Explore the full ebook collection and download it now at textbookfull.

com

A City Called Heaven Chicago and the Birth of

Gospel Music Robert M. Marovich

https://textbookfull.com/product/a-city-called-heaven-
chicago-and-the-birth-of-gospel-music-robert-m-marovich/

OR CLICK HERE

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Browse and Get More Ebook Downloads Instantly at https://textbookfull.com

Click here to visit textbookfull.com and download textbook now
 Your digital treasures (PDF, ePub, MOBI) await
Download instantly and pick your perfect format...

Read anywhere, anytime, on any device!

Wounded City: Violent Turf Wars in a Chicago Barrio 1st

Edition Robert Vargas

https://textbookfull.com/product/wounded-city-violent-turf-wars-in-a-
chicago-barrio-1st-edition-robert-vargas/

textbookfull.com

Knock at the Door of Opportunity Black Migration to

Chicago 1900 1919 Christopher Robert Reed

https://textbookfull.com/product/knock-at-the-door-of-opportunity-
black-migration-to-chicago-1900-1919-christopher-robert-reed/

textbookfull.com

Towards the Humanisation of Birth: A study of epidural

analgesia and hospital birth culture 1st Edition Elizabeth
Newnham
https://textbookfull.com/product/towards-the-humanisation-of-birth-a-
study-of-epidural-analgesia-and-hospital-birth-culture-1st-edition-
elizabeth-newnham/
textbookfull.com

The Gospel of Philip A New Translation 2nd Edition

Brantingham James

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-gospel-of-philip-a-new-
translation-2nd-edition-brantingham-james/

textbookfull.com
Designing the Global City: Design Excellence, Competitions
and the Remaking of Central Sydney Robert Freestone

https://textbookfull.com/product/designing-the-global-city-design-
excellence-competitions-and-the-remaking-of-central-sydney-robert-
freestone/
textbookfull.com

The Classical Music Lover s Companion to Orchestral Music

1st Edition Robert Philip

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-classical-music-lover-s-
companion-to-orchestral-music-1st-edition-robert-philip/

textbookfull.com

Breaking and Entering The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker

Called Alien Jeremy Smith

https://textbookfull.com/product/breaking-and-entering-the-
extraordinary-story-of-a-hacker-called-alien-jeremy-smith/

textbookfull.com

Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods Dwayne A

Meisner

https://textbookfull.com/product/orphic-tradition-and-the-birth-of-
the-gods-dwayne-a-meisner/

textbookfull.com

The Explorer Race 19 Are You a Walk In A New Form of

Benevolent Birth Is Now Available on Earth Robert Shapiro

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-explorer-race-19-are-you-a-walk-
in-a-new-form-of-benevolent-birth-is-now-available-on-earth-robert-
shapiro/
textbookfull.com
 ROBER
T
MAROVICH

AC
ITYC
A L
LED
 A City Called

Heaven
Music in American Life

A list of books in the series

appears at the end of this book.
 A City Called

Heaven
C h i ca g o a n d t h e B i r t h o f

Gospel
Music
Robert M. Marovich

University of Illinois Press

Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield
Publication of this book was supported by the AMS 75 PAYS
Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded
in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

© 2015 by Robert M. Marovich

All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 c p 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931904

isbn 978-0-252-03910-2 (hardcover)
isbn 978-0-252-08069-2 (paperback)
isbn 978-0-252-09708-9 (e-book)
 C o n t en t s

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1

Part One: Roots 9

1. Got On My Traveling Shoes: Black Sacred Music and the Great Migration 11
2. “When the Fire Fell”: The Sanctified Church Contribution to Chicago Gospel Music 27
3. Sacred Music in Transition: Charles Henry Pace and the Pace Jubilee Singers 48
4. Turn Your Radio On: Chicago Sacred Radio Broadcast Pioneers 58
5. “Someday, Somewhere”: The Formation of the Gospel Nexus 71
6. Sweeping through the City: Thomas A. Dorsey and the Gospel Nexus (1932–1933) 87
7. Across This Land and Country: New Songs for a New Era (1933–1939) 112
8. From Birmingham to Chicago: The Great Migration of the Gospel Quartet 132

Part Two: Branches 147

9. Sing a Gospel Song: The 1940s, Part One 149
10. “If It’s in Music—We Have It”: The Fertile Crescent of Gospel Music Publishing 167
11. “Move On Up a Little Higher”: The 1940s, Part Two 179
12. Postwar Gospel Quartets: “Rock Stars of Religious Music” 204
13. The Gospel Caravan: Midcentury Melodies 229
14. “He Could Just Put a Song on His Fingers”: Second-Generation Gospel Choirs 260
15. “God’s Got a Television”: Gospel Music Comes to the Living Room 281
16. “Tell It Like It Is”: Songs of Social Significance 297
17. One of These Mornings: Chicago Gospel at the Crossroads 317

Appendix A. 1920s African American Sacred Music Recordings Made in Chicago 331
Appendix B. African American Sacred Music Recordings Made in Chicago, 1930–1941 335

