Pleito del Manto: A Satire of the Trial for Treason of the Marquess of Priego, Lord of Aguilar, in 1508

Pleito del manto is a pornographic allegory consisting of 73 variable-length octosyllabic stanzas first published in the “burlas” section of the second edition of Hernando del Castillo’s Cancionero general (1514). The work describes a lawsuit brought by a personification called Carajo against another called Coño over the possession of a mantle. Its authorial cohesion, however, has been questioned. Critics believe that Pleito combines two burlesque compositions that were written respectively ca. 1478-1480 (stanzas 1-49) and ca. 1496-1500 (stanzas 50-63) by anonymous authors. To this “core,” another poet called García de Astorga added ten stanzas (64-73) ca. 1509 that associate these works with the trial for treason of his lord, Pedro Fernández de Córdoba y Pacheco (1477-1517), first Marquess of Priego (1501), and Head of the House of Aguilar. This article argues that there is no internal or external evidence to support their hypotheses. It suggests, instead, that stanzas 1-63 were the result of a poetic game that mocked the 1507-1508 proceedings of the case against Aguilar, and that García de Astorga expanded this core. Aguilar was a major Cordoban nobleman and a cousin of Fernando de Aragón who, incensed by inquisitor Diego Rodríguez Lucero’s cruel treatment of conversos, had forced him to flee the city in fear for his life. Aguilar also imprisoned the corregidor sent to investigate the case by the king, who then considered the nobleman a rebel and moved swiftly to imprison and put him on trial. These proceedings took place at the beginning of Fernando de Aragon’s regency, and it is the most important measure the king took against the highly fractious Andalusian nobility, poised to challenge his rule after the death of Isabel I.