Destabilizing Monotheism in the Medieval Castilian Epic

Abstract

The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it reviews extant studies of explicitly non- and, likely, pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices in the Christian kingdoms of Iberia in the Middle Ages and in one of their earliest extant forms of literature, the epic. It contends that this sphere of medieval religious life has been inconsistently analysed in historiography but particularly in literary scholarship, using varied and imprecise terminology that often implicitly negates its status as part of active, religious belief. It proposes that a synthesis of evidence from both medieval and early modern Iberia— and even Europe—can draw a more convincing, comprehensive picture of the survival of non-monotheistic traditions and their religious as opposed to secular or folkloric nature. Secondly, it reopens the question of this type of religiosity in the Castilian epic, taking as case studies for analysis instances from the Poema de mio Cid, Poema de Fernán González and Los siete infantes de Lara. It questions what the presence of non-monotheistic religious traditions reveal about each work’s ethos, calling into question their adherence to institutionalized Christian orthodoxy. Finally, it concludes what the persistence of these traditions amongst all social strata could mean for the construction of religious and racial difference in medieval literature.