Daughters of the Reconquest: Women in Castilian Town Society, 1100-1300
Heath Dillard
[vii] The numerals in parentheses give the number of the Cantiga for which each picture serves as one illustration in a series. Many of the women in the pictures appear in the lyrics as beneficiaries of the Virgin's intercession.
1. Two acquaintances meet in a town
(LXVIII)
2. Neighbours, diversely coifed,
gather to converse and advise a friend (CIV)
3. A woman, jug on head, approaches
a spring and encounters a neighbour (CXCI)
4. A woman, expecting guests, directs
servants in her wine cellar (XXIII)
5. Quiet time at home: cooking, spinning
and child care (LXVIII)
6. Instruction in the use of a spindle
(CLIII)
7. Setting forth by mule (XCVIII)
8. A husband departs, leaving his
wife in cahrge at home (CXCI)
9. A female tailor makes a shirt
(CXVII)
10. A woman tends her silk worms
which make garments, miraculously (XVIII)
11. Buying a ewe (CXLVII)
12. Shearing the wool (CXLVII)
13. A clandestine betrothal de
juras (CXXXV)
14. The couple's parents react predictably
(CXXXV)
15. A church wedding (CXXXII)
16. A barragana laments when
her lover vows to wed another (CIV)
17. A woman in labour (LXXXIX)
18. Toting a child to church (LIII)
19. A distraught woman scratches
her cheeks (XCVIII) [viii]
20. Women and men in mourning (CLII)
21. An alcahueta is hired
and then cajoles a married woman (LXIV)
22. Exit by ladder may prevent a
priest's discovery with his barragana (CLI)
23. An unborn child cut from the
belly of a mortally wounded woman (CLXXXIV)
24. After an abortion the foetus
is discarded conveniently in a privy (XVII)
25. A woman sells her infant
to slave dealers (LXII)
26. Detected, she is put in irons
(LXII)
27. A woman steals from the luggage
of travellers she has lodged (CLVII)
28. In a tavern gamblers play at
dice, and a philanderer caresses a prostitute, while a barmaid looks on
from behind the wineskin (XCIII)
29. A woman drawn for dicing and
blaphemy (CXXXVI)
30. The Virgin saves a woman condemned
to burn for fornication with a Muslim (CLXXXVI)
