In the era of developed feudalism, so-called chivalrous romances were especially widespread. One of the best examples of this genre is the Spanish composition "Amadis of Gaul". It was written by an anonymous author in the first half of the 14th century. The medieval manuscript is not fully extant. Only in 1956 were four new fragments found and published. As early as the end of the XV century.-

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the initial text was revised by G. Rodriguez de Montalvo, who, as he wrote in the Prologue, cleaned the text "from a lot of unnecessary words and put in their place new ones, more elegant and elegant style" 1 . Later, he wrote the novel "The Exploits of Esplandian", telling about the deeds of the son of Amadis. The first known 4-volume edition of Amadis was published in 1508, and The Exploits of Esplandian was published in 1510.

We don't know much about Montalvo's personality: he was a soldier in the Reconquista, then a city councilor in Medina. Judging by the names of the kings mentioned by him, in whose reign he lived, at the time of processing "Amadis" he was over 50. Since 1961, the Prado Museum (Madrid) exhibits the painting "Descent from the Cross", painted by the Toledo artist P. Machuca. On the canvas are the words: "Commissioned by Dona Ine del Castillo, wife of Rejidor Garci and Rodríguez de Montalvo, completed in 1547". Along with traditional characters, it depicts a knight on foot in armor from the beginning of the XVI century. "Undoubtedly, this is a portrait of Garey Rodriguez de Montalvo," says the prominent expert M. de Riker, " but is it the same one? If it could be established that the wife of the author of "Amadis" was named Ine del Castillo, doubts would be dispelled. " 2
The example of "Amadis of Gaul" shows what the historian can learn from the romance of chivalry and how his ideas influenced the worldview of Spanish society in the XVI century. Since this novel has not yet been studied or fully translated in the USSR, 3 and most readers usually know about its existence from the work of M. de Cervantes "Don Quixote" (where almost every page contains the names of the characters of "Amadis"), we will briefly introduce readers to the plot of the novel and its main characters individuals.

King Perion of Gaul fell in love with the Scottish Queen's sister Elisena. When he was away, she gave birth to a son. An ancient law stated that a woman's cohabitation outside of marriage was punishable by death. "And this cruel custom lasted until the reign of King Arthur, the best that ever ruled, who abolished it." 4 To avoid retribution, Elisena put the baby in a box and set it afloat, the box was discovered by the knight Langines. He taught the boy the science of chivalry and named him the Young Man of the Sea. Meanwhile, Perion and Elisena had a second "legitimate" son, Galaor, who was abducted by a giant as a child. Galaor was raised by a priest, and also in the chivalrous tradition, but strictly according to books. The young man of the sea became the page of Princess Oriana; the young men fell in love. Then, in the course of jousting tournaments, the Young Man of the sea found his father, brother and his real name. Now nothing prevented him from taking Oriana as his wife, but Amadis wanted to prove his right to her hand in action and performed a number of feats in her honor, among them-the release of prisoners from the dungeons of the wizard's castle Arcalaus.

The freedmen greeted the hero as follows:" Amadis, your feat is akin to the deed of our Savior Jesus Christ! " 5 Here is reflected the medieval myth that Christ, having destroyed hell, freed the souls of the dead from torment. This myth was not included in the text of holy scripture, as it would have negated the authority of the official church. However, the myth was popular among the people. We find an echo of it in the description of another of Amadis's exploits , the conquest of a Solid Island, where only a perfect knight and a devoted lover could penetrate; others were frozen like stones. Amadis removed the spell from these losers, including the same Arkalaus. The latter himself claimed Oriana and sent her false news of his death, and one of Amadis ' companions informed Oriana of his treason. Hard Island receives Oriana's woeful reply. Amadis, without trying to prove his case, takes the name of a Beautiful mourner and repents on a Poor Rock. Later, Oriana had a son, Esplandian. (At one of the tournaments in which Amadis also took part under the name of a Greek Knight, another reconciliation of lovers took place, and Esplandian found a father.) Amadis was facing a final test: in his presence, the king had promised to marry Oriana to the Roman emperor. But Amadis defeated his army,

1 Amadis de Gaula. T. 1. La Habana. 1965, p. 16.

2 Riquer M. de Caballeros andantes espanoles. Madrid. 1967, p. 50.

3 For excerpts, see: A textbook on Foreign Literature. Epoch Of Renaissance, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1959.

4 Amadis. p. 33.

5 Ibid., p. 204.

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and in the finale, all six pairs of lovers find happiness.

