Note 141 — Chapter V
Reading edition
There are at least two manuscripts of the poems of this Jew, from which nothing has been published but a few poor extracts. The one commonly cited is that of the Escurial, used by Castro, (Biblioteca Española, Tom. I. pp. 198-202,) and by Sanchez (Tom. I. pp. 179-184, and Tom. IV. p. 12, etc.). The one I have used is in the National Library, Madrid, marked B. b. 82, folio, in which the poem of the Rabbi is found on leaves 61 to 81. Conde, the historian of the Arabs, preferred this manuscript to the one in the Escurial, and held the Rabbi’s true name to be given in it, viz. Santob, and not Santo, as it is in the manuscript of the Escurial; the latter being a name not likely to be taken by a Jew in the time of Peter the Cruel, though very likely to be written so by an ignorant monkish transcriber. The manuscript of Madrid begins thus, differing from that of the Escurial, as may be seen in Castro, ut sup.:—
Señor Rey, noble, alto, Oy este Sermon, Que vyene desyr Santob, Judio de Carrion. Comunalmente trobado, De glosas moralmente, De la Filosofia sacado, Segunt que va syguiente. My noble King and mighty Lord, Hear a discourse most true; ’T is Santob brings your Grace the word, Of Carrion’s town the Jew. In plainest verse my thoughts I tell, With gloss and moral free, Drawn from Philosophy’s pure well, As onward you may see.
The oldest notice of the Jew of Carrion is in the letter of the Marquis of Santillana to the Constable of Portugal, from which there can be no doubt that the Rabbi still enjoyed much reputation in the middle of the fifteenth century.