Miguel de Cervantes’ “The Dialogue of the Dogs” as Social Commentary by Tajae Pryce

            “In The Dialogue of the Dogs”, Cervantes employs the use of colloquial exchange between two characters to touch on various aspects of society in early modern Spain. This dialogue, however, is irrationally taking place between two dogs sharing autobiographical stories allowing Cervantes’ social satire and criticisms to come across as more accessible to his audiences rather than blatant denigration. A few of the social topics he addresses through this unconventionally constructed short story are the corruption of authority, both civic and religious, the effects of disconnected systems of power in morally misguided societies and the plight of creative artists and writers such as himself of being true to their works or creating publications tailored for mass appeal.

            One of the stories Berganza the dog shares is about his time in a slaughterhouse in Seville. Here, he is exposed to people of selfish intentions who have shunned morality and proper social order in pursuit of the attainment of their own self-interests. “…They are like vultures, maintaining themselves and their mistresses on what they steal” (253). The unsupervised workers at the slaughterhouse allowed their true personas to show, doing whatever it took to plunder prime cutes of meet for themselves including causing harm or imposing death to others without much remorse, as Berganza explains, “But nothing shocked me more or struck me as more scandalous than to see that these slaughterhouse workers will kill a man as easily as a cow”. The actions of these workers represent the tendency for society to act in a mob mentality when presented with opportunities, especially in societies where immoral behavior was as commonplace as in early modern Spain’s working class. This may also be a representation of Cervantes’ view of Spain’s lawmakers and nobility governing a population whom they have no connection nor direct intervention into their day to day lives, seeing how these laws actually impact the people. Rather, the nobility employs public servants as protectors of the legal system despite the fact that these servants can be just as immoral and self-interested as other social deviants.

            “Dialogue’s” episode detailing Bergama’s tenure as a shepherd dog, addresses the corruptive nature of humankind as well as dishonesty in spiritual leadership. The cruelty conveyed through the dishonest shepherds, feigning attacks by wolves in order to steal from their owners, serves as a vivid analogy of shepherds of Christian followers deceiving their blindly faithful and unquestioning flock in order to carry out their own agendas. Spain’s religious system at the time was interwoven with the governmental system, thus allowing for decrees of indulgence requirements and essentially ‘witch-hunts’ for religious deviants. Berganza’s strong loyalty to his shepherd masters leads him to truly believe their commands and accept punishment that may be given to him despite his own rationale because he trusts them. They have fed him, seen him as useful and continuously reinforce their orders. It is not only until he is exposed to the true nature of the shepherds that Berganza is enlightened to the horrible paradox that systematically exists and questions how such a corrupt system based on trust could be exposed to more people. “I was shocked and amazed to see that the shepherds were the wolves and the very people who were supposed to be guarding the flock were tearing it to pieces”, “Who will have the power to persuade anyone that the defenders are on the offensive, that the sentries are sleeping, that it doesn’t pay to trust anyone and that those who guard also kill?” (259). The parallels drawn from the story to Spanish society is Cervantes’ call to action to a conscious collective of revolutionaries who must aim to enlighten society of the corruption that exists in the Church and how the same church that condemns nonbelievers and heretics does so to propagate the gluttonous agendas of those in positions of power.

            Cervantes also comments on the challenges that writers face in his section detailing the poet Berganza meets. Perhaps a reflection of Cervantes’ own impediments, the poet is described as deeply enthralled in the particulars of his play, striving to make it as historically accurate and poetically sound as possible only to be ridiculed and deserted by one of the actors for the poets exorbitance and demands. Cervantes seems to illustrate his own frustrations with a society focused more on sensational and entertaining works of art as opposed to literal contributions that serve to challenge societal inconsistencies and provide historical and rational insight on social issues; thus inciting constructive debate into the social consciousness of a population.  I believe that Cervantes may feel that some of his literary work and especially his poetry had been undervalued by society while contributions such as Don Quixote, a classic in its own right, were more appreciated because of its entertainment value. The poet portrayed in “Dialogue” is fixated on the need for accuracy in his play and his efforts are received as arbitrary embellishments. Cervantes hold the philosophy that art and literature should serve the role of not only reflecting the society it describes, but to also advocate for morality and the rectification of injustices.

            The discourse between Berganza and Scipio is one that allows the audience to view themselves and their actions from a different perspective, one of innocence and simplicity. These dogs provide subjective insight into the actions of various levels of early modern Spain’s society, and the corruption and inconsistencies that exist throughout. Cervantes’ unconventional approach effectively accomplishes his purpose for this short story. He humbles the audience and forces autoscopic reflection, not only for the reader’s own motives and behavior, but also for their societal institutions and cultural norms. The constant theme of corruption expressed through satire in this story is a genre that has been utilized by generations of advocacies in order to allow the level of accessibility needed to incite grassroots-driven transformations of what pillars society chooses to uphold, maintain and ratify.

      De Cervantes, Miguel. “The Dialogue of the Dogs.” In Exemplary Stories. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998

Review of Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia by William D. Phillips, Jr. - Tajae Pryce

        

William D. Phillips, Jr.  Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014

        Systems of slavery have been present since the beginning of recorded history. In the Iberian Peninsula, slavery was prominent and maintained under Muslim rule as well as under the governance of medieval Christian kingdoms and continued to be a structural component of Mediterranean society up until its eventual decline in the 19^th century. Slavery, as a practice, traces its roots back to Greco-Roman societies where captives of war were turned into slaves and would eventually evolve into complex systems of social stratification, which would encompass not only social, but also economic and political implications as well. In this book, Phillips explores the history of slavery in Iberia by creating a synthesis of available surveys on the topic and referencing both archival records as well as contemporary scholarly literature. Historians attribute the noted “boom period” of a flourishing production of material on the study of Iberian slavery, spanning from the 1980s to the beginning of the 21^st century, to the rise of the number of students pursuing advance degrees as well as the increased availability of production avenues. Phillips himself has written on the topic before in the 1980s and has now chosen to approach the subject with more focus on Spain and the Iberian Peninsula utilizing the vast amount of available research.