"The Exploits of Esplandian" is weaker in artistic terms. But this book is also important for understanding the worldview of the Spaniards at the end of the 15th century, when the Reconquista ended and the Spanish colonial expansion began. Esplandian performed no feats in the name of his lady of the heart, Leonorina. He demanded that the knights stop feuds and abandon tournaments, urging them to give up their strength to fight the "infidels". To this end, he made a campaign against Constantinople , the citadel of Islam. At the end of the work, the sorceress Urganda the Elusive, who also played a significant role in Amadis, enchants the characters of the novel "until the spell on King Arthur, enchanted by the fairy Morgana, is lifted" 6, and it is time to fight for the final victory.

The mention of Arthur's name, which frames the storyline created by Montalvo, indicates the connection of Amadis with the novels of the so-called Breton cycle. As in the works of the "courtly" writer of the XII century. By Chretien de Troyes, Arthur is shown to be the perfect ruler. In Amadis, he is contrasted with the vicious, often antagonistic King Lisuarte, Oriana's father. The only difference is that if in the works of Chretien (and also T. Malory in the XV century) Arthur takes a direct part in events, then in Amadis he only occasionally visits the pages of the novel. Arthur's time (Wales, VI c.) co-exists with the time of Amadis as if in a different frame of reference, so that the world of Arthur remains "behind the scenes". However, the topography of "Amadis" finds an analogy in the topography of Arthurian novels: the same Scotland and Brittany, England and Wales appear. In Amadis, these territories are just as conventional and have nothing in common with the real ones.

Although" Spain " in the novel refers to a small principality, it is directly related to the modern history of this country. Montalvo had a right to expect success, resurrecting his hero knight from oblivion at a time when exactly such people were needed by the then Spanish society. In the prologue to Amadis, he mentions the exact date: the capture of Granada in 1492. This event was extremely important for Spanish history: the Reconquista ended. But since the conquest of certain areas of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors took place at different times and under different conditions, their further development was also uneven, and the absolutism established in Spain did not, as is known, lead to the national-state centralization of the country. As Karl Marx noted, "in Spain, centralization has never been able to take root." 7
Marx described the time in Europe as follows: "The sixteenth century was the era of the formation of large monarchies, which everywhere arose in connection with the weakening of the feudal classes that were at war with each other: the aristocracy and the citizens. .. In Spain, the aristocracy declined, retaining its worst privileges, and cities lost their medieval power, without acquiring the importance inherent in modern cities... Spain, like Turkey, remained a cluster of ill-governed republics with a nominal sovereign at their head. " 8 Spanish absolutism was supported by the middle nobility, the Caballeros. As for the hidalgos, the small nobility, although the specter of wealth and glory often flashed before them in those conditions, they were constantly ruined. The Hidalgos were loyal to the royal power, but there was deep discontent among them. Hence the small nobles 'dream of a "just monarchy", which is reflected in the pages of Amadis in the description of Arthur's" good rule". In other words, the "Arthurian" reminiscences reflect the development of 15th-century Spain.

Along with this, there is a significant Christian element in Amadis. The hero managed to convert several giants to Christianity, just as the Spaniards converted first the Moors, and then the indigenous inhabitants of the New World. Professor J. M. Cacho Blequa of the University of Zaragoza noted that the principles of education of Galaor are similar to those of the Spanish Catholic schools of the 16th century .9 Catholic Church, on-

6 Amadis de Gaula. Las sergas de Esplandian. Madrid. 1931, p. VI.

7 K. Marx and F. Engels Soch. Vol. 10, p. 431.

8 Ibid., pp. 431-432.

9 Cacho Vleua J. M. Arnadis: heroismo mitico cortesano. Zaragoza. 1979, p. 261.

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The country that had accumulated political capital during the Reconquista became "the most invincible weapon of absolutism"; " the influence of Spain reigned supreme in Europe, and the ardent imagination of the Iberians was dazzled by the brilliant visions of El Dorado, chivalry, and world monarchy. It was then that Spanish liberties disappeared, amid the clash of swords, the flood of gold, and the ominous glow of the fires of the Inquisition. " 10
It was chivalrous romances that captured the "ardent imagination of the Iberians" at that time. The myth of Amadis and other heroes was the epitome of the Renaissance idea of man as the bearer of divine power and beauty and similar to the ancient myths about heroes. At that time, many readers believed in the existence of heroes of chivalrous novels in much the same way as the ancient Hellenes believed in the existence of Achilles and Hercules. Experts of our time often reproach chivalrous novels for their oversaturation of fairy-tale elements. But people of that time treated fairy tales somewhat differently than we do, often perceiving them as a reality that exists somewhere out of sight, but can manifest itself at any time. After all, there is no fundamental difference between faith in God and faith in a fairy tale. And faith in the gods is an integral feature of the people of olden times. Many contemporaries of" Amadis " dreamed of fighting a dragon or a giant. These dreams were reinforced by stories about the outlandish East and overseas El Dorado. The New World motif is already heard in The Exploits of Esplandian, where black Amazons, subjects of the Queen of California, fight on winged vultures fed on human flesh. The transatlantic world was as hostile to Spanish readers as the Moorish world, and they had to fight it.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, many Spaniards became, like Don Quixote later, knights errant. Now they look at it as something bookish. But chivalry-errant took place in real life. For example, in one of his monologues, Don Quixote mentions a knight. Fernando de Guevara, who, having taken a campaign to Vienna, participated in duels there at the court of Duke Albert of Austria. The Chronicle of Juan II has confirmed what Don Quixote said about a real person: Guevara was born in 1406, and his duel with a German knight in Vienna took place in 1436. Although" the German knight looked much braver than Don Fernando de Guevara " 11, the latter mobilized his forces and won, for which he was awarded the honor of the duke. From the sixteenth century onward, knights errant went in search of wealth and glory in the New World and became conquistadors. The world of Amadis showed a kind of utopia, but one that seemed feasible, quite achievable.

