Abstract
Many political changes affected the House of Barcelona during the fifteenth century. From 1412 the Kingdom of Aragon, and later, in 1416, the Crown of Aragon, were ruled by a non-Catalan ruler, Ferdinand I, the son of the King of Castile. The fact that the kings of the House of Trastámara spoke Castilian had a crucial influence on the status of the Catalan language. The marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon with Isabella of Castile (1469), and its influence on the Royal Court, also brought a language shift from Catalan to Castilian in Valencia and Catalonia by the sixteenth century. Castilian was preferred as the language of high culture and literature (Ferrando & Nicolás, 2011: 146-158). The Catalan aristocracy had began to Castilianize already in the fifteenth century, adopting a diglossic mentality: 1 Castilian for the Court and military realms, for reading and for literary creation; and Catalan in the familiar sphere and daily relationships (Woolard, 1989: 20; Ferrando & Nicolás, 2011: 147). Paradoxically, Catalan entered a status of inferiority at the Court just at the prime moment of Catalan literature, with chivalric masterpieces, such as Curial i Güelfa (1432–1468) and
Original language | American English |
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Title of host publication | Caminos de leche y miel |
Subtitle of host publication | Jubilee Volume in Honor of Michael Studemund-Halévy, vol. 2: Language and Literature |
Publisher | Tirocinio |
Pages | 46-63 |
ISBN (Print) | 9788494292583 |
State | Published - 2018 |