Performing Knighthood

Gender and sexual identity have been constructed in many different guises in medieval romances of chivalry. Although often interpreted as works which epitomize a very conventional and patriarchal view of sexuality, a close reading of all these texts demonstrates that medieval ideas about sexuality were not fixed or static. Moreover, despite the many restrictions imposed on them, the heroes and heroines in these fictions textually perform and, thus, plainly display to the reader the ambiguity and porous nature of gender roles and sexual identity during the period.

The chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanc, composed in Catalan (or Valencian) ¹ by the Valencian writer and aristocrat Joanot Martorell between 1460 and 1464, although not printed until 1490, very clearly epitomizes an alternative to constructions of masculinity in the genre. The hero, Tirant lo Blanc, often performs a challenge to archetypes of masculinity in Medieval Iberia. While medieval femininity was built on the principles of silence, marital obedience and chastity, masculinity in chivalry romances was predicated on action, military prowess and forcefulness but, also, on a rejection of “effeminate” behavior or performance. This masculinist paradigm, notwithstanding, was not perceived in absolute terms and, quite often, in many knightly fictions we encounter heroes who may act passively or in a manner that exceeds the boundaries of what could be called masculinist conduct. ²

My objective is to analyze several episodes where Tirant is depicted as “queer” or effeminate and discuss the implications of placing such episodes in a text of a genre usually viewed as a paradigm of masculinity. My article will examine these instances and seek to demonstrate, by means of a comparison with a filmic twenty-first-century rendition of this romance, that preconceived and highly dubious ideas about Hispanic archetypes of being a man constructed in modern times often have distorted actual male behavior in history.

The romance Tirant lo Blanc narrates the adventures of a young Breton knight, Tirant, who leaves his land in search of fortune. He first meets a hermit, Guillem de Varoic, who instructs him in the rules of chivalry, then he initiates his adventures by participating in several tournaments all over Europe where he distinguishes himself for his prowess in combat. Later on, he travels to Sicily and the Byzantine Empire. Once there, Tirant will fall in love with the emperor’s daughter and heir to the Byzantine Empire, Carmesina, who will be the inspiration for his deeds and the principal supporter of the idea that Tirant must attain sapientia as well as fortitudo in order to be worthy of her love. The protagonist will also suffer a shipwreck, after which he will have to endure a long captivity in North Africa. There he will eventually engage in a very effective missionizing campaign of converting the infidels to Christianity, defeat the Turks in Constantinople, consummate his love for Carmesina with the help of the princess’ lady-in-waiting, Pleasure-of-my-life, and then dies of a “mal de costat” (pain in his side).

This romance has been a source of pride for modern Catalan speakers because it portrays a hero who speaks our language and who relives in the pages of the book the exciting and memorable adventures of historical Catalan heroes from the Crown of Aragon during the era of Mediterranean expansion in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. For modern Catalans, Tirant lo Blanc is not just a chivalric hero but also a national icon. The heroic knight enables us, the modern readers, to fantasize about a past that we envision as much better than our current twenty-first-century political predicament. Ironically, despite the fact that he is not a historical figure but a fictional character, Tirant lo Blanc is to Catalans what Roland is to the French or El Cid is to Castilians.

The fact that Tirant’s fictional adventures are based on a pseudohistorical chronicle written by Ramon Muntaner in the fourteenth century, which details in highly laudatory terms the deeds and successful military campaigns of several illustrious kings of the House of Barcelona, enhances the symbolic significance and mythic proportions of Joanot Martorell’s work for Catalans, and explains the high expectations placed on a 2006 film by Vicente Aranda which finally brought this hero to the screen. ³

Apart from the nationalistic interest in the story of Tirant, Martorell’s romance has also been applauded for other reasons, most tellingly, for its uninhibited approach to sex. Many critics have studied various aspects of love and sexual relationships in Tirant lo Blanc. I cannot do justice here to all these distinguished contributions, but I can briefly summarize the two major approaches to the topic. The critics can be divided in two main groups: those who think that the love scenes are indecent, lascivious and, therefore, not redeemable (e.g., Menéndez Pelayo) and those who, in trying to justify the supposed amorality of the love-making scenes resort to notions like “realismo vitalista,” humor, sheer vitality, advanced sensuality, eroticism, and so on (Dámaso Alonso, Frank Pierce, Beysterveldt, McNerney, and others).

