Catalan Literature: Religious and Chivalric Prose of the 14th and 15th Centuries

Religious Prose: The Ideal of Christianity

The ideal of Christianity in the 14th century had one basic objective: to move and convince the Valencian public. Sant Vicent Ferrer is the most representative figure of this oratorical prose. The author of Sermons was an indefatigable preacher.

In 1398, while sick, he had an apparition of Saint Francis, who touched his cheek and cured him. From here began his mighty evangelizing task. His sermons were preserved thanks to the presence of reportadors, characters who transcribed his words stenographically. His work is one of the most extensive in Catalan literature.

Other Religious Works

• Summa: His goal was to write a Summa collecting all the knowledge of his era.
• Vita Christi: Isabel de Villena, daughter of the writer Enrique de Villena, wrote this work. It presents the life of Jesus Christ with the peculiarity that it is told through the women surrounding him.

Chivalric Literature: Matter of Britain

By the last third of the 12th century, the public already knew the novelistic stories nourished by great figures like the Knights of the Round Table. The prose narrative of the late 14th and early 15th centuries displayed a series of narrative works that are the first manifestations of what we call the novel.

The Chivalric Novel

Narrative works based on legends gave way to books of chivalry. In the middle of the 15th century, the chivalric novel appeared:

• Curial e Güelfa: An anonymous work divided into three books that narrate the social ascent of a young man from a poor family.
• Tirant lo Blanc: Considered one of the great chivalric novels of the 15th century, it was written by Joan Martorell using realism. Martorell initiated procedures to characterize the entire history of the Renaissance novel.

Humanism in Catalan Lands

The clearest example of humanism in our land is given by the use of Latin. Dominican friars produced many Latin texts in Catalan. Their contributions to humanism are considered among the most important, highlighting their translated versions of Seneca and Petrarch's Africa.

Bernat Metge was the most complete humanist physician of the 14th century. He introduced the influence of Petrarch and Boccaccio to the peninsula.