buen gusto: las teorıas de las artes en la literatura

espanola del siglo XVIII, trans. Beatriz Galan Echevarrıa (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2001), 18.33 Jacobs, Belleza, 63.


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debate on epistemology, then, the division between liberal and mechanicalarts was crucial in determining status in the highly structured society ofPedro de Madariaga’s day. As previously mentioned, one’s profession haddirect bearing on the estate to which one belonged. The statutes regardinglimpieza de oficios (occupational purity) mirrored the rules regardinglimpieza de sangre (blood purity); although the existence of the latter is awell-known feature of early modern Spain, the former is perhaps lessfamiliar to some. The aspirant to nobility had to prove that neither fathernor grandfathers had exercised any of the professions considered lowly orvile, particularly commerce, banking, or manual labour. According to ElenaPostigo Castellanos, the list of ‘oficios mecanicos’ in the occupational puritystatues that were considered tainted encompassed

plateros, pintores, bordadores, canteros, mesoneros, taberneros,escribanos (que no fueran secretarios del rey), procuradores publicos yotros oficios semejantes a estos o inferiores como sastres, y otrossemejantes que vivan del trabajo de sus manos.34

Note that, royal secretaries excepted, the scribe was designated as apractitioner of manual labour.

The distinction between noble and vile professions is recorded in classicalliterature, as mentioned above. A similar division of society into threeprimary estates also has roots in medieval Europe. The honourable estates ofnobility and clergy stood over and against those who enjoyed no particularstanding. In one of the few studies that treats both occupational and bloodpurity, Marta Canessa de Sanguinetti rehearses the origins of this divisionby reminding readers that nobles were originally warriors who gained fameand glory through military deeds, as well as descending from knownbloodlines.35 Both deeds and ancestry were crucial to determining noblestatus, but the relative importance of each was a topic of debate in thesixteenth century, as it had been in antiquity. In his definition of ‘noble’,dictionary writer Sebastian de Covarrubias claimed to side with Aristotlewho emphasized deeds and virtues over lineage.36 As early as the thirteenthcentury in the Iberian Peninsula a lesser nobility of letters was recognized.

34 Postigo Castellanos, Honor y privilegio, 141. The list appears originally in the Regla yEstablecimientos de la Orden de caballeria del glorioso apostol Santiago, patron de lasEspanas, published in Madrid in 1702 (see Postigo Castellanos, op. cit., 137, n. 70). Thestatutes defining mechanical and noble professions were finally abolished in the lateeighteenth century.

35 Marta Canessa de Sanguinetti, El bien nacer. Limpieza de oficios y limpieza desangre: raıces ibericas de un mal latinoamericano, del siglo XIII al ultimo tercio del siglo XIX(Montevideo: Taurus, 2000), 38�39.

36 Quoted in Canessa de Sanguinetti, El bien nacer, 65. In the sixteenth centuryChristian humanists, most notably Erasmus, frequently insisted on the importance ofvirtuous behaviour over bloodlines in determining the nobility of an individual.


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In his Siete partidas Alfonso X of Castile enshrined into law the exemption ofstudents and teachers of the law from taxation and military service.37

Nevertheless, ancestry continued to be the more weighty determiner of one’snobility.38

As the perceived value of intellectual pursuits increased, educated butnon-noble men enjoyed an enhanced standing compared to their medievalantecedents. For this reason many sought a university education as anavenue of advancement. The needs of the ever-expanding state bureaucracyinspired men to study law and seek employment by the crown because of thestatus inherent in these positions.39 The mere possession of an education,however, did not guarantee noble rank.

By referring to writing as one of the valued liberal arts associated withnobility, Honra de escribanos joins this debate and promotes the scribalprofession. The text seems to advocate opening the path to nobility that hasbeen closed to most scribes. Undoubtedly, a primary desired effect of thework is to increase the status of the scribe in the mind of the reader. Thisdiscussion is, of course, connected to the author’s insistence that writing is asign of true masculinity. Surely the nobleman was regarded as the apex ofmasculine identity: noblemen possessed greater power and authority thannon-noble males. Madariaga proposes that real manhood inhabited mostfully the literate noble who ably wielded the pen.