Notes 337
Bibliography 389
General Index 401
Index of Songs 435

Illustrations follow page 228

 A c k n o wle d g men t s

I am indebted to all the following who in one way or another made this book
possible. Everyone I interviewed for this book (listed in the bibliography), I
am forever grateful to you.
Blanch Adams
Libra Nicole Boyd
Ronald and Ramona Branch
Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun
Mark Burford
Rev. Walter Butts
Bil Carpenter
Ken Ciocco
Charles Clency
Aaron Cohen
Dennis Cole, Yvonne Wesley-Seabrooks, and the Chicago
Area Gospel Announcers Guild
Robert Darden
L. Stanley Davis
Cies de Tieje
Ronnie Favors
Ken Flaherty Jr.
Suzanne Flambeau
David Frost
Gregory Gay
John Glassburner and the Mighty Gospel Friends
Cleave Graham
Ronald Greer
Danielle Gunn and the staff of WLUW 88.7 FM Chicago
Irma Gwynn
viii Acknowledgments

Linwood Heath
Patricia James-Holloway
Bishop Otto Houston III
Rob Hudson, Carnegie Hall Archives
David Jones
Rev. Dr. Stanley Keeble
Marilyn Moats Kennedy
Robert Laughton
Eric LeBlanc
Pastor Lamont Lenox
Annette “Queenie” Lenox
Christopher “Kip” Lornell
Pastor and Mrs. Mack C. Mason
Horace Maxile
Willie J. McPhatter
Joseph Middleton
Reginald Miles
Rev. Stefanie Minatee
Mildred L. Mondane
Cherli Montgomery
Opal Nations
Deborah Pollard
Lorenza Brown Porter
Robert Pruter
Robert Sacré
Glen Smith
Nancy Stachnik
Steve Strauss
Arthur Sutton
Dolores “Honey” Sykes
Robert Termorshuizen
Shirley Wahls
Marie Wakefield
Sharon Roberts Walker
Romance Watson
Marcel West
 Acknowledgments ix

Rev. Dr. Issac Whittmon

Rev. Joseph Williams
Veronica Williams
Michael Wojcik
Kenneth Woods Jr.
Bobby Wooten
Alan Young
The staff of the Chicago Historical Society Archives
The staff of the Vivian G. Harsh Collection, Chicago Public Library
The staff of the Harold Washington Library—City of Chicago
Brenda Nelson-Strauss, Portia Maultsby, and the African American Ar-
chives of Music and Culture at Indiana University
The staff of the Center for Black Music Research, especially Janet Harper
and Laurie Lee Moses
The staff of the Hogan Jazz Archives, Tulane University, especially Lynn
Abbott
The staff of the Smithsonian Institute of American History Archives
The staff of Fisk University Library Special Collections, especially Aisha
Johnson

My very special thanks to

The AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of the American Musicological Society.
Gospel historian and author Anthony Heilbut, whose The Gospel Sound
is still considered the premiere history of gospel music, more than
four decades after its initial publication. His comments, edits, and
suggestions not only saved me from myself on more than one occa-
sion, but his expert commentary—much of it gleaned firsthand from
the gospel singers themselves—has also added a great deal of depth
and color to the story.
Gospel historian L. Stanley Davis for his thorough review of the manu-
script and many essential comments and additions.
Ronald Weber, Barbara Allen, Lynwood Montell, and Donald Critchlow
at the University of Notre Dame, for kindling within me a passion for
scholarship.
Laurie Matheson, editor in chief at the University of Illinois Press, for
championing this book from the start. She patiently and good na-
turedly answered my endless questions, calmed my misgivings, and
skillfully steered the project in the right direction.
x Acknowledgments

Carol Terry, my copy editor, deserves to be draped in James Brown’s cape

for her hard work, patience, and counsel.
Carol Hobbs, whose assistance in transcribing nearly half of my tape-
recorded interviews, was a gift from heaven; and to Robert Darden for
recommending her.
Barbara Wojhoski, for her marvelous final editing work.
Attorney Harold Berg and accountant Lynn Rubin.
John Bealle, for his indexing genius.
My parents, Robert Sr. and Diane Marovich, who taught me to read,
encouraged me to write (even when the outcome was illegible), and
fostered my love of music and recorded sound.
My late wife, Patricia Andrews Marovich (1960–2000), who kindled the
gospel music spark within me and was a more effective drum major
for justice than I could ever hope to be; and my new wife, Laurel Del-
aney Marovich, without whose entrepreneurial spirit, encouragement,
and dinner-table consultations this book would never have come to
pass. I owe you dozens of day trips to Lake Geneva.

Finally, to the angels who assisted me along the way but have gone on from
earthly labor to heavenly reward:
DeLois Barrett Campbell
Irma Gwynn
Geraldine Gay Hambric
“Father” Charles G. Hayes
Margaret Aikens Jenkins
Rev. Cleve Minter
Rev. Dr. Wealthy L. Mobley Sr.
Myrna Ordower
Nash Shaffer
Eugene Smith
Charles Walker
Robert Wooten Sr.

I regret they did not have a chance to see their story in print. If there is a li-
brary in heaven, and I hope there is, I pray they are pleased with the results.

