during the dynastic struggle he waged against his half-
brother, Enrique de Trastámara. The social climate of
the decades following this civil war was dominated by
the usurper’s followers, who spread propaganda allud-
ing to the brutality of Pedro “the Cruel,” and the low
social class of his supporters, as a means of justifying
their overthrow of the rightful monarch. In an effort to
repudiate such rumors in her Memorias, Leonor López
described in detail the nobility of her lineage, the bravery
of her father in defense of the loyalist cause, and the
atrocities that Enrique de Trastámara himself infl icted
upon her family. Her work is a historical curiosity, both
as a document of a dispossessed class, and as a feat of
honor performed verbally by a woman.
Memorias also merits attention for its literary signifi -
cance as one of the earliest examples of autobiographical
expression produced in medieval Spain. In order to ex-
onerate herself, Leonor López elaborated a self-portrait
that exemplifi ed the conduct deemed appropriate for a
noble lady. Her persuasive manipulation of language is
particularly evident in her use of motifs derived from
pious literature to associate herself with a popular ideal
of Christian virtue.
Despite their limitations as a historical record and
artistic work, the Memorias of Leonor López are notable
as a re-creation of the past that preserves a uniquely
feminine interpretation of the values of medieval Cas-
tilian society.
See also Pedro I the Cruel, King of Castile
Further Reading
Ayerbe-Chaux, R. “Las memorias de Leonor López de Córdoba.”
Journal of Hispanic Philology 2 (1977–78), 11–33.
Deyennond, A. “Spain’s First Women Writers.” In Women in
Hispanic Literature: Icons and Fallen Idols. Ed. B. Miller,
Berkeley, Calif., 1983. 26–52.
Amanda Curry
LÓPEZ DE MENDOZA, IÑIGO
(1398–1458)
Born in 1398, Iñigo López de Mendoza (fi rst marqués de
Santillana, and señor de Hita and Buitrago) was the son
of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the infl uential admiral
of Castile. His uncle was Pero López de Ayala, poet,
statesman, military fi gure, and the commanding chan-
cellor of Castile during the last quarter of the fourteenth
century. During the reign of Juan II of Castile, López
de Mendoza was head of the powerful Mendoza clan,
which was connected through marriage to many of the
most infl uential families of the kingdom.
López de Mendoza is one of the major cultural and
political fi gures of the fi fteenth century. He spent a part
of his youth in Aragón, where he became friends and
shared intellectual pursuits with Enrique de Villena, one
of the great learned men of his time. López de Mendoza
distinguished himself both militarily and literarily on
the Granadan frontier, at Ágreda in 1429 and again at
Jaén in 1438. Although he fought alongside Juan II and
his confi dant Álvaro de Luna, Constable of Castile, at
the battle of Olmedo in 1445 defending the interests of
the monarchy against the challenges of the Infantes de
Aragón, López de Mendoza quickly became don Álva-
ro’s sworn enemy. Along with other powerful nobles,
López de Mendoza then conspired to topple Luna from
power and went on to write admonitory poetry about the
example of Luna’s life and execution in 1453.
The Marqués, as López de Mendoza was referred to
simply in his time, surrounded himself in Guadalajara
with artists, writers, and thinkers like Nuño de Guzmán,
Pero Díaz de Toledo, and Martín González de Lucena,
and was perhaps the greatest single cultural and artistic
force of his time. As both intellectual and patron, López
de Mendoza was the single most important fi gure in the
propagation of humanistic knowledge in Castile during
the fi rst half of the fi fteenth century. In addition to having
gathered in Guadalajara the most signifi cant library of
humanistic works in lay hands and patronized the trans-
lation of Homer’s Iliad, Plato, Ovid, Cicero, Seneca,
Dante, and Boccaccio into Castilian, López de Mendoza
was in his own right a celebrated poet, literary critic, and
theoretician. Although he collected Latin manuscripts,
he could not read Latin, but he read several vernaculars
fl uently and was aware of contemporary developments
in European poetry, especially in France and Italy. His
Carta e prohemio al Condestable de Portugal, which
draws heavily on classical and patristic writers as well
as Boccaccio’s De genealogia deorum, is considered the
fi rst concerted work of literary theory and criticism in
Castilian. Its novelty lies in its historical descriptions of
different genres and the catalogue of works that it con-
tains, just as it offers an evaluation of the qualities and
defects of the poets he mentions. In addition, his Sonetos
fechos al itálico modo (1438), which follow the example
of Dante and Petrarch, mark the fi rst coherent attempt
to cultivate the sonnet form in Castilian. Besides these
two works and his patronage, López de Mendoza was a
prolifi c writer responsible for a vast body of work in both
prose and verse that deals with moral, religious, politi-
cal, and sentimental themes, all of which contributed to
his vast fame during his lifetime. Among the best known
of his lyrical works are his serranillas, or pastourelles,
that tell of rural love encounters between knights and
rustic shepherdesses. His ambitious narrative and alle-
gorical poems, known as decires (Bías contra Fortuna,
Doctrinal de Privados, Comedieta de Ponza), are replete
with mythological, biblical, and other learned themes
that attest to his humanistic knowledge and intellectual
aspirations. The Comedieta (1436), a patriotic composi-LÓPEZ DE MENDOZA, IÑIGO