Leonor López de Córdoba

Leonor López de Córdoba (Calatayud, ca. 1362- Córdoba, 1420) wrote what is supposed to be the first autobiography in Castilian, named "Memorias" by one of its editors, after being banished from the Castilian Court where she was an advisor and confidant of Queen Catalina of Lancaster.

Biographical Information

As she states in her "Memorias," Leonor López de Córdoba was born circa 1362 in Calatayud at the home of Pedro I of Castile. Since her godmothers were daughters of the King, she spent her childhood at the court, along with her mother, Sancha Carrillo, who was Pedro’s kinswoman, and Alfonso XI’s niece. After her mother’s early death, Leonor’s father, Martín López de Córdoba, "maestre" de Calatrava and Alcántara, promised her in marriage to Ruy Gutiérrez de Henestrosa, son of Juan Fernández de Henestrosa, King Pedro’s head valet and head majordomo of Queen Blanca.

Following their marriage, Ruy and Leonor moved to Carmona, a fortified city in the south of Spain, with the rest of the family. While they lived there, Pedro I was killed by his half-brother, who assumed the crown as Enrique II, and besieged Carmona, because Martín López and his family were partisans of the murdered king. After several attempts to capture the city, Martín López finally surrendered to Enrique in 1371 under a promise of safe-conduct out of the country. However, the king did not keep his promise and killed the "maestre," and imprisoned his family in the Atarazanas in Seville.

Leonor was only nine years old at the time she and her family were imprisoned. But, after eight years of hardship, all of her relatives, except her husband, had died in prison. These two were finally set free by a provision in Enrique II’s will. Leonor then went to the house of her aunt, María García Carrillo, in Córdoba, while her husband tried in vain to recover their lost properties. On her husband’s return after seven years of wandering, having recovered nothing, Leonor asked her aunt for a place of her own to dwell. It was in that place that she built both a home and a chapel.

When the Black Death struck Córdoba in 1392, Leonor and her family fled to Santa Ella and later to Aguilar, where a son died of the plague. Afraid of becoming infected, her aunt’s family asked her to leave Aguilar, and Leonor returned to Córdoba.

In the years after 1403, Leonor dwelt at the court of Enrique III and his queen Catalina of Lancaster, to whom she became a very close advisor. The chronicle of Juan III's reign writes of Leonor that "Catalina trusted her so much, and loved her in such a way, that nothing was done without her advice” (Estow, 35). Eventually, however, around 1412, Leonor lost the queen’s grace and was banned from the court under threat of being burnt at the stake if she ever returned. She lived in Córdoba until her death in 1420.

Work

"Memorias" (Memoirs) seems to be Castile’s first autobiography. The original manuscript, kept at the Convent of San Pablo de Córdoba, is lost. The text has been transcribed and published from a copy, which is today at the Biblioteca Capitular y Colombina of Seville, Spain. It is a short narration of around nine pages cast as a notarial document (“Sepan cuantos esta escriptura vieren […] ,”Let those who see this work know […] ), and although she claims to be the writer of the text, the abundance of legal terms, makes scholars believe that she wrote it with the help of a notary. The text, written after her fall from grace at court, is supposed to be an act of devotion, in which she shows the strength of prayer to the Virgin Mary. However, it is also an apology for her father’s and her own actions. Therefore, what begins as an act of piety develops into a defense of her family name, reminding the reader that she is noble, on both her father’s and her mother’s side.

The prayers included in "Memorias" serve to prove the veracity of Leonor's story for, not only does she assert at the very beginning that the narrative testifies to all of the miracles with which she was rewarded by the Virgin Mary, she does it in such a way as to argue that the lost honor of her family is unjustified, recasting their shame in a light that is more favorable to it and to her. "Memorias"'s story of physical and spiritual survival makes it a form of cultural testimony.

References

Ayerbe-Chaux, Reinaldo. "Las Memorias de doña Leonor López de Córdoba." "Journal of Hispanic Philology" 2 (1977-1978): 11-33.

Estow, Clara. “Leonor Lopez de Cordoba: Portrait of a Medieval Courtier.” "Fifteenth Century Studies" 5 Michigan (1982), 23-46.

Mirrer, Louise. "Women, Jews, and Muslims in the Texts of Reconquest Castile." Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.

Stanton, Domna C. "The Female Autograph." NY: NY Literary Forum, 1984.

External links

Belido Bello, Juan Feliz. “Leonor López de Córdoba (1362-1430)”. "Escritoras y Pensadoras Europeas." Octubre 2006. Universidad de Sevilla.

Sanchez Dueñas, Blas. “Mujeres Anadaluzas.” September 2006. Universidad de Córdoba.