The Conquistadors lived in an atmosphere that was partly created by their impressions of the American, very unusual reality around them. Their letters to their homeland and the addresses of their leaders to their soldiers often resemble fragments of Amadis and Esplandian .12 Fiction and truth, fiction and reality are fused together in these documents in a bizarre way, and we now understand why. A historian who studies these letters as a source, but is not familiar with medieval literature, can easily fall into a trap. The authors of chivalrous novels always emphasized the "truthfulness" of their writings. Chroniclers who wrote descriptions of the exploits of European invaders in the New World were afraid that their work would not be mistaken for another chivalrous novel. Here is how Conquistador B. Diaz described the siege of one of the Mexican cities: "93 days we besiege this large and strong city... and it never seems to end, it's like "Amadis of Gaul" 13 . The same chronicler, describing the Spanish entry into Mexico City, says that such an event could have taken place in any romance of chivalry: "And since then we have seen so many cities and villages built on water, and other large settlements built on land, and this pavement so smooth and straight that led to Mexico City, that we were surprised and said: all this is like witchcraft, which is spoken of in the Amadis of Gaul" 14 .

Chivalrous novels, published after the invention of printing in large print runs at that time, were a phenomenon,

10 Marx K. and Engels F. Soch. Vol. 10, p. 431.

11 Riquer M. de. Op. cit., p. 85.

12 Prampolini I R. Amadises de America. Mexico. 1977, cap. VI.

13 Ibid., p. 87.

14 Ibid., p. 88.

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which we now call "mass culture". The negative impact of the latter on its consumers is well known. One of them is a reduction in the discernment of readers ' taste. For lack of good works, bad ones are read. This ultimately leads to the degeneration of the genre. This is exactly what happened with the novels of chivalry. Realizing this, Spanish humanists (for example, J. de Valdez) gave a negative assessment of this genre. They were very influential among the people, but they also played a significant role in the fact that the royal family, which had previously taken care of the education of the "chivalrous spirit" in its subjects and even encouraged the publication of chivalrous novels, dramatically changed its attitude towards them. A royal decree of April 4, 1531, ordered that "only books on the Christian religion and virtue" should be sent to the colonies; that " vain and foolish stories, such as Amadis and his ilk," should not be imported into the colonies; then came a decree concerning Peru, that "no Spaniard should keep them in his possession." at home, and no Indian has ever read them. " 15 This shows that chivalrous romances were also popular among native Americans who learned to speak and read Spanish.

The bans did not produce significant results. Even more unsuccessful was the attempt of the Cortes, who took place in Valladolid in 1555, to file a petition for the prohibition of chivalric romances in the mother country. Until the end of the 16th century, chivalrous novels continued to be the favorite reading of all segments of Spanish society. According to the existing tradition, a successful literary work caused continuation and imitation. From the finale of The Exploits of Esplandian, we learn that Montalvo, having left the characters bewitched, did not intend to interrupt his work and wanted to write the next book: about the adventures of other characters. He was prevented either by death, or by a book published in 1516, written by P. de Ribera, who, ahead of the first author, disenchanted the heroes and again led them in search of adventures. Almost simultaneously with him, in 1514, another book was published by F. de Silva, author of many such sequels and other works. In another book, the author of which was H. Diaz (1526), Amadis dies, and Galaor is tonsured a monk. But such an ending was unacceptable to readers, and later de Silva resurrected Amadis and cut his brother's hair. He also wrote two more books about them. Finally, in 1546, p. de Juan released the latest book about Amadis 16 .

All these works were translated into various European languages, especially French. Since the latter was more widespread in Europe than Spanish, readers of many countries got acquainted with the heroes of chivalric novels through French translations. However, translators most often changed the text, trying to connect it with events in their homeland. So, the heroes of the 11th sequel get to the castle of the war god Mars and see stained-glass windows showing the future history of Europe, which "will be mired in wars and debauchery" 17 . This seventeenth-century translation, which echoed events in the wake of the Thirty Years ' War, was intended as a warning to people who would start blood feuds.

