Zifar, ¨Knight of God” and King by Marriage

Abstract

This article attempts to analyze the socio-economic and moral problems that beleaguered knighthood during the late Middle Ages, through El libro del caballero Zifar, taking the demonstrated success of the novel, the first about knighthood written in Spanish during the later Middle Ages, as a point of departure. It interprets this success through the symbolic charge that the author projected over its protagonist, Zifar, presented first as an incarnation of the problems that affected the knighthood at the begin of the fourteenth century and then as a model of conduct to overcome these problems and even to attain the summit of power.