The Concept of Ganancia in the Libro del caballero Zifar

Abstract

In this article, I analyze El libro del caballero Zifar through the concept of ganancia, understood as both the act and the possibility of acquiring material and immaterial goods, as well as the benefit derived from an exchange, and its relevance to the ideological, political, and chivalric configuration of the text. To this end, I draw on the tripartite division of the work proposed by Fernando Gómez Redondo, which distinguishes textual blocks linked to specific historical contexts, and explore the ways in which ganancia articulates tensions between the monarchy and the nobility in late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Castile. I identify three principal types of ganancia: the love of God, the love of men, and honor and earthly profit, which constitute the foundations of the chivalric model advanced by the text. Linked to the Molinist cultural system, this model presents the courtly nobility as the guarantor of the kingdom’s stability and enrichment in contrast to the illegitimate practices of certain sectors of the high nobility.