Those of you who have read _Carlos VI. en la Rápita_—one of the latest volumes in the series of _Episodios Nacionales_—will call to mind another Juan Ruiz, likewise an Archpriest, known to his parishioners as ‘Don Juanondón,’ and you may remember that this Archpriest of Ulldecona quotes his namesake, the Archpriest of Hita:— Tu, Señora, da me agora la tu graçia toda ora, que te sirua toda vja. As the _Libro de buen amor_ had been in print for some seventy years before the Pretender made the laughable fiasco described by Pérez Galdós, it is quite possible that Don Juanondón had read the first of the _Goços de Santa Maria_ in the supplement. But it is not very likely: for, though the Archpriest’s poems are mentioned in an English book published nine years before they appeared in Spain,[5] they never were, and perhaps never will be, popular in the ordinary sense. Juan Ruiz was far in advance of his age. He lived and died obscure. No contemporary mentions him by name, and the only thing that can be construed into a rather early allusion is found in a poem by Ferrant Manuel de Lando in the _Cancionero de Baena_ (No. 362):— Señor Juan Alfonso, pintor de taurique qual fue Pitas Payas, el de la fablilla. But this, at the best, is indirect. Santillana merely refers to the Archpriest incidentally. Argote de Molina, in the next century, does indeed quote one of the Archpriest’s _serranillas_ (st. 1023-27); but he is misinformed as to the author, and ascribes the verses to a certain ‘Domingo Abad de los Romances’ whose name occurs in the _Repartimiento de Sevilla_. Still there is evidence to prove that Juan Ruiz found a few readers fit to appreciate him. A fragment of his work exists in Portuguese; the great Chancellor, Pero López de Ayala, imitates him in the poem generally known as the _Rimado de Palacio_; Alfonso Martínez de Toledo, Archpriest of Talavera and a kindred spirit in some respects, speaks of him by name, and lays him under contribution in the _Reprobación del amor mundano_. The famous pander who lends her name to the _Celestina_ is closely related to Trotaconventos, and Calixto and Melibea in that great masterpiece are developed from Don Melón de la Uerta and Doña Endrina de Calatayud. The Archpriest’s influence on his successors is therefore undeniable. But, leaving this aside, and judging him solely by his immediate, positive achievement, he is not altogether unworthy to be placed near Chaucer,—the poet to whom he has been so often compared. CHAPTER III THE LITERARY COURT OF JUAN II.