Educational models for nobles and kings in Fernão Lopes's John I's Chronicles - doi: 10.4025/actascieduc.v32i1.9471

Abstract

When he achieved political power through the Avis movement (1383-1385), John I and his sons stimulated the production of literary works, known as "Moralistic prose," that furnished behavior patterns within the context of education at the royal court. Fernão Lopes's John I's Chronicles, written after the monarch's death tried to legitimize his power and the power of his descendants. It was also an educational manual since it provided ideal models for the behavior of nobles and kings. The "new nobility" should be involved with the "national cause" and the "new king" should show incontestable virtues that would be beyond the illegitimacy status of John I. The latter would be indicated as a new royalty model. Therefore, the two heroes and educational models of the chronicler Fernão Lopes are the nobleman Nuno Alvares Pereira, associated to the representation of the Arthurian knight Sir Galahad, and King John of Portugal, the Messiah of Lisbon, who ‘saved' the city from the Castilian domain. Relationships between the monarchy and the nobility suggested in the Chronicles indicate power centralization and the discipline meted out by the monarch on the nobles.