Castilian version for the French of Jean de Limoges, Chancellor of Paris. A writer who represents the stages of the literary evolution of his age is the long-lived Chancellor, PERO LÓPEZ DE AYALA (1332-1407). His career is a veritable romance of feudalism. Living under Alfonso XI., he became the favourite of Pedro the Cruel, whom he deserted at the psychological moment. He chronicles his own and his father's defection in such terms as Pepys or the Vicar of Bray might use:—"They saw that Don Pedro's affairs were all awry, so they resolved to leave him, not intending to return." Pedro the Cruel, Enrique II., Juan I., Enrique III.—Ayala served all four with profit to his pouch, without flagrant treason. Loyalty he held for a vain thing compared with interest; yet he earned his money and his lands in fight. He ever strove to be on the winning side, but luck was hostile when the Black Prince captured him at Nájera (1367), and when he was taken prisoner at Aljubarrota (1385). The fifteen months spent in an iron cage at the castle of Oviedes after the second defeat gave Ayala one of his opportunities. He had wasted no chance in life, nor did he now. It were pleasant to think with Ticknor that some part of Ayala's _Rimado de Palacio_ "was written during his imprisonment in England,"—pleasant, but difficult. To begin with, it is by no means sure that Ayala ever quitted the Peninsula. More than this: though the _Rimado de Palacio_ was composed at intervals, the stages can be dated approximately. The earlier part of the poem contains an allusion to the schism during the pontificate of Urban VI., so that this passage must date from 1378 or afterwards; the reference to the death of the poet's father, Hernán Pérez de Ayala, brings us to the year 1385 or later; and the statement that the schism had lasted twenty-five years fixes the time of composition as 1403.