Bernal Díaz Del Castillo Reconsidered

Although Leonard states that the tale of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers of France was the longest-lived and most influential chivalric story in Spanish America (p. 329), he builds his case on the single example of Bernal Díaz's references to Amadís de Gaula and other romance motifs in his Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España . To explain the lack of references by the conquistador-chroniclers to the novels of chivalry, Leonard argues (chapter 6) that self-censorship was at work: they knew that this literature was the object of censure by moralist writers and so deliberately omitted all mention of popular fiction.^[40]

In my view, however, there is no need to explain this omission. The challenge for conquistador-reporters, after all, was to convince their readers that the experiences they described were real, not invented. Nevertheless, by raising the issue of citations of chivalric romance, Leonard in a way encourages us to examine a larger issue: the role of chivalric values as a frame of reference for the conquistadores. If they did find inspiration in the novels of chivalry, it would likely be discernible in more subtle ways.^[41] Analysis of formal models of composition and specifically of chivalric elements may yet yield great insight into the way conquistador-chroniclers fashioned their recollected experience.

Although the degree to which chivalric fictions and values contributed to the psychology of the conquistadores remains open to debate, such works certainly provide a language of cultural reference for describing soldiers' experiences, as Bernal Díaz's references to Amadís de Gaula demonstrate. That is, while direct evidence of conquistadores' reading, much less its impact on them, is elusive, their subsequent interpretation of their deeds in relation to literary traditions is revealing.

If we look at the single statement by Bernal Díaz which Leonard uses to suggest that popular literature indeed did influence the attitudes and actions of sixteenth-century conquistadores, we recognize Bernal Díaz not as soldier, but as writer and reader.^[42]

Recalling his first sight of Tenochtitlán some thirty to forty years after the fact, he remarks:

During the morning, we arrived at a broad causeway and continued our march toward Iztapalapa, and when we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land and that straight and level causeway going towards Mexico, we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadís, on account of the great towers ... and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whet her some of the things we saw were not a dream. It is not to be wondered at that I here write it down in this manner, for there is so much to think over that I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that have never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed about.^[43]

The evidence suggests that the novels of chivalry inspired neither Bernal Díaz's actions of soldiering nor his act of narrating. Instead, they become a solution to his search for a way to communicate the magnificence and splendor of his first sight of Tenochtitlán.^[44] His statement reveals that the books of chivalry stood as a common reference point by which the sixteenth-century Spanish reader could make meaning of the account of a place unseen—America—as given to him by a writer and reader who shared similar literary cultural experiences.

Bernal Díaz's strategic use of chivalric romance is confirmed by his additional references to the "Amadises." On more than one occasion, he complains about the seemingly infinite number of battles he had to describe to account for the ninety-three-day siege of Tenochtitlán. Although his readers were surely tired of them, he says, it was nevertheless necessary to rehearse how and when and in what manner those battles had occurred. In this aside to his readers on the problems of writing, he mentions that he had considered organizing the narration so that each encounter would occupy a separate chapter. But this, it seemed to him, would be an endless task and, even worse, would make his work seem like an Amadís .^[45] Here the reference to the chivalric romance is clearly negative. Is Bernal Díaz saying that a narration à la Amadís would

produce an overlong account, putting the reader to sleep with the tiresome description of battle after battle? Or, more serious, is he saying that the reader might thus suspend belief in this true account, sentencing it to guilt by association, if it followed the narrative model of chivalric romance? Both questions can be answered in the affirmative, as the testimony of other chroniclers attests.

Bernal Díaz faced a problem commonly lamented by writers of historical accounts and histories of the Spanish conquests. Pedro de Castañeda Nájera, for example, who wrote some twenty years after the fact about the Coronado expedition of 1540–1542 in which he had participated as a soldier, made this remark near the end of his narrative account, in reference to the exploits of Captain Juan Gallego and the twenty companions who went with him:

We shall tell them in this chapter in order that those who, in the future, may read and talk about them may have a reliable author on whom to depend, an author who does not write fables, like some things we read now-a-days in books of chivalry. Were it not for the fables of enchantments with which they are laden, there are events that have happened recently in these parts to our Spaniards in conquests and clashes with the natives that surpass, as deeds of amazement, not only the aforesaid books but even the ones written about the twelve peers of France.^[46]

The phrase "fables of enchantments with which they are laden" suggests an a posteriori gloss of the fantastic onto the narration, which would prevent the reader from appreciating the historical event. In his Historia general y natural de las Indias , Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo voiced the same uneasiness: "after all, I do not recount the nonsense of the books of chivalry, nor such matters as are dependent on them."^[47] Oviedo, himself the author of a novel of chivalry, Don Claribalte , was genuinely concerned lest his readers impose the expectations of fantasy on reading the narration of history.^[48]

Bernal Díaz and the others faced a common problem, one that their references to the novels of chivalry allow us to bring into sharper focus. They were writing about events and topics that seemed fantastic: great numbers of battles, horrifying evidence of human sacrifice, landscapes never before seen, and even real-life

"enchanters" (shamans). They wished to articulate that hitherto unseen dimension accurately in order to be truthful to their understanding of their own experience. At the same time, they (Bernal Díaz in particular) wanted to exploit the unique elements of what they saw in order to engage their readers' interest. Hence, they were caught in the dilemma of producing faithful accounts that would be appealing but that afforded no common points of reference for them and their readers. Bernal Díaz summed it up best in reflecting on his description of Tenochtitlán: "It is not to be wondered at that I here write it down in this manner, for there is so much to think over that I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed about."^[49] Bernal Díaz, Castañeda, and Oviedo all suggest that the comparison of their writings with the books of chivalry, was inevitable. Their point, however, was that fiction paled by comparison with what they witnessed, that the historical deeds and experiences they described exceeded the only possible model for comparison that existed in their readers' imaginations.^[50]

On the question of the conquest in its aftermath, Leonard suggests that criollo readers were not interested in the history of the Indies, largely because no such works appeared on a list of books to be ordered by a book dealer of Lima in 1583 (see Appendix, Document 3). Recent investigations into private libraries in the vice-royalty of Peru, however, reveal that in fact New World history inspired considerable and deep interest.^[51]

A historical topic of much more apparent interest in the Indies was the mission of "combatting infidels," as Francisco López de Gómara put it, a mission modeled on and memorialized by Spain's internal struggle against the Muslims.^[52] Significant here are Leonard's observations about the popularity in Spanish America of historical and fictional works concerning the defeat of the Moors and Moriscos (pp. 117–119). The church often taught native Americans the lesson of the triumph of Christianity over rival traditions by having them dramatize the Spanish defeat of the Muslims, a performance tradition that persists in Latin America still today.^[53] Clearly, the Reconquest of Spain was considered a holy war, and for ideological reasons alone, works that exploited its themes would have been promoted and requested.^[54]

Finally, the attempt by Philip II from 1556 onward to control the creation and circulation of works pertaining to the Indies must be reevaluated with respect to its impact in actual practice.^[55] Although crown interests were not challenged by popular fiction generally, writings on the conquest were another matter and saw more scrupulous vigilance. There is no question that prohibited chronicles—Hernán Cortés's cartas de relación , López de Gómara's Hispania victrix —circulated despite the sanctions.^[56] Yet the crown's actions in this area, apart from its legislation, remain to be investigated.