In spite of their differing interpretations, all these critics share two commonalities. First, they invariably read the love-making scenes from a male or “masculinist” stance, which implies a negation of the confrontation clearly present in the interaction between men and women. And, second, in spite of the fact that Martorell masterly braids his tales with variegated and differing narrative threads, many of the modern critics rely totally on only one version of each story narrated, thus disregarding and marginalizing voices that are also present. In her critique of Michel Foucault’s (1990) History of Sexuality, Lin Foxhall (1998) affirms:

A rereading of some relevant passages of Tirant lo Blanc which challenges the unreliable narrator and pays close attention to the unfolding of the events will show, I believe, that ensconced within the chivalresque and masculinist discourse, one can discern an alternate discourse which epitomizes the arbitrariness of masculinity, the permeability of sexual roles and the anxiety of sexual performance.

For medieval people, sexuality, sex, and gender were not viewed as separate entities. Being a man or a woman was dependent on the actions performed. Thus, sexual identities had more to do with who was the passive or active partner in the relationship than with sexual preference. As Ruth Mazo Karras asserts “medieval people would have assumed that the desire for women came from a masculine body and, in itself, constituted masculine behavior” (p. 27). ⁴

In Tirant lo Blanc, the sexual performance or lack thereof of two particular characters, Plaerdemavida (Pleasure-of-my-Life) and Tirant, apart from providing some of the funniest scenes in the romance, serves to demonstrate that the construction of a gendered identity in medieval texts is incessantly fluctuating and, thus, it defies the norms of a very static patriarchal society.

In one of the most amusing episodes of the romance (Chapter 132), the hero asks his beloved Carmesina for a present. When she replies that she will give him whatever he wants, jewels, money, and so on, Tirant tells her that all he wants is “aquella camisa que portau, per ço com vos és més acostada a la vostra preciosa carn” (Martorell, Tirant lo Blanch, 260; the undershirt that touches her skin). ⁵ Carmesina gives it to him and the knight is so elated that, unconcerned about how ridiculous he looks, he will wear it on top of his armor:

As can be seen from the passage, once the knight takes hold of it, the shirt acquires almost sacred qualities. By virtue of its possession, Tirant will be able to do good deeds. The shirt is not only a fetish that reminds Tirant of Carmesina, but it will also enable Tirant to better himself, to become more virtuous, to achieve perfection. As the emperor affirms, echoing the trobadours’ belief that love engendered virtue, it is love that makes good deeds possible. This episode of the novel underscores the connection between love and virtue in chivalresque romances. Every novel of chivalry presents two conflicting drives, eros and the longing for moral perfection, and every knight strives to overcome this conflict and achieve virtue.

Tirant’s hilarious display of his beloved undergarments symbolizes this problematic tension between an idealized devotion to his lady and his strong sexual desire of her body. If we believe Tirant’s words, the action of wearing the lady’s “camisa” should contribute to enhancing Tirant’s worth but, instead, it serves to excite Tirant’s desires. Thus, the malady of love that afflicts the hero will prompt him to display a somewhat “uncourtly” behavior: instead of behaving discreetly he will depart from the restraint of a courtly lover through his cross-dressing performance, which not only unveils the identity of the lady but also Tirant’s interest in her bodily qualities.

Furthermore, although Tirant adores his lady to the point of fetishizing her garments, in this instance love will not engender virtue, at least not in the etymological sense of “virtus” (vir), that is as virility. On the contrary, although Tirant will very proudly parade the intimate garment publicly, such inappropriate dressing up of the knight would certainly provoke raucous laughter among the courtiers. The construction of masculine identity in this episode is fraught with contradictions and signals the hero as female or a woman.