To connect writing with nobility provides powerful positive testimony inits favour, yet, as was previously discussed, Madariaga also repeatedlystresses the direct link between the pen and economic gain. In making such aconnection the author risks reinforcing the reigning negative association ofscribes with the mechanical professions, that is, those who earn money bytheir physical labour and are thus excluded from the nobility. The potentialconflict between these two primary elements of Madariaga’s defence of thepen illustrates the vagaries of the course he attempts to navigate in hishandbook. In other words, the very quality that encourages the reader tostudy and apply the lessons of this text*namely, the potential for monetarygain*may simultaneously impede the author’s apparent effort to increasethe status of the scribe by tainting the profession with the stain of manuallabour or direct financial benefit from a trade.

By emphasizing the nobility of writing and its association with the liberalarts, the author appears to reassure his readers that learning to write welland using writing to advance oneself will increase rather than decrease one’sstatus. This claim would be of great interest to hidalgos in a precariousfinancial position who sought to generate income without endangering theirnoble rank, as well as to others who aspired to join the nobility. Byconnecting writing with the liberal arts and nobility the author also

37 Canessa de Sanguinetti, El bien nacer, 64�65.38 Canessa de Sanguinetti, El bien nacer, 64.39 Canessa de Sanguinetti, El bien nacer, 65.


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signals a desire to insert himself and his fellow scribes into the existingpower structure. For Madariaga writing is not a force for levelling the socialhierarchy, but rather a means of gaining entry to the inner circles of powerand influence.

The writer believes, in fact, that in one sense scribes already inhabitthose inner circles. He is not content with a single argument in favour of hisprofession: his dialogues also attempt a refashioning of the scribe byconstantly depicting him as an essential agent of stability that benefitsboth crown and church. Monarchs depend on writing to establish andmaintain their position, Madariaga’s interlocutors declare. The king’senemies tremble at the power contained in his signature (40r�v). At theconclusion of dialogue four in Honra de escribanos, two interlocutors make acompelling case for the importance of writing in civil affairs and business.One delivers a paean to the central role of notaries in the functioning of civilsociety. If they did not record statutes, privileges and the like, he declares,

que pactos, que conciertos, mercaderıas y provisiones fueran de una partea otra, si las cedulas, cartas, obligaciones, libros de caja no anduvieran depor medio? Que leyes, que conciertos, que matrimonios tendrıan firmezasin pluma? Pues bien probado queda, que si la memoria hace presente lopassado, la pluma es causa de este misterio; si es thesorera de lassciencias, la pluma es la arca donde las guarda; si la sabidurıa es hija dela memoria, la pluma sera madre de la sabidurıa; pues todo lo bueno tienenuestra memoria mediante la pluma. (23v�24r)

The speakers further claim that society will descend into chaos withoutthe stabilizing power of the pen:

Pues quıtame la pluma, y daros he al hombre sin entendimiento, nimemoria, sin sus cinco sentidos, las leyes perdidas, los matrimoniosdesechos, los concilios olvidados, los herejes senores, las republicas llenasde vagamundos, la obediencia del Papa caıda, la jurisdicion real perdida,los esclavos senores, los senores siervos; al hombre pobre, ignorante,deshonrado; y el mundo todo puesto en confusion, sin ley ni policıa. (42r)

This chaotic vision of a world turned upside down notably includes the fall ofthe pope and the ascendancy of heretics and slaves. After reading such acompelling defence who would doubt the need to learn well the craft of thepen? Pedro de Madariaga’s use of hyperbole in the claims he makes for theimportance of literacy, and especially good penmanship, undoubtedly playedupon his audience’s fears and fantasies regarding their potential foradvancement in society. As previously mentioned, he may also be attemptingto increase or even create such anxieties where they do not already exist.

In Book Three, which teaches spelling rules, Madariaga refers to theinstability of a text’s meaning when it is rife with orthographic errors. He


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repeats what is by now a familiar litany of warning about impending doomwithout good writing, warning that ‘Historias, Evangelios, Testamentos,Leyes, Doctrina, Cartas y avisos’ written in the past will be lost withoutproper use of the pen (76r). The author thus warns that errors in spelling canhave grave consequences for civil and ecclesiastical authorities as well as forthe transmission of history and culture. Antonio de Nebrija expressed similarconcerns some seventy years earlier in Gramatica de la lengua castellana(1492). In the dedication to Queen Isabel of Castile, Nebrija warned that ifthe Castilian language did not have fixed rules for all to follow it wouldbecome destabilized and degenerate. As a result important national textssuch as histories would suffer one of two equally undesirable fates: either thememory of the mighty deeds of Isabel’s reign would perish with the language,or it would wander among foreign nations searching for a home, since itwould not have one of its own in which to live.40 Both authors exaltwriting*Nebrija emphasizing grammar and Madariaga, penmanship*as aninstrument and even a creator of culture. In their view writing is a crucialelement in the permanence, and thus the lasting power, of Castilian culture.

