The “córrer les armes”. A Chivalrous Ritual in the Hispanic Medieval Funerals

Abstract

The study analyzes a ritual of the Hispanic medieval funerals dedicated to the members of the military estate (fron the knigth up to the king). The sources name or córrer les armes, solemnitat de descoament de cavaills, quebrantamiento de escudos or arrastre de banderas according to it is the Eastern territories or the kingdom of Castile and León. It is the survival of a Roman celebration the funus imperatorum, which there were leading the members of the equestrian order to the death of his maximum commander. Like in Rome, the celebration had his iconographic reflex during the Gothic centuries in peninsular ambiance. We find episodes of the same one in many tombs, be already in the sarcofagus or in the reliefs that they decorate the arch it occurred rarely that he shelters it.