This laughter addressed to the hero in drag and vocalized by the Emperor’s comment about Tirant’s unusual garment, ultimately serves to unveil the misogyny underlining the homophobic reaction of the courtiers, most of them knights such as Tirant. As Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick affirms in her study of male homosexual desire in early modern England, “homophobia directed by men against men is misogynistic . . . not only that it is oppressive of the so-called feminine in men, but that is oppressive of women” (p. 20). But the line between homophobia and homoeroticism is indeed thin in this romance where we consistently find that while Tirant’s desiring gaze is directed toward Carmesina and Constantinople, the other male characters’ desiring gaze is persistently directed toward Tirant. For example, after Tirant’s shipwreck in the North of Africa, he is found unconscious and naked in a cave by a hunter and he describes Tirant’s body to his lord along these terms:

Later on the Caudillo himself will praise Tirant’s beauty and his bodily perfection and will tenderly compare the knight to Saint Sebastian:

Rafael Beltrán (2006) argues that these passages can perhaps be explained not as a result of a homoerotic gaze but as the distorted or subverted recreation of a courtly topos: “la contemplación absorta de la belleza de la dama dormida—, que utilizarán con profusión la novela corta y la novela de aventuras, desde el siglo XVI en adelante.” As the object of a homoerotic gaze or as a subverted sleeping lady, the fact remains that the hero Tirant becomes “feminized” as a passive object of adoration.

Moreover, there are other instances in the Catalan romance where Tirant is depicted as “queer” for breaching the boundaries of expected manly behavior. In Chapter 228, Plaerdemavida arranges for the knight to surreptitiously sneak in the princess chamber so that he can watch her bathe:

After the hero Tirant watches his beloved Carmesina bathe, Pleasure-of-my-life puts the princess to bed and helps Tirant out of the chest, telling him to undress. Tirant is trembling and terrified but Pleasure-of-my-life relentlessly responds “How now? No man alive is brave in arms but afraid of women. In battle you are not daunted by all the knights in creation, and here you tremble at the sight of a mere damsel. Have no fear, for I shall remain at your side.” (p. 371)

As has been already discussed elsewhere (Piera and Shearn 2009), the knight’s timidity in this passage is construed as effeminate by Pleasure-of-my life, who mocks Tirant for his lack of resolve. Her remarks blatantly undermine this knight’s fortitudo, one of the foremost attributes of masculinity and knightly prowess. Because Tirant is refusing to perform his role as knight and acts uncharacteristically he is portrayed as “queer,” which seriously undermines his knightly stature. The lady in waiting, on the other hand, steps into the position and she becomes the agent; not only is she thrusting Tirant into action but she is also caressing and touching Carmesina’s body as if she were Tirant. Therefore, she is here the one performing as a male, according to the distinctions outlined by Karras. In this episode, both characters are “queer” not only in regard to genre, since they do not follow the conventions of the chivalric romance, but also in regard to gender because Tirant performs as a female and Pleasure-of-my- life performs as a male. This particular passage illustrates the prevalence and acceptance of homoeroticism among women in the fictional court of Byzantium, as seen in the fact that Carmesina does not object to the intimate fondling as long as she thinks Pleasure-of-my-life is the one doing it; she only cries out when she later realizes that Tirant is the person lying next to her. This passage, however, also evokes the anxiety of a gender reversal (Piera and Shearn, 91–92).

Erotic passages such as these are the ones that have prompted twentieth-century critics to label Tirant lo Blanc a modern “novel.” ⁷ But oddly enough, they neglect to scrutinize the one aspect that could be seen as perhaps supporting their view of this novel as uninhibited, namely, the instances of “queer” sexual behavior and/or homoeroticism. Instead, a romance which very often depicts instances of homoerotic encounters or situations where gender roles are clearly reversed has been consistently interpreted as a “modern novel” and praised for its “realistic” portrayal of heterosexual love and desire. Some critics have persisted in presenting reductive readings of the romance, totally eschewing the importance of the homoerotic dynamic at play in the text, as if by overemphasizing the discourse of masculinity they could push to the edges the reality of homoeroticism in the fifteenth-century text. What is needed, as Israel Burshatin affirms, is “to move the stories we tell out of the ‘various secret closets and cabinets of wonder’, to naturalize queerness” (p. 451). It is obvious that the characters in Tirant lo Blanc see homoeroticism as normal and natural, not exceptional. We, the readers, should do the same.

After all we need to recognize that “homoerotic poetics and homophilic ethics fundamentally characterize certain constructions of medieval chivalry found in codes, rituals and texts” (González-Casanova 1999, 173) and that homoeroticism was explicit in texts such as Ramon Llull’s Llibre d’Amic e Amat as well as in French epic texts (Simon Gaunt). As we have already seen, in Tirant lo Blanc there are also several instances of homoeroticism, among men, among women and among men and women when a member of the other sex performs or behaves as the opposite sex.

