Note 7 — Chapter II

The date of the only early manuscript of the Poem of the Cid is in these words: “Per Abbat le escribio en el mes de Mayo, en Era de Mill è CC..XLV años.” There is a blank made by an erasure between the second C and the X, which has given rise to the question, whether this erasure was made by the copyist because he had accidentally put in a letter too much, or whether it is a subsequent erasure that ought to be filled,—and, if filled, whether with the conjunction è or with another C; in short, the question is, whether this manuscript should be dated in 1245 or in 1345. (Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Madrid, 1779, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 221.) This year, 1245, of the Spanish era, according to which the calculation of time is commonly kept in the elder Spanish records, corresponds to our A. D. 1207;—a difference of 38 years, the reason for which may be found in a note to Southey’s “Chronicle of the Cid,” (London, 1808, 4to, p. 385,) without seeking it in more learned sources.

The date of the poem itself, however, is a very different question from the date of this particular manuscript of it; for the Per Abbat referred to is merely the copyist, whether his name was Peter Abbat or Peter the Abbot, (Risco, Castilla, etc., p. 68.) This question—the one, I mean, of the age of the poem itself—can be settled only from internal evidence of style and language. Two passages, vv. 3014 and 3735, have, indeed, been alleged (Risco, p. 69, Southey’s Chronicle, p. 282, note) to prove its date historically; but, after all, they only show that it was written subsequently to A. D. 1135. (V. A. Huber, Geschichte des Cid, Bremen, 1829, 12mo, p. xxix.) The point is one difficult to settle; and none can be consulted about it but natives or experts. Of these, Sanchez places it at about 1150, or half a century after the death of the Cid, (Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. p. 223,) and Capmany (Eloquencia Española, Madrid, 1786, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 1) follows him. Marina, whose opinion is of great weight, (Memorias de la Academia de Historia, Tom. IV. 1805, Ensayo, p. 34,) places it thirty or forty years before Berceo, who wrote 1220-1240. The editors of the Spanish translation of Bouterwek, (Madrid, 1829, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 112,) who give a fac-simile of the manuscript, agree with Sanchez, and so does Huber (Gesch. des Cid, Vorwort, p. xxvii.). To these opinions may be added that of Ferdinand Wolf, of Vienna, (Jahrbücher der Literatur, Wien, 1831, Band LVI. p. 251,) who, like Huber, is one of the acutest scholars alive in whatever touches Spanish and Mediæval literature, and who places it about 1140-1160. Many other opinions might be cited, for the subject has been much discussed; but the judgments of the learned men already given, formed at different times in the course of half a century from the period of the first publication of the poem, and concurring so nearly, leave no reasonable doubt that it was composed as early as the year 1200.

Mr. Southey’s name, introduced by me in this note, is one that must always be mentioned with peculiar respect by scholars interested in Spanish literature. From the circumstance, that his uncle, the Rev. Herbert Hill, a scholar, and a careful and industrious one, was connected with the English Factory at Lisbon, Mr. Southey visited Spain and Portugal in 1795-6, when he was about twenty-two years old, and, on his return home, published his Travels, in 1797;—a pleasant book, written in the clear, idiomatic, picturesque English that always distinguishes his style, and containing a considerable number of translations from the Spanish and the Portuguese, made with freedom and spirit rather than with great exactness. From this time he never lost sight of Spain and Portugal, or of Spanish and Portuguese literature; as is shown, not only by several of his larger original works, but by his translations, and by his articles in the London Quarterly Review on Lope de Vega and Camoens; especially by one in the second volume of that journal, which was translated into Portuguese, with notes, by Müller, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Lisbon, and so made into an excellent compact manual for Portuguese literary history.