            In early Spain, three major avenues were commonplace in terms of one becoming a slave. Slaves were either captives of war, enemies of the ruling faith, or born into servitude by enslaved mothers. Cultural and societal variations existed; however, these methods would be the guidelines for the institution throughout its history. In some cases, slavery could be a punitive sentence for guilty offenders as was the case in the Visogothic kingdom where violent and public offenses carried mandatory enslavement sentences with the possibility of enslavement to the royal treasury or kingship. In the early modern period, convicts were subjected to enslavement fulfilling the roles of society too difficult to attract cheap or free labor such as the roles of galley slaves, miners, and menial public works.  Evidence of the social and legal attitudes towards slavery can be shown through records of legal codes such as the Siete Partidas. The Siete Partidas, or “Seven Part Code” describes a Castilian legal code first established during the reign of Alfonso the Great that lays out a list of laws for the state. From this list of codes, historians have learned more about the life of a slave; “Every slave is…obliged to obey…Not only is a slave under obligations…to his master, but also to the wife and children of the latter (79).” This is also where the practice of slavery by birth, captivity and treason is derived. It has also been observed that slavery in Spain and the surrounding states has always been a female dominant system.

In all accounts from records stemming from Visogothic, Muslim or Christian society, women have always been the preferred gender for slaves. Women would also hold higher monetary value than their male counterparts primarily serving in domestic roles as well as being used as assistants in artisan shops and markets. With slave owners being in total control of their servants, it was often commonplace for female slaves to be coerced into concubinage or forced sexual relations. Although male slaves would also have been subjected to the sex trade, female slaves endured the most perilous of consequences such as unwanted pregnancies and unsupervised child bearing. Records of Spain under Muslim rule show the prevalence of concubinage on a mass, commonplace scale. Islamic tradition allowed free Muslim men to have up to four wives legally along with as many slave mistresses as he pleased. There were cases of Muslim men marrying slaves, whom they would have to have set free ceremoniously or by paying or being granted the permission of that slave’s master, and would keep them confined to an isolated section of their homes, away from society. As for familial relations among slaves, permission to marry would have to be granted by one’s owner. These instances of marriage among slaves were not very prominent as slaves lost their market value after marriage.

In regards to attaining freedom, many slaves would resort to flight; either to their homelands or to carry out their lives in the underworld of their captive land. In Medieval Christian Spain, flight from enslavement or even the attempt to flee, was a punishable crime and labeled as “theft of one’s own person (123).” Slaves who were caught attempted to flee would oftentimes be publically dragged through streets and hanged. Laws also existed in regards to those who aided a fleeing slave to have his ears cut off. These laws were barbaric, even for the time, especially in Christian Spain and are retroactively looked at by historians as a means to use fear to deter captives from attempting escape as well as freemen to assist them. The prevalence of escapees was so great, owners would often purchase a form of insurance on his slaves in the event of “losing” them and, as was the case in Barcelona in 1400 by a prominent slave owner Fransec Muntornes, agents would be hired to reclaim slaves who had fled captivity (124). Slaves from sub-Saharan Africa were obviously at a geographical loss when it came to the option of escaping to their homelands. There are also records of slaves who fled from ships and lived in hiding in the vast wilderness of the Americas.

By the 15^th century, the ethnic diversity of slaves in Spain over the ancient and Medieval periods would decline as sub-Saharan Africans became the dominant group of people involved in not only the slave trade in Iberia, but the rest of Europe as well. Estimated numbers of around 156,000 sub-Saharan Africans were imported into Europe and the Peninsula by the early 16^th century, but the mass demand for slaves existed in the New World, The Americas. It was in the colonial Americas where more than 10 million Africans were transported to via the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Both the Spaniards and the Portuguese would shift to a forced labor population of Black Africans in the Americas and Brazil respectively. Labor in the newly acquired colonies was far too great and intensive to be done by the Europeans themselves and native populations of the indigenous people were withering away either to disease or by the initial attacks by the Europeans. Sub-Saharan slaves often came from civilizations that flourished in intensive agricultural practices and hard labor. The slave system would evolve, taking customs from Old World codes and adapt to commercialization of free labor that existed throughout the Western World. Demands for slaves would rise as demands for certain commodities such as sugar or textiles would rise. This economic system led to what historians overall agree an even harsher system of slavery where the servants were firs and foremost objects and commodities. This institution of slavery would continue in Spain and its vast colonies for centuries until gradual abolishment of the practice was attained in the 19^th century.

Phillips’ approach to this topic is done in the most effective way possible. He chose to delve into as much available literature on the subject as he could, while taking into account historical perspective and hindsight. He also recognizes that there is no black and white narrative in regards to slavery or the meaning of enslavement or freedom, nor can the multiple variations of slave systems be looked at as monolithic practices. The author gives examples of various societies and their practices in order to establish a background for their legal doctrines as well as their socio-economic traditions. “The study of slavery is complicated and involves much more than a simple dichotomy between slave and free or slavery and freedom (5)”. The author is conscious of different cultures and various elements of society, but still manages to create a chronological account for Spanish slavery as a legal system and as a cultural element in a way that this book is fit for scholarly readers to utilize.