The last episode I will examine features, once more, Pleasure-of-my-life’s performance of a role reversal which foregrounds the instability and equivocality of the character’s sexual identity. ⁸ But it also evidences that another female character can outdo the brilliant strategist, Tirant, by devising a complicated and deceitful farce. The Viuda Reposada is in love with Tirant herself and thus tries to separate the young lovers by concocting a performance or “reprovada ficció” to make Tirant believe that Carmesina is unfaithful to him. She first begs Tirant to go to a room in which through a clever system of mirrors the knight will be able to look through a window into the garden below. Then, with the pretext of entertaining the princess, the Viuda Reposada asks Pleasure-of-my-life to disguise herself as Carmesina’s black gardener, Lauseta, and to put on a show:

The narrator makes the point of explaining that Carmesina had just woken up from a nap and, thus, she is half-naked, her clothes are untied, and her hair is loose. She, unaware that Tirant is watching the scene, happily and innocently frolics with Pleasure-of-my-life. The lady-in-waiting here is not just “dressed” as a man, but she also acts like one, chasing Carmesina, kissing her, touching her breasts, and even her genitalia, which she reaches by lifting the princess’s skirts (in a gesture which resembles the one Tirant had performed earlier when he touched Carmesina’s private parts by putting the tip of his toe under her skirts). The vivacious lady is also performing gender in this instance. Her masculinist display is so convincing that Tirant, spying through the window, becomes enraged and kills the true gardener upon his return from Pera. Surprisingly, however, his reaction is uncharacteristic. ⁹ He expresses vividly the dishonor that he believes Carmesina has inflicted upon him but instead of choosing to cleanse the stain with a public revenge, performing his knightly duty, Tirant puts on a disguise, cuts Lauseta’s throat in secret and does not tell anyone about it:

It will not be until much later in the narration that this new obstacle to the lovers’ relationship will be overcome when Tirant finally learns the truth about the Viuda’ deception.

Tirant is not always conventional or knightly in other areas either, such as in regard to accomplishing the fulfillment of his sexual desires; on the contrary, often he is the passive partner, hence performing the role of the woman. As for his sexual desires they are, in fact, quite conventional: he covets Carmesina and it is clearly a sexual, not a platonic, desire, as can be easily appreciated in the scene when the knight falls in love upon seeing Carmesina’s breasts, not her eyes. This moment is also symbolically dramatized by the author, who equates Carmesina, the Princess, to Constantinople, the city.

Since its founding by Constantine in 330 Constantinople was, at least from a highly symbolic standpoint, the most important city in the world. The site of the empire, heir to the power of Rome and Augustus, vessel of unimaginable wealth, a bridge between the Orient and the West, Constantinople had been founded because of a dream. From then on, the city and its allure of riches and power had become the matter of dreams and, as if it were a woman, Constantinople had been besieged and coveted by every knight, every leader, and every power in the region, Christian and Muslim alike. To protect itself, the city had built impenetrable defenses and its walls had astoundingly withstood centuries of fierce attacks by its enemies, adding to the myth of the might and superiority of the city.

The fifteenth-century romance Tirant lo Blanc dramatizes very vividly both the astonished reaction of the outsider upon seeing the marvelous city and the possibility that the outsider’s gaze will bring destruction to the object of his desiring gaze. To better illustrate this paradox, the narrator of Tirant lo Blanc will juxtapose the historical and military imagery to the imagery of lovemaking: both Constantinople and the beloved, Carmesina, need to be conquered and possessed. Tellingly the title of the chapter where Tirant and Carmesina will consummate their love is: “Com Tirant per força d’armes entra lo castell,” “How Tirant won the battle and forced his way into the castle.” (Chapter 436). And, accordingly, both the city and the beloved need to protect themselves from the attack of the outsider, the enemy.

The city of Constantinople was well aware of these dangers. During the Fourth Crusade (1204), it was the Westerners (referred to as “the Latins” by the Greeks) and not the Muslims who attacked and pillaged their city. The foreigners were supposed to help them against the common enemy and, instead, lured by the city’s riches, they invaded and plundered Constantinople.

