even his veracity, has been questioned because he reports
so many barbarous acts, and because he views Pedro
I primarily as a negative example. Ayala’s support of
the Trastámaran pretender and his later involvement
in the royal court further clouds the picture. The two
manuscript traditions abreviada and vulgar suggest a
process of revision that served to soften the condemna-
tion of Pedro I after the reconciliation of the two dynastic
lines, with the marriage of the grandchildren of the two
contenders.
The literary nature of these narratives and the
chronicler’s acute awareness of literary style must
also be taken into account. Among the variety of liter-
ary devices used in the chronicles, Ayala includes the
skillful arrangement of all the contributing elements to
form an organic unity: tense choice, paired words or
doublets, alternation, contrast, parallelism, repetition,
and portraiture. The author’s skill in the use of direct
address such as dialogues, one-liners, discourses, letters,
and sayings enliven narrative passages and reveal the
dramatic nature of the events. The dramatic structure
of the death scenes is also evident in other episodes;
for example, the farewell scene between Leónor de
Guzmán and her son Fadrique, the confrontation with
the Queen Mother at Toro, the departure of Pedro I from
Burgos, and the papal election that began the schism.
Ayala must be recognized as a talented prose stylist as
he relates events more varied and fascinating than many
fi ctional sagas, consisting of wars, fratricides, marriages,
mistresses, international intrigues, and power struggles
at the highest levels of government.
Ayala’s long poetic work Rimado de Palacio,
completed in 1404, is a highly personal and creative
expression of the author’s moral and philosophical pre-
occupations. Most of its 2,168 stanzas (totalling more
than 8,000 lines) are written in the verse form cuaderna
via, characterized by four-line stanzas, each fourteen-
syllable line divided by a caesura after the seventh
syllable and ending in uniform consonantal rhyme. In
spite of being the last of the cuaderna via poets, Ayala
demonstrates poetic innovations that include increased
use of the eight-syllable line and the introduction of arte
mayor, both most apparent in the Cancionero portion,
stanzas 732–919. At the center of Cancionero, the poet
again reveals his concern for the Church in a long al-
legory in which the ship of St. Peter is being torn apart
by the destructive storm of the Great Schism.
The Rimado consists of a large number of poems
of varied content and structure whose composition
undoubtedly spans decades and whose impetus springs
from the experiences of a long, adventurous life as well
as from periods of reading and meditation. To say that
it is a didactic-moral work or a long confessional poem
is true. Nonetheless, this would slight the literary value
and variety of Ayala’s forcefully sober verse. Ayala’s
fi ne, satirically traced pictures of medieval society
have, above all else, attracted readers to Rimado. These
vigorous scenes of contemporary society and court life
are found in the fi rst part of the book, along with other
poems that arise from the chancellor’s personal expe-
riences and his refl ections. The poet’s description of
personages in the royal courts, the almost caricaturelike
presentation of merchants and lawyers, prefi gure later
satirical works that culminate in the mordant sarcasm
and ridicule of Francisco Quevedo, as well as in subse-
quent vignettes of manners and customs.
The more extensive fi nal part of the work provides
a focus on doctrine rather than experience. Ayala
demonstrates originality in combining confessional
and doctrinal themes and materials based on the Bible
and the Morals of St. Gregory in order to produce a
didactic exposition in verse. Many of the themes of the
fi fteenth-century rhymmed confessions undoubtedly
received some impetus from the meditations on life,
death, original sin, and the brief duration of worldly
gains portrayed in Rimado. In addition to infl uencing the
verse forms, topics, and themes of later poets, Ayala’s
devout and moving poems dedicated to the Virgin had
an impact on religious lyrical poetry of the fi fteenth
century. Ayala also made an important contribution to
Castilian intellectual life through his translations of
works of Livy, Gregory, Isidore, and Boethius.
See also Enrique II, King of Castile; Juan ManuelFurther Reading
García, M. Obra y personalidad del Canciller Ayala. Madrid,
1983.
López de Ayala, P. Libra Rimado de Palacio. 2 vols. Ed. J. Joset.
Madrid, 1978.
Strong, E. B. “The Rimado de Palacio: López de Ayala’s Rimed
Confession.” Hispanic Review 37 (1969), 439–51.
Tate, R. B. “López de Ayala, Humanist Historian?” Hispanic
Review 25 (1957), 157–74.
Wilkins, C. Pern López de Ayala. Boston, 1989.
Constance L. WilkinsLÓPEZ DE CÓRDOBA, LEONOR
(b. 1362)
Born in 1362, Leonor López de Córdoba composed
one of the most singular chronicles of the late Middle
Ages in Castile. Her Memorias, which were dictated to
a scribe around the beginning of the fi fteenth century,
are a personal testimony of a society ravaged by civil
war, pestilence, and class upheaval.
Due to the dramatic circumstances of the narrator’s
life, the Memorias present a point of view that is rare
in the historiography of this period. Leonor López was
the sole survivor of a family destroyed because of its
allegiance to Pedro I, the legitimate king of Castile,LÓPEZ DE AYALA, PERO