JORGE MANRIQUE: BIOGRAPHY AND WORKS - LITERATURE - 2026

Jorge Manrique (1440-1479) was an important Palencian poet, coming from the influential Manrique-Lara family. His pen marked an era in Spanish literature, since his poetry was the bridge that allowed the stylistic transition of the Spanish medieval courtly lyric, towards the new style of the Renaissance.

Manrique was a prominent military man in life. Although he kept both disciplines in balance, that of poet and soldier, much of his worth as a historical figure is due to the battles and wars in which he participated and that determined, in the long run, the course of Spanish history.

Portrait of Jorge Manrique. Source: Juan de Borgoña, via Wikimedia Commons

Biography

Birth imprecision

Jorge Manrique, the fourth of seven children of the noble and powerful Manrique Lara family, was the son of Don Rodrigo Manrique (1406-1476), first count of Paredes de Nava, and of Doña Mencia de Figueroa (1400-1444), second cousin of Don Rodrigo.

There are no known data that can accurately specify the date or place of his birth. It is estimated that he could have been born in Paredes de Nava, in the province of Palencia, or with a greater probability in Segura de la Sierra, in the province of Jaén, since his father had his main stay there at that time.

About the date of birth of Jorge Manrique it is estimated that it could have been in 1437, an average between 1431, the date of the wedding of his parents, Don Rodrigo and Doña Mencía, and 1444, the year in which his mother died. The fire of the historical archive in Jaén during the French invasion prevents scholars from knowing these data accurately.

Cradle Nobility

The Manrique Lara family was not only very powerful, but also one of the oldest in Spain. He held the duchy of Nájera, the county of Treviño and the marquisate of Aguilar del Campoo, among other noble titles.

Manrique ended up holding, among other titles, that of lord of Belmontejo de la Sierra, thirteen of Santiago, captain of the men-at-arms of Castile, commander of the castle of Montizón, duke of Montalvo, to name a few.

Military importance

As with his birth, there is no data on the youth of the noble Jorge Manrique, but it is known about his participation, being 24 years old, in the combat against the sieges of the Montizón castle, of which he would end up as commander. His was the motto: "I neither lie nor regret it."

After this victory he participated in another campaign: advancing militarily in the city of Baeza to support the Benavides and go against Count Cabra and the Marshal of Baena. However, he was taken into captivity and remained for some time arrested in a prison in Baena.

His brother, who participated with him in the assault on the city, was also arrested, but unfortunately he did not survive prison.

Participation in the War of the Castilian Succession

Jorge Manrique, however, left prison and continued to participate in the battles. This time it was with his father, Rodrigo, in what would be one of the most important wars in Spain at the time, if not the most important: the War of the Castilian Succession (1475-1479), which allowed to establish the reign of the Catholic kings.

Causers of the War of Succession

There were several reasons that caused the war. On the one hand there was a rumor that the wife of King Enrique IV, Juana de Portugal, had a daughter out of wedlock with Beltrán de la Cueva. On the other hand, the legitimate daughter of the king, Elizabeth I, and already proclaimed legitimate heir, could not marry without the prior consent of her father.

Thus, it happened that Isabel I violated the Treaty of the Guisando Bulls, secretly marrying Fernando de Aragón. Angry, his father proclaimed his illegitimate daughter, Juana de Trastámara, “la Beltraneja” (alluding to Beltrán, her true father), successor to the throne. This unleashed the palace intrigues and later, the war.

Support for the Catholic Monarchs

It is at this point where Don Rodrigo and his son Jorge Manrique, both members of the Order of Santiago, decided to ally their powerful house with Isabel I and Fernando de Aragón.

Coplas of Jorge Manrique

This fact ended up twisting the balance in favor of the succession of those who became the Catholic Monarchs, who catapulted the greatness of the kingdom to the overseas lands of America.

Death and supposed versions of what happened

Jorge Manrique died in 1479, in combat, during the War of the Castilian Succession. Two versions of this event are discussed.

The first version tells that after going to Ciudad Real to raise the siege that the Marqués de Villena had on Uclés, he was mortally wounded in a battle near the Garcimuñoz castle, in Cuenca.

The second version, after the events, relates that he was wounded in his camp in Santa María del Campo Rus, a few days after the battle.

The war ended a few months later. Jorge Manrique died only about 2 and a half years after his father, who died in 1467 from a cancer that completely disfigured his face.

In the end, the support of the noble and powerful Manrique y Lara family was crucial for the Elizabethan victory, whose reign ended up placing Spain among the most powerful kingdoms in the world thanks to two reasons: the marriage with Fernando de Aragón, on the one hand, and the colonizing expedition that ended with the expansion of the Spanish kingdom in the American continent.

The Catholic Monarchs and the greatness of Spain

Fernando of Aragon meant a powerful alliance for the Spanish crown, since he was already king in other locations in Europe (Sicily, Naples, Navarra, among others). Spain was assured of a prosperous reign, as it had a very wealthy king.

As if that were not enough, the expeditions of Christopher Columbus, supported by the Catholic kings, ended up annexing a large part of the American continent and its wealth to Spain. But things would have been very different if Isabel I and Fernando de Aragón had not had the support of the Manrique y Lara house.

Jorge Manrique, the poet

The fact that he was born of noble birth, and particularly in the family that was his lot, allowed Manrique to maintain the balance between sword and pen. Although in life he was better known in the military field, not for that reason his poetic production, which although brief, ceases to be admirable.