In addition, there was another set of historical events that mirrored the events of the Fourth Crusade: the expedition of the “Almogavers,” also called the “Catalan Company.” In 1302, an army of mercenaries who owed allegiance to the King of Aragon sold their services to the Byzantine emperor Michael IX who was being assailed by the Turks. The “Almogavers,” led by Roger de Flor, were very successful in their military enterprise against the Turks but the Greeks mistrusted them and did not approve of their methods.

The story of the Almogavers was widely known among the readers of the Crown of Aragon through an account written by Ramon Muntaner, who participated in the expedition. Joanot Martorell was familiar with it as attested to by the fact that many elements and characters of Tirant lo Blanc are derived from this chronicle. For example, there are several parallels between Roger de Flor and Tirant. Roger was welcomed enthusiastically when he arrived in Constantinople with a fleet of twelve ships (Tirant has eleven). Both Roger and Tirant are distrusted by some of the groups in the empire (Tirant by the Duke of Macedonia, Roger by the Alans and the Genoese). Roger was first made megaduc (Tirant becomes captain general) and then Caesar. Roger was promised the emperor’s niece; Tirant is given his daughter. Roger and Tirant fight the Grand Karaman in Anatolia. And finally, Roger and Tirant both die in Adrianapole at the height of their success but very dishonorably, Roger de Flor ambushed and assassinated, and Tirant lo Blanc of a prosaic pain in his side.

In addition to these historical connections, there were other dynastic, commercial, and diplomatic links between Constantinople and the Crown of Aragon. The House of Barcelona was related through marriage to the Byzantine royal dynasties. Jaume I’s grandmother, for example, was a Byzantine princess, Eudoxia Comnena, daughter of emperor Manuel I Comnenus (1143–80). Also, when the Mediterranean expansion of the Crown of Aragon began in the thirteenth-century Catalan merchants established colonies in Constantinople. Anecdotically, the ship that transported Emperor Constantine XI to his capital after his precarious crowning at Mitra was a Catalan ship (Redondo 26). And a contingent of Catalans was entrusted with the defense of the Kondoskalion sector of the city in 1453. And last, but not least, on several occasions the kings of the House of Barcelona, ruling in Aragon and Sicily, opposed the Papacy and allied themselves with the Byzantine emperors in order to counteract the ascendancy of the French Anjous (C. Marinescu, T. Izquierdo, J. Redondo, and L. Stegagno Picchio).

Tirant and his companions arrive in Constantinople summoned by the Byzantine emperor, who has requested the knight’s help in delivering Constantinople from the besieging Turks. The account of the hero’s first encounter and his subsequent experience of Constantinople mirrors quite accurately the impression which the city or the ideal conception of the city had imprinted in the European imaginary, through various accounts such as Liutprando of Cremona’s account of his visit to the court of Niceforo Focas (963–69) or pilgrimage and travel books such as Le pelegrinage de Charlemagne and Andanças e viajes de Pero Tafur (1435) and, of course Ramon Muntaner’s chronicle (T. Izquierdo). Marti de Riquer, Josep Guia, Jordi Redondo, and Teresa Izquierdo have studied the protocol followed by the emperor when greeting Tirant and agree that the novel seems to accurately depict the ceremonial and luxury of the Byzantine court as described by several witnesses’ accounts.

While there is nothing unusual about selecting Constantinople as the locus where the action takes place in a chivalry novel, and, in fact, there are many other examples of medieval romances which follow similar plots and exhibit the same type of topical descriptions of the city, such as the Gui de Warewic (s. XIII), Historia del cavaller Partinuples, comte de Blois (s. XIII), Cligés, Palmerín de Olivia, Historia de Jacob Xalabin, Curial e Güelfa, among others, the novel Tirant lo Blanc does, however, depart in significant ways from other manifestations of this productive motif (Pujol 2002; Hauf 1990). Most notably, what is added by Martorell is a metaphorical component which will effect a fusion between the city and the knight’s beloved; at the same time that he enters, meets the city and becomes enthralled by it, he also meets and becomes captivated by Carmesina, the emperor’s daughter. From this point on, the reader will realize that the two levels of meaning in these episodes, that is, the literal and the allegorical, are one and the same: Carmesina is the city and Tirant wants her.

