Women in Warfare: Spanish Christian Soldiers as Rapists in Early Modern Romances (original) (raw)

The omnipresence of military conflict brings many hardships and dangers for women in Early Modern Eu-rope. In the socio-historical reality of military skirmishes since time immemorial, the rape of the female (and male) occupants of conquered territory was as ubiquitous and as opportunistic an act as one could imagine by which to brutalize and demean the populace. I will analyze two romances— " Romance cuarto. De cómo don Rodrigo de Vivar mató á dos moros que forzaban una dama mora y la rescató " and " Soldados forza-dores " —both of which describe the rape of women by Spanish Christian soldiers. While Spanish Christian soldiers might rape women from opposing factions as a way to demonstrate their dominance over that particular group, they might just as likely rape women from their own group if given the opportunity to do so. " In war zones, women apparently always find themselves on the frontline " (37). —Ruth Seifert's " The Second Front: The Logic of Sexual Violence in Wars " (1996). In Cervantes's Don Quijote de la Mancha, Sancho Panza's beloved wife Teresa dictates a letter to her husband in which she describes the threat of rape to which women in her village are routinely subjected by marauding Spanish Christian soldiers: Hogaño no hay aceitunas, ni se halla una gota de vinagre en todo este pueblo. Por aquí pasó una compañía de soldados: lleváronse de ca-mino tres mozas deste pueblo; no te quiero decir quién son: quizá vol-verán y no faltará quien las tome por mujeres, con sus tachas buenas o malas. (2.52:1157, my emphasis) Teresa's unemotional description of the kidnapping and inevitable rape of village girls, while perhaps demonstrating her lack of verbal sophistication, reveals a social reality: the omnipre­ sence of military conflict results in the brutalization of the population by Spanish Christian soldiers. In fact, this act was so ubiquitous that Teresa's letter fails to register the appropriate level of indignation she would likely feel as a woman with a vulnerable young daughter of her own to protect without the support of her absent husband. 1 1 For a more detailed study of this episode, along with three other episodes in which female characters are raped or threatened with rape, and a consideration of the correlation between the socioeconomic status of the women in relation to their attackers, see