Chaucer Translates the Matter of Spain

Abstract

Strictly speaking, in Jean Bodel’s well-known tripartite classification of romance poetry—or poetry in general, since for Jean romance and poetry were nearly synonymous—there is of course no “Matter of Spain.” Nor was there for George Ellis, who added the “Matter of England” to Bodel’s “Matters” of France, Britain and Rome in 1805.¹ For readers of Chaucer, who is not after all very much given to writing romances, such associations have been of lesser critical importance than another triad, his supposed “Three Periods” when, it used to be said, the inspiration of France and Italy, and then contemporary English life, respectively shaped his poetry.² No nod toward Spain here, either—and it is this absence of recognized Spanish influences which for present purposes makes these blunt, outdated taxonomies of interest. They are testimony of a certain kind about the limits of our view of Chaucer, historically and presently, as a European citizen and writer.

Although there is no concrete evidence of Spanish literary influence in Chaucer’s work, it is likely that he learned Spanish and read at least the tale collections of Petrus Alfonsi and Don Juan Manuel—both works would have increased his receptivity to Boccaccian narrative on his subsequent travels to Italy.