Welcome to transcribeestoria – this week’s text: Julius Caesar and the founding of Sevilla

Welcome to the first passage in transcribeestoria!

Over the next two weeks, we will use this blog space as a way to discuss anything that might be of interest. This can be to do with the content of the passage and the Estoria as a whole, or with physical features of the manuscript, or anything at all to do with medieval Iberia. Most of the blog posts will be in Spanish, but we will do at least one introductory post in English for each passage. After all, you can learn about palaeography and learn how to transcribe and recognise letters without actually understanding the content of the text! You can comment here on the blog – you sign up here – or you can comment via our Twitter or Facebook feeds, or in the Google hangout we mentioned in the welcome email.

Or feel free just to tell us how you are getting on!

As we said in the introductory materials, the Estoria de Espanna is a history of the peoples of Spain that was originally composed by Alfonso X around the year 1270. The chapter that we are transcribing here, is from the very beginning of the text. It is a section that deals with the legendary origins of Spain, and in particular the doings of Hercules (yes, that Hercules). But this chapter is an interpolation, for it tells us how, although Hercules founded the city of Seville, it was in fact Julius Caesar (yes, that Julius Caesar) who was truly responsible for the building of the city – one of the greatest in Spain, then and now.

This is chapter 7 of the Estoria de Espanna, and if you would like to see transcriptions of the text (and images of another manuscript) you can see these at our Estoria de Espanna Digital edition. There is a pull down index (Índice) on the right hand side, and you can choose between the two available manuscripts (E1 and Q). Or if you would like to see a regularised version, there is a more easily readable version in a drop down menu on the top menu bar headed VPL (Versión Primitiva de Lectura).

This is what the text says:

7. Of how Julius Caesar founded Seville because of the things he discovered that Hercules had done there.

1 And he put there six great pillars of stone and he placed on top of them a very great slab of marble upon which were written large letters which said: “The great city will be founded here”. 2 And on top of this he put a stone stone figure, and it had one hand towards the east, and on the palm of the hand was written: “Hercules reached this point”, and the other hand faced downwards, pointing to the letters on the marble with one finger. 3 And so it was that, in the time of the Romans when they were the lords of the world, there was a great disagreement between Julius Caesar and Pompey, who were father-in-law and son-in-law, and both emperors.  4 In Rome, it was decided to send Pompey to the east, and Julius Caesar to the west, to conquer all the lands which did not yet obey Rome, and they were told to return to Rome in five years, and if either of them did not do this, they would not be received as emperor any more. 5 In those five years, Pompey conquered all of the lands of the east, but Julius Caesar, in the space of five years, conquered only as far as Lerida, which is a city in Spain, in the land known as Catalonia.  6 And as Lucan, who wrote this story, tells us, when these five years had passed, the Romans ordered him to return, and if he did not, he would not be received as emperor. 7 Caesar, in contempt, did not wish to do this, but said that since he was an emperor he would take another five years to finish what he had started. 8 And so, in the other five years that he took, he conquered the whole of Spain. 9 And when he reached that place where the city of Talica was first founded, it seemed to him that it was not in a good place, and he went to find another place to rebuild it. 10 And when he came to the place where were to be found the pillars on which Hercules had put the statue, he looked at the great slab of marble which was scattered broken in pieces on the ground. And when he saw the letters, he ordered the pieces to be put together  and he read that this was where the great city was to be built. 11 So he ordered it to be moved from where it was and rebuilt there where it is to this day, and he gave it the name Ispalis, just as it had first been called when it was built on stakes of wood in a place called Almedina, which is near Cadiz. 12 And according to Lucan, after he had rebuilt the city he went to Cadiz, where there was a great city. There he found a temple which the people of that place had made in honour of Hercules, and amongst the images in the temple he found one of king Alexander, and everyone said that this statue was Alexander’s likeness in size and looks. And when Caesar saw it, he spent a long time looking at it and thinking. And then he said that if Alexander had been so small of body and so ugly, and yet had done so many good and great deeds, he, who was so large and handsome would surely do as great, or even better deeds. 13 And while he was thinking this, he went to his house and he dreamed that night that he impregnated his mother. 14 On the next day, he called for a fine seer who he always had with him, and he told him what he had thought and dreamed. 15 The seer explained his dream, and told him that his mother was the land, and just as he put her beneath him and dominated her, so he would conquer that land and be lord of everything. 16 So he went from there and went to Rome, and afterwards he was lord of the world, just as his history relates. 17 But now we return to speak of Hercules, to tell of his deeds in Spain.

You might like to remember that all of the passages we have chosen are elements of a coherent history of Spain. So the first question you might like to ask yourself is, why would a thirteenth-century historian have thought this worthy of inclusion? After all, it does not necessarily fit into the stereotype of a medieval Christian kingdom. We have our own ideas on that, but when you are transcribing, you might like to ask yourself what it says about the time and place the Estoria was written. Some of these issues, and related topics, will be taken up in our further posts and in guest blog posts too.

One of the privileges of working with medieval manuscripts, and it is truly a privilege, is to be be able to see at first hand beautiful objects over 700 years old like this one. They provide for us a physical connection with our past – after all, the human beings who composed these books held the very same object in their hands so many centuries ago. Of course we cannot provide you with this experience directly, but we can offer the next best thing. As you read through these pages what impressions do you have of the nature of the manuscript? How do you think the format changes the way that you read it? Some of the palaeographical issues which arise from this folio in particular will be taken up in the next blog post – but tell us about your impression in the comment section.

In the mean time – have fun transcribing! And let us know how you are getting along. If it goes so smoothly that you are done in no time at all, you can always do some more! Eventually we will hope to transcribe the whole manuscript. Would you like to join us?