These are concerns of a serious nature, though certainly the authorexaggerates the importance of correct spelling for effect. Madariaga presentswriting as a hedge against instability and lawlessness, matters of greatconcern for those who were witnessing the dissolution of the unity of WesternChristianity and the constant challenges of an expanding worldwide empire.A writer in twenty-first century America or Europe desiring to expresssimilar apprehensions might call spelling a matter of national security. Theauthor crafts a curious position for himself: he essentially claims that thepen, and thus the scribe, is the real power behind church and crown. It is anintriguing position because, as previously noted, scribes were generallyexcluded from the inner circles of power because they engaged in manuallabour and lacked noble lineage. All of Madariaga’s arguments in favour ofthe power of writing*his insistence on its connection with economic benefit,with true masculinity, and with nobility*act as an advocate for an increasedstatus for scribes.

With an understanding of the social and historical context of Honra onecan begin to discern the existence of a hierarchy of professions based onwriting. Certainly the royal secretary is at the apex, since he is the only onenot barred from the nobility by his profession. An intermediate rung might bepeopled by various secretaries, scribes and notaries, as well as teachers ofwriting. Some teachers, like Pedro de Madariaga, were university professors,while others served as tutors to noble children or organized their ownschools. One’s standing (and income?) would depend upon factors such as thelocus of the work or the importance of the employer: those employed at court,

40 Antonio de Nebrija, Gramatica de la lengua castellana (Salamanca 1492), Muestrade la istoria de las antiguedades de Espana, Reglas de orthographıa en la lengua castellana,ed. Ignacio Gonzalez-Llubera (London: Oxford U. P., 1926), 7.


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by the upper nobility, or by the upper ranks of the church bureaucracyunmistakably enjoyed higher status. Osley contends that while the printingpress obviously placed manuscript copyists in an increasingly precariousposition, the standing of writing masters tended to increase during thesixteenth century.41 One of Madariaga’s interlocutors claims to know of ateacher of writing from Vizcaya who is wealthy enough to be involved intransatlantic commerce (38r).

In addition, according to Osley, teachers who published their models inbooks could become famous beyond their own local context.42 A successfuledition could also bring direct financial and professional benefits. Juan deYcıar’s Recopilacion subtilissima: intitulada orthographıa practica (1548)evidently earned him the position of writing master to Charles, son of PhilipII.43 Ycıar revised the work and published a second edition in 1550 as Artesubtilıssima por la qual se ensena a escrevir perfectamente. Although Ycıar,Madariaga, and other writing-masters-turned-authors always claimed, asrhetorical conventions required, to labour on behalf of the public good, theirworks undoubtedly redounded to their own good.

Exactly who belonged where in this hierarchy of the pen is not alwaysapparent, but certainly near the bottom of the scale were the scribes,teachers and notaries who occupied no special position. They worked in themarketplaces or took in private students. As the power and organization ofthe state expanded, so did the number of scribes needed for correspondence,copying of documents, and other bureaucratic tasks. How much prestige waspossessed by this army of civil servants and others in the employment ofthe church, universities, city governments or other associations? As theinfluence of graphic culture increased throughout the sixteenth century, sodid the need for scribes at all levels of society, as well as for individualsthemselves to possess the ability to write. Honra de escribanos arguesconvincingly that the ability to write gives all these men a degree of status,security, and power they would not have without the pen.

It will perhaps be helpful to insert here a comment about how tounderstand the effect of reading, writing, and printing on fifteenth- andsixteenth-century societies. In the past some scholars have apparentlyviewed the advent of print and the attendant increase of literacy as arevolutionary force for democratization and social levelling. While this viewcontains some truth, my analysis of writing manuals such as Madariaga’sand my reading of similar prose works of the time suggest that printedvolumes frequently relied heavily upon previously existing authoritativeworks and that reading, writing, and printing often worked to support theestablished hierarchy. Those already familiar with Renaissance texts willknow that many of these*in the Spanish context perhaps the majority of