French authors, in turn, created sequels of "Amadis", up to the 24th. In the 13th, his heroes, having defeated the pagans, are going to leave the conquered land, so as not to burden the conquered people with themselves. So in the romance of chivalry, a new theme, unexpected for this kind of literature, began to sound, and besides, it appealed for mercy to the vanquished. This book is also interesting because it is the first time that a Russian story occurs in it. Of course, the Russian land there is as conditional as any other. The Russian king Balthasar joined forces with 160 other kings and attacked Constantinople. The city has fallen. Then its defenders defeated the attackers. In the 15th sequel, the new Russian king, Bustendus, seeks to take revenge.

In addition to "Amadis", other series of chivalrous novels appeared on the book market. Their impact on readers continued unabated for a long time. Real knights-small feudal lords sometimes brought up the qualities of the heroes of novels that they liked. Often this gave them fearlessness, confidence in victory and influenced the outcome of the sra-

15 Ibid., p. 89.

16 О'Соnnor J. Amadis de Gaula and Its Influence on the Elisabethian Litterature. Lnd. 1970, p. 10.

17 Ibid., p. 17.

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location. For large-scale battles to debunk such a myth, it took many years and a change in the historical conditions themselves, which led to the disappearance of chivalry as a social stratum. "In 1571," writes the literary critic A. A. Prieto - as if Amadis and Esplandian had awakened to their mission, the battle of Lepanto was fought. In the stories about the battles for Constantinople sounded... now real names, for example, Juan of Austria and Miguel de Cervantes. The story tried to bring to life what was previously embodied in the narrative. A little later, in 1578, the curtain began to close on the performance begun at Lepanto: chivalrous youth began to die actually by the sword and without being protected by Urganda. " 18
The 17th century brought Spain economic decline and the collapse of its authority in the international arena. It brought about significant social changes. The knights errant were replaced by hordes of other adventurers-declassed and impoverished people who bore the nickname "picaros" (rogues). The ideal "knight without fear and reproach" was not needed by society. He was succeeded by Picaro in the Picaresque novels. And Cervantes ' Don Quixote dealt a final blow to the feudal worldview in Spain, which was partly reflected in the novels of chivalry.

However, the latter serve as a kind of source of knowledge not only of that era. Why, for example, were they practically not studied in our country? Here, among other things, the author of "Don Quixote"once misunderstood attitude to this genre played a role. Cervantes ' work was considered only as a parody of the romance of chivalry, and this genre - as an object of ridicule. This superstition has been passed on by Spaniards of all countries, so that the term "Cervantes as the critics have made him" has even been coined. But the ideal of chivalrous romances was about to be reborn outside of Spain. In France of the XVII-XVIII centuries, such a novel "claims to provide norms for the language of life, teaches good style and good tone: how to talk in society, how to write letters, etc. Special books were compiled like "The Treasury of Amadis".. where samples of conversations, letters, speeches, etc. extracted from the novel were collected " 19 . It often included excerpts from books showing characters as role models. Tragedies and operas were often composed on the plot of "Amadis", which was sometimes altered beyond recognition, but with the main character's name preserved. Arias from Handel's opera Amadis are still performed on Moscow stages. The ballet "Amadis" by the French composer, inventor of the overture J. B. Lully also gained worldwide fame. Thus, "Amadis" went down in history as a cultural phenomenon of different epochs and peoples.

But the epic of "Amadis" did not end there either. The great Goethe, who read Amadis in 1808, remarked: "It is a shame, being at such an advanced age, not to know such a beautiful work, despite the number of parodies that exist on it" 20 . At the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century. the first scientific works devoted to "Amadis" appeared. However, the interest in it is now significantly different from before. For example, one of the modern experts was struck by the knightly novel's ability to "recreate the reality of an epoch in all those dimensions in which it was perceived by the consciousness of that time - mythological, historical, military, psychological; a bizarre fusion of medieval and Renaissance worldview" 21 . And these social aspects, regardless of the era, will always remain the property of historical science.

18 Prieto A. Morfologia de la novela. Barcelona. 1979, p. 207.

19 Bakhtin M. M. Voprosy literatury i estetiki [Issues of Literature and Aesthetics]. Moscow, 1975, p. 193.

20 Cit. by: Green O. Espana y la tradicion occidental. T. 1. Madrid. 1972, p. 130.

21 Kuteyschikova V. N., Ospovat L. S. Novy latinoamericanskii roman [A New Latin American Novel]. Moscow, 1974, p. 114.

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