This fusion is constantly dramatized through the reference to several objects or places which metonymically denote the concept of Empire and which will gradually progress from material artifacts to the various parts of the body of Carmesina, who as heiress of Constantinople, embodies the Empire. The first one of these objects is the imperial staff which the emperor offers Tirant:

Instead of accepting the staff, Tirant kneeled in front of the Emperor and replied that he did not deserve such honor and that he did not want to usurp that which was not rightfully his. Upon the Emperor’s insistence, Tirant eventually takes the staff but it is clear that at this point there is no intention of attaining the office of the Empire.

A little later, the Emperor will take Tirant to see the imperial treasure room, a place forbidden to anyone else which is full of coins, jewels, and luxurious objects; this gets Tirant even closer to attaining the prize, the treasure of Constantinople. Still, the hero seems uninterested.

This state of affairs will change, however, once Tirant enters the Imperial Palace. There, in a space very much determined by the succession of closed rooms and enclosed women surrounded by veils, Tirant starts to bring light and hope to the beleaguered city. After he kisses the hand of the princess, he orders that the windows be opened and brandishes a torch that will illuminate the surrounding obscurity. He subsequently sees Carmesina and the vision of her naked breasts will produce a change in Tirant; he will fall in love and will exclaim: “No creguera jamés que en aquesta terra hagés tantes coses admirables com veig” (Martorell Tirant lo Blanch Chapter 118, 374). Tirant, like every other Arthurian or courtly lover, succumbs to love through his eyes but there is a subversion of the traditional topos here, since the hero’s eyes are captivated not by the lady’s eyes but by her breasts, which are described as “dues pomes de paradís que crestallines parien” (Chapter 118, 374). ¹⁰

Spurred by lust, Tirant will bring light and hope to the Empire but will also begin desiring it actively. And Carmesina’s body will acquire sacred properties as was illustrated in the passage mentioned before (Chapter 132). As we saw earlier, once the knight takes hold of it, her shirt acquires almost sacred qualities. But the possession of the shirt also indicates that all the ambitions of the knight can only be fulfilled through the body of Carmesina.

Carmesina, as the heiress of Constantinople, personifies the Empire. Tirant knows it and now he unquestionably intends to attain both: “En alegria de goig ineffable fon posada l’anima de Tirant com se veu en cami per poder posseir la corona de l’imperi grec per mitja de les noves esposalles” (Martorell Tirant lo Blanch 110). Love and conquest are, thus, inextricably linked in Tirant lo Blanc.

The next step in the progression from owning the objects that symbolically represent the Empire (the staff, the treasure) to owning objects of Carmesina, who embodies the Empire, is exemplified by the episode where Tirant has access to Carmesina’s private parts, which Tirant touches with his foot. After that, while he is hiding in a closet he will contemplate Carmesina’s naked body and witness Plaerdemavida touching Carmesina’s body. The next step will be when he touches her body himself and finally the scene where he will go all the way, let’s say, when he attains the final prize. This gradation, which requires that Tirant penetrates various, ever smaller or more intimate spaces, parallels the various stages of penetration of the layers of walls during the siege of Constantinople in 1453.

Thus, in order to conquer the Empire, Tirant needed not only to subdue the Turks but, more importantly, to dominate Carmesina. On the other hand, Carmesina’s only weapon to maintain her hierarchical superiority or, at least, some kind of equality with Tirant was the preservation of her virginity. Howard Bloch (1991) explains it thus:

Consequently, Carmesina had good reasons to reject or stall Tirant’s amorous overtures. She was a royal princess and the heiress of the Empire and must behave accordingly. She must select not only the most suitable husband for herself but also the best candidate to defeat the Turks and govern the Empire, knowing that when she finds such a person, she will have to relinquish her power.

The significance of Carmesina’s virginity is insisted upon even more in the rendition of Martorell’s novel created by film director Vicente Aranda in 2006. In Aranda’s film, the symbolic representation of Carmesina as the Empire and the emphasis on Carmesina’s body as the locus of power is even more blatant than in the novel. In fact, the film has actually reduced the novel to an account of how to accomplish the consummation of Tirant’s possession of Carmesina’s body.

