chapter 7

A Theology of Self-fashioning: Hernando de Talavera’s

Letter of Advice to the Countess of Benavente

Mark D. Johnston

For any study of “self-fashioning” in the medieval era, an essential resource is

the voluminous corpus of texts on conduct and behavior. Depending on how
broadly one defines this corpus, it can embrace a plethora of distinct genres,
ranging from wisdom literature and treatises on moral theology to “mirrors for
princes,” manuals of chivalry, courtesy books, letters or poems of advice from
parents to children, guides to estate management, monastic rules, and many
other specialized texts of instruction on behavior.1 Examples of conduct litera-
ture appear in virtually every period of the Middle Ages, but proliferated in the
vernacular languages especially after the 13th century. In Castilian, there is a
rich tradition of wisdom literature (literatura sapiencial) but far fewer exam-
ples of the other, more specialized genres.2 Scarcely half a dozen individual
treatises exclusively focused on conduct exist in Castilian, and three of these
are the work of Hernando de Talavera, who published them at Granada in 1496,
in a collection of his writings, while serving as the newly acquired Muslim
territory’s first archbishop.3 Talavera presumably compiled this collection as a

1 For convenient introductions to this diverse material, see Medieval Conduct, eds. Kathleen
Ashley and Robert L.A. Clark (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001); and
Medieval Conduct Literature: An Anthology of Vernacular Guides to Behaviour for Youths, with
English Translations, ed. Mark D. Johnston (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009).
2 Useful surveys of the literatura sapiencial are Marta Haro Cortés, Literatura de castigos en la
Edad Media: libros y colecciones de sentencias (Madrid: Ediciones de Laberinto, 2003); and
Alicia Esther Ramadori, Literatura sapiencial hispánica del siglo XIII (Bahía Blanca:
Universidad Nacional del Sur, 2001).
3 Breue y muy prouechosa doctrina de lo que deue saber todo christiano con otros tractados muy
prouechosos conpuestos por el Arçobispo de Granada (Granada: Meinhard Ungut and Johann
Pegnitzer von Nürnberg, 1496). On the circumstances and exact date of this printing, see
Felipe Pereda, Las imágenes de la Discordia: Política y poética de la imagen sagrada en la
España del cuatrocientos (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2007), 269–80. A very unreliable transcrip-
tion of this volume, prepared by Miguel Mir, is available in the first volume of Escritores místi-
cos españoles, Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles 16 (Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, 1911), 1–103.
All references in this study to the 1496 edition of Talavera’s works cite the pagination of the
digital reproduction of the copy held by the Real Academia de la Historia; url: http://bvpb.
mcu.es [hereafter “rah”]. For ease of reading, I have modernized the punctuation and capi-
talization (but not orthography) in all quotations; all translations into English are my own.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004291003_009

A THEOLOGY OF SELF-FASHIONING: TALAVERA’S LETTER 203

guide to pastoral care for the clergy of his new archdiocese. The thirteen extant
copies of this 1496 collection display curious codicological variations, suggest-
ing that Talavera’s printers perhaps assembled each copy individually from
separately printed texts.4 While some of the texts included clearly served the
needs of clergy responsible for evangelizing the kingdom’s Muslim population,
the relevance to this task of the three conduct texts is less obvious.5
These three works, all written earlier in Talavera’s career for different audi-
ences and occasions, offer very diverse kinds of moral and ethical guidance.
They are the Tractado contra el murmurar y maldezir (an undated theological
treatise against slander)6; Tractado contra la demasia de vestir y de calçar y de
comer y de beuer (a defense of sumputary laws adopted by the city of Valladolid
in 1477)7; and the Tractado de como deuemos espender el tiempo (a letter of
advice on the management of daily affairs, written for María Pacheco, Countess
of Benavente).8 Talavera also produced texts offering instructions for a female
religious house, the Suma y breve compilación de cómo han de bivir y conversar
las religiosas de Sant Bernardo,9 guidelines for the organization of his own
archiepiscopal household,10 and an untitled memorial (memorandum) of terse
mandates on religious conformity, apparently composed after 1502 for the
newly baptized Muslim population of Granada.11 Of all these works, the most
intriguing for studying individual norms of self-fashioning is his letter to María
Pacheco, because of its attention to how she must fulfill the very practical and

4 I thank my colleague Isidro Rivera for this possible explanation of these variations.
5 In separate studies, currently in preparation for publication, I examine the import of
these works for Talavera’s moral and social leadership as archbishop of Granada’s mixed
Muslim and Christian population.
6 rah, 212–50. I am currently preparing an edition of this text for publication.
7 rah, 314–414. Available edited by Teresa de Castro, “El tratado sobre el vestir, calzar y
comer del arzobispo Hernando de Talavera,” Revista Espacio, Tiempo, Forma, Serie 3,
Historia Medieval 14 (2001): 11–92.
8 rah, 419–62. Pages 449–50 in this copy are blank; quotations below from the text in these
missing pages are from the corresponding folios of an earlier manuscript version, pre-
served in Escorial b-IV-26, fols 1r–27v. I am grateful to my colleague Núria Silleras-
Fernández for sharing with me a digital reproduction of this manuscript.
9 Cécile Codet, “Edición de la Suma y breve compilación de cómo han de bivir y conversar las
religiosas de Sant Bernardo que biven en los monasterios de la cibdad de Ávila de Hernando
de Talavera (Biblioteca del Escorial, ms. a.IV-29),” Memorabilia 14 (2012): 1–57.
10 Ed. J. Domínguez Bordona, “Instrucción de fray Hernando de Talavera para el regimen
interior de su palacio,” Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 96 (1930): 785–835.
11 Tarsicio de Azcona, Isabel la Católica: Estudio crítico de su vida y su reinado (Madrid:
Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1964), 761–63.