Centenary Paper: Exemplo XLIV of Don Juan Manuel’s <i>El Conde Lucanor</i> : When Loyalty Leads to Lamentable Outcomes

In El Conde Lucanor , a fourteenth-century collection of stories by Don Juan Manuel, a Castilian nobleman, a count poses diverse problems to Patronio, his advisor, who responds by telling exemplary tales. In Exemplo XLIV, the count asks how he can secure the loyalty of the men of his court. Patronio recounts how a king, hearing of exceptional hardship suffered by three selfless vassals in the service of their lord, richly rewarded them, suggesting that it is through generosity that a ruler fosters faithful service from his troops and retainers. Critics have focused on the historicity of the characters in these tales, and the folkloric motifs expressed by Exemplo XLIV, but have paid little attention to incongruities in Patronio’s tales: particularly those in which the characters who commit acts of the greatest loyalty suffer the most disastrous outcomes. This seems perverse, since loyalty is the theme of the stories. To investigate the incongruities, we look into stories in the collection on the theme of loyalty, question the purpose behind them, and examine events in the life of Juan Manuel that may have shaped his concept of loyalty. And in attempting to explain some of the features of tale 44, we ask whether the meaning one gleans from this story might ultimately depend on who the reader is.