It is also important to take into account in this family that he was lucky enough to have a humanities education that, like all military men of the time, that he received and that he had to complete. This preparation greatly influenced his pen.

The poet came from his blood. It is enough to mention Gómez Manrique, soldier and great poet, his uncle, and, in the same way, Íñigo López de Mendoza, known as the Marqués de Santillana, also of his lineage.

In short, his poetry was the cornerstone for the entry of the new pre-Renaissance style into Spanish literature.

Characteristics of his poetry

Among the characteristics of his poetry we can highlight:

The search for simplicity

The purification of the complex metaphors of the previous chivalric and troubadour writing. This could be attributed to a certain elite taste typical of a man of the nobility, as well as the distancing of all erudite or rhetorical words.

Recurring love themes

Cross by Jorge Manrique. Source: By Angel Aroca Escámez, from Wikimedia Commons

In the almost fifty works that he composed, most of them touch on the theme of courtly love framed in the troubadour singing of the 15th century.

War references to address the theme of love

Love as war, conflict, life itself.

Brevity in the forms

Love poems, for example, are rather short. Even the stanza form is also short: verses of minor art: broken foot sextilla (8a-8b-4c-8a-8b-4c) with consonant rhyme.

The use of Esparza

Which is nothing more than writing an idea briefly and artistically.

Sobriety in style

Which is appreciated in his only elegy, written in memory of his father. There the seriousness of the subject is approached in a very eloquent way and with new perspectives (in addition to the already customary worldly or religious ones typical of the Middle Ages).

Humor in everyday things

Manrique wrote some satires in which the surprising, the ironic and the common come together to achieve humor. Thus, he compares a nun to a drunkard in one of his satires, or celebrates a feast of ugliness in honor of his stepmother.

Plays

Given the brevity of his work, we will list Jorge Manrique's couplets, satires and love songs:

Love poems

- "Of Don Jorge Manrique complaining about the God of love and how they reason with each other"

- "Castle of love"

- "To fortune"

- "Because while he was sleeping, his friend kissed him"

- "Saying what love is"

- "From the profession he made in the Order of Love"

- "Scale of love", "With the great evil that I have left over"

- "In a mortal sore"

- "Remember, for God's sake, lady"

- "See that mine distresses"

- "Neither live wants me to live"

- "The fires that they lit in me"

- "Being absent from her friend to a messenger who sent there"

- "Memorial he made to his heart, which starts from the ignorance of his friend where he has all his senses"

- “Other hers in which he puts the name of a lady; and it begins and ends in the first letters of all the verses, and says: "

- "Another work of his in which he put the name of his wife, and also named the lineages of the four sides of her, which are: Castañeda, Ayala, Silva and Meneses."

songs

- "Whoever was not present"

- "I don't know why I get tired"

- "Who wants to see you so much"

- "It is a hidden death"

- "For your great deserve"

- "With sore care"

- "The more I plan to serve you"

- "Just was my downfall"

- "Every time my memory"

- "Do not delay, Death, I'm dying"

Scattering

- "Hallo no power"

- "I shut up ills suffering"

- "Thinking, madam, of you"

- "I was silent because of great fear"

- "What an unhappy lover"

- "My fear has been such"

- "It is my pity to wish"

Gloss

- "His nickname that says:" I neither lie nor regret it ""

- "Always love and love to follow"

- "Without God and without you and me"

Nickname

- "Don Jorge Manrique took out a Ferris wheel with its arcades full and said:"

Questions

- "To Juan Álvarez Gato"

- "Between two fires launched"

- "Between good and badly folded"

- "To Guevara"

Answers

- "To Guevara"

- "To Gómez Manrique"

Satires

- "To a cousin of hers who was hindering her love affairs"

- "Coplas to a drunkard who had a brial in the tavern"

- "A treat he made for his stepmother, Mrs. Elvira de Castañeda"

Elegies and works of doctrine

- "Coplas for the death of his father"

- “Oh world! Well, what do you kill us?

Last work

Regarding Jorge Manrique's last work, there is not much certainty as to when he wrote it, since the details of his death are, in themselves, confusing. It is not known if the verses that appeared on his clothes were written while he was dying, or within days of being wounded in battle:

"Oh world! Well, what do you kill us?

was the life you gave

all life

but according to how you treat us here

the best and least sad

is the game "

Whether he wrote them while he lay wounded on the battlefield or while convalescing in his camp is something that has not been fully clarified.

Importance and significance

There are usually several cases in which men-at-arms are also men of ideas and of good penmanship. This can be seen in the noble and powerful families of 15th century Spain, where it is common to see men dedicated to the military and the humanities alike.

If there is one thing we can highlight Jorge Manrique among this remarkable group, it is in the fact that both his sword and his pen served as a trigger for something totally new.

Although such transitions are slow, it is the work of individuals like Manrique that serves as a trigger for expressions such as poetry to reach new forms.

With the sword he allowed the coronation of the Catholic kings, with the pen, the arrival of the pre-Renaissance.

References

1. Jorge Manrique. (s / f). (n / a): Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org
2. Jorge Manrique. (s / f). (n / a): Biographies and lives. Recovered from: biografiasyvidas.com
3. Harlan, C. (2017). "Jorge Manrique, poet and soldier of the XV century". Recovered from: aboutespañol.com
4. Cortina, A. (s / f). Complete work / Jorge Manrique. Recovered from: cervantesvirtual.com
5. Jorge Manrique. (2017). (n / a): “'Coplas a la muerte de su padre' by Jorge Manrique”. Recovered from: zendalibros.com