First, the film starts when Tirant reaches Constantinople, that is, in the last part of Martorell’s novel, thus disregarding the previous sections of the work, which are crucial for an understanding of the significance of the episodes at the court of Constantinople. Second, the only action in the film is whatever contributes to getting Tirant closer to having intercourse with Carmesina and all the dialogues repeat the same; for example, in one instance Plaerdemavida says: “We will all do our best so that you may accomplish your goal.” Tirant responds: “Why?” And she candidly replies: “We want an emperor for the Empire.” And later she will tell him: “I swear to you that you will be our emperor.” As a matter of fact, in the English version of the film we find, in addition to the title, “Tirante el Blanco,” a subtitle called “The Maiden’s Conspiracy.” The film strives to present a version of the novel which underscores the agency of the maids in making it possible for Tirant to become the husband of Carmesina and to avert the danger of her marriage to the Grand Sultan. But in doing so they go too far because what in the original was just amusing, in the film ends up being totally ridiculous.

In the romance, Tirant falls from a window and breaks his leg while fleeing from Carmesina’s bedroom. In the film, instead, Tirant breaks both legs, which means that from then on the hero has to be transported everywhere on a stretcher. And, consequently, in the scene where the consummation of Tirant and Carmesina’s love finally takes place, the hero has to be placed on top of Carmesina by his retinue and the maidens and Tirant’s companions hold and move his legs so that he can do the deed, given that both his legs are impaired. The scene is, consequently, absolutely humiliating and degrading. But in a sense then the subtitle becomes clear; the maids are most certainly instrumental in uniting Tirant and Carmesina.

The utmost absurdity comes next, though, when Tirant’s impotence in bed becomes impotence also in battle. Of course, his legs are broken so when he falls from his horse during the battle with the Grand Sultan, the enemy of Constantinople and Carmesina’s suitor, the viewer thinks the hero is done for. But the director is not done debasing Tirant, literally. An unlikely duel ensues between Tirant and the Turkish leader, both of them on their knees and one cannot help to think of the classic comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974) and, in particular, the scene where a knight clad in black is challenging every one that comes along to a duel. King Arthur first cuts the black knight’s arms, then one leg, and finally the other leg but even from the ground and reduced to half of his body he keeps challenging and insulting his opponent urging him to continue. The Monty Python scene is hilarious while the duel between Tirant and his enemy looks absolutely ludicrous and not very heroic.

I could delve much more into the different readings of Martorell’s novel that the film proposes but I will refrain from it in the interest of space. ¹¹ Interestingly, however, the director’s version of this story draws attention to Carmesina’s virginity to the extent that it becomes the theme of the film and as such is described in the trailer and press releases: “Tirante el Blanco: En un mundo en guerra; el arma más poderosa es la virginidad de una princesa.” Furthermore, since the release of the film, the novel is now reedited with a new front cover which shows a picture of a female navel, which, in a not very subtle way, echoes Menéndez Pelayo’s very outdated and prudish assertion that Tirant lo Blanc is a “pornographic novel.”

Vicente Aranda also fails to appreciate the nuances of Martorell’s engaging exploration of personal and sexual relationships. Aranda reduces the sexual interactions in the text to conventional encounters based on a patriarchal masculinist mold and turns the hero into an impotent, almost castrated (since his broken legs literally and figuratively symbolize a useless penis) and feminized hero. Martorell, on the other hand, had created a hero who was not sexually rigid but malleable, a knight who faced, embraced, and tried to resolve the contradictions inherent within the code of chivalry that had been imposed on him.

Tirant lo Blanc is a romance that constantly problematizes assumptions about sexual and gender identities. As both Foucault (1990) and Halperin (1990) argue, speaking of “homosexuality” in the early modern period is anachronistic but Tirant lo Blanc, composed in the middle of the fifteenth century, illustrates that Joanot Martorell and his contemporaries not only were aware of sexual identities but also that they must have pondered over such issues often. More importantly, however, it also elucidates that our contemporary notion of the dichotomy between heterosexual and homosexual love was irrelevant to them because the characters in the romance view homoeroticism and gender reversals as acceptable and, consequently, the “queerness” observed in the previously described episodes would not have been seen as necessarily “queer” but as another facet of love and sexual desire.

Reading Tirant lo Blanc one may, thus, infer that readers and listeners of chivalric romances were very cognizant of the ambiguities of sex, the arbitrariness of sexual identity, and the contradictions inherent within the code of chivalry.