To the Chicago gospel community: this is your story.

 Introduction
Chicago is the capital of gospel and always will be. This is where
the great talents come to learn, this is where the great singers live.

Albertina Walker, Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1990

Friday, January 6, 2006, was a typical winter day in Chicago.

The temperature hovered around freezing as the sun shone through patches
of clouds. People returned from the holidays to the bustle of their workweek
routines, while big retail stores licked their wounds over disappointing holi-
day sales. Senator Barack Obama was about to finish his freshman year in
Congress. Nothing was unusual about the day until around 3:00 p.m., when
Pilgrim Baptist Church suddenly and rapidly became an inferno.
The blaze evaded all attempts by approximately 180 Chicago firefighters
to quench it. Decades-old stained-glass windows exploded onto Thirty-Third
Street and Indiana Avenue. A stone wall collapsed. The roof crashed to the
ground, hurling a wave of thick, hot air through the side streets. Rising twenty
to thirty feet, the flames were so intense that passengers in airplanes descending
into Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway Airports could see them. As acrid smoke
wafted from the embers, what remained of Pilgrim were charred sections of
exterior walls and the first level of its stone facade. The conflagration had erased
115 years of architectural and historical significance in two hours.
Often referred to as the birthplace of gospel music, even though the title
belongs to Ebenezer Baptist Church two miles south, Pilgrim Baptist Church in
the city’s Bronzeville community nevertheless served as a touch point for gos-
pel’s acknowledged father, mother, king, and queen. Pilgrim had hired Thomas
Andrew Dorsey, the father of gospel music and one of gospel’s most prolific
songwriters, to organize its gospel chorus. Dorsey served the church’s music
department for the next fifty-plus years. The National Convention of Gospel
Choirs and Choruses, the first organization to develop and propagate the new
sacred music, held its first gathering at Pilgrim. Sallie Martin, the mother of

1
2 Introduction

gospel music, was an early member of the Pilgrim gospel chorus. At Pilgrim,
James Cleveland, the king of gospel, sang as a boy soprano, so small he stood
atop a box to be seen by the congregation. Mahalia Jackson, queen of gospel,
opened a beauty salon up the street and often sang at Pilgrim-sponsored gospel
musicals. When Dorsey’s first wife and day-old child died—inspiring him to
write “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” one of the most beloved gospel songs
of all time—the funeral was held at Pilgrim.
The building was in the final stages of a major renovation at the time of
the fire, but by the evening of January 6, all that was left of the structure were
walls that resembled giant tombstones surrounding an empty gravel space
that had once housed one of the South Side’s most beautiful sanctuaries. What
would the Pilgrim congregation do without its worship home? What happened
to Dorsey’s archives of music and papers—were they destroyed by the blaze?
Rev. Hycel C. Taylor, Pilgrim’s pastor at the time, had recently gathered college
students from neighboring Illinois Institute of Technology to catalog and box
the church’s collection of Dorsey sheet music. Taylor rued that the boxes were
likely stored in the church at the time of the blaze. They were not seen again.
Nevertheless, the destruction of Pilgrim Baptist Church was a sobering
reminder of the vulnerability of history, of the urgency to chronicle the recol-
lections of those who were the architects of the gospel sound before they, like
Pilgrim, returned to dust.

What Is Gospel Music?

Gospel music was an artistic response to the Great Migration, one of the most
significant cultural episodes in twentieth-century American history. Thousands
upon thousands of southern African Americans who migrated to Chicago in
the early and middle part of the twentieth century confronted economic, so-
cial, and cultural challenges that were bewildering, daunting, and disempow-
ering. The prejudice migrants withstood was in many ways just as insidious
as the discrimination they experienced down South. Gospel songs, and the
gospel music community, provided the catharsis and affirmation they needed
to feel less like strangers in a strange land. Borrowing from the lyrics of Rev.
W. Herbert Brewster’s “How I Got Over,” gospel music enabled migrants to
literally “shout troubles over.” Wrote Horace Clarence Boyer, “It was . . . not
unusual to witness a singer singing through her problems.”1 Gospel music was,
in many respects, the only freedom migrants found. It offered them freedom
from the daily indignities of being a black southern migrant in an unforgiv-
ing urban North, and freedom for a better condition spiritually, emotionally,
socially, and—for some—financially.2 The tight-knit gospel music community
that coalesced in Chicago starting in the 1930s and 1940s established its own
 Introduction 3

foundation by reclaiming the cultural identity and association they had formed
and fostered in the South.
But bettering one’s condition did not mean clinging single-mindedly to the
past. It also meant embracing the new, urban, cosmopolitan society. The dual-
ity of the migrant experience—to cling to one’s southern roots while striving
to be part of the cosmopolitan northern urban black culture—was never as
evident as when gospel singers and musicians swung hymns and spirituals to
the steady rolling beat of urban jazz or the Hammond B3 organ. In other words,
the gospel community was southern by roots, northern by circumstance, and
cosmopolitan by choice.
In academic terms, gospel music refers to both a performance aesthetic
and a type of sacred song composition. As a performance aesