Royal patronage at the Aragonese court at the end of the Middle Ages

Abstract

Th e public dimension of literature, at its most evident, when displayed as spectacle, was undeniably bound to royal power, especially during the Middle Ages. Th is work looks at some of the writers who started working under royal patronage at the fourteenth-century Catalan-Aragonese court, and those who worked under the last kings in the autonomous dynasty as well as during the fi fteenth century, under the new Trastamara lineage: Bernat Metge, Ausiàs March, Joanot Martorell and Pere Miquel Carbonell. Particular attention is also given to those spectacles which were used as a political tool to exalt and broadcast the power of the reigning monarchies, especially some urban propaganda instruments as the Royal Entrance and the palace spectacles at the Coronation Feast.

La actividad literaria y su dimensión más pública a través del espectáculo siempre estuvo muy estrechamente ligada al poder real, especialmente durante la Edad Media. Repasamos aquí aquellos escritores que hicieron su obra bajo los auspicios de la corte catalano-aragonesa a fines del siglo xiv, con los últimos reyes de la dinastía autóctona, y durante el siglo xv, bajo la nueva estirpe de los Trastámara: Bernat Metge, Ausiàs March, Joanot Martorell, Pere Miquel Carbonell, y sobre todo aquellas manifestaciones espectaculares que sirvieron como instrumento de exaltación y propaganda de la monarquía reinante, particularmente el despliegue urbano de Entrada Real y los espectáculos palaciegos de Fiesta de Coronación