41 Osley, Scribes and Sources, 18.42 Osley, Scribes and Sources, 18.43 Osley, Scribes and Sources, 128.


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printed texts*sought to elucidate and transmit knowledge from the past,chiefly from classical and early Christian sources. Spanish scholar FernandoBouza and others have discussed this conservative nature of writing andprinting in their recent works. Interestingly, and perhaps paradoxically forsome, while printing presses churned out books on and by these Greek,Roman and Christian autoridades, writers with novel or heterodox ideasmight have preferred to leave their works in manuscript form.44 By so doingthey could avoid censorship or more dire interference by crown or church.Bouza gives examples of this contrast between manuscript and print worksfrom across Europe, to which I would add several from sixteenth-centurySpain that remained in manuscript form until centuries later. Juan deValdes, humanist and disciple of Erasmus, fled Spain shortly after thepublication in 1529 of his Dialogo de doctrina cristiana when the Inquisitionshowed a negative interest in the book. Although his later work, Dialogo dela lengua, did not have a religious theme it was not published until 1777,possibly because of the danger of printing works by an author who was aknown Erasmian and was under investigation by the Inquisition. Theanonymous dialogues Viaje de Turquıa and El Crotalon were alsoErasmian works.45 The heterodox or controversial nature of the texts,which remained unpublished until relatively recently, are well known.

As Bouza and other scholars have noted, the real revolution broughtabout by the printing press was not necessarily the content of the works, butrather the technology itself, since printing made mass distribution possible.46

One must take care not to confuse the medium*one that effected a gradualand yet tremendously influential transformation of reading habits and accessto information*with the messages contained in printed books.

Pedro de Madariaga himself advocated greater access to information andskills*recall his assertion that everyone can be a scribe and his insistencethat his book would allow readers to enrich themselves continually by theirown learning*but to what end? Honra de escribanos holds out the promise toits readers that the power of writing will allow them to insert themselves intothe existing authority structures for their own gain, and not to overturnthem.

At the beginning of this article I evaluated Pedro de Madariaga’s declarationthat everyone can be a scribe as hyperbole meant to entice the public topurchase and read his book. It is hyperbole because surely some did not havethe aptitude, the skill, or the means to become a scribe*to say nothing of theinterest required. Nevertheless, in light of the compelling case put forward inHonra de escribanos in favour of learning to write well, the author’s

44 Bouza Alvarez, Del escribano, 48.45 Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo y Espana, trans. Antonio Alatorre (Mexico D.F.: Fondo de

Cultura Economica, 1950), 661�92.46 Bouza Alvarez, Del escribano, 48.


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statement might reasonably be recast as ‘everyone must be a scribe’.Everyone, that is, in a middle layer of society: neither the most powerfulnobles nor the illiterate masses of day labourers, field hands and vagabonds,but rather the merchant and artisan sectors and members of the lowernobility. These were not wealthy enough to employ a personal secretary, yetoperated in a milieu where writing and reading were increasingly important.Recall that Madariaga and others warn that hiring a scribe in themarketplace is a risky endeavour. Everyone did not need to join the ranksof professional scribes, but men in this middle sector must learn to act astheir own scribes, as the author claims, in order to maintain theirindependence, financial security and personal power.

The societies of the Iberian Peninsula in the sixteenth centuryexperienced a number of significant transformations. In the midst of thisshifting and uncertain context, Honra de escribanos speaks to a variety ofreaders: hidalgos in financial straits struggling to hold on to their status,merchants and artisans striving to ascend the social scale, or anyone whorealizes that writing plays an increasingly crucial role in business, ingovernment, and in one’s personal relationships. To all these potentialreaders Madariaga’s manual presents the pen as a tool that can increasepersonal power, wealth and security.

Honra de escribanos is a work replete with bold and wide-ranging claims:everyone can be a scribe; even a nobody can rise to the pinnacle of power bymeans of the pen; society depends upon the scribe in order to avoid chaos.The author employs such declarations to entice the learner to acquire theskill of writing as a means of self-advancement and social mobility. At thesame time he attempts to reposition and refashion the scribe as an essentialguarantor of the stability of crown and church. In Honra de escribanos self-improvement for both author and reader leads to an insertion into theexisting power structures as a means of increased personal power andwealth*an apparently conservative development. There is, though, onerevolutionary aspect to this process: Pedro de Madariaga is convinced thatmany who were previously on the outside*including quite possibly he andhis fellow scribes*can gain access to the inner circles of wealth and power bymeans of the pen.


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pull yourself up by your inkwell: pedro de madariaga's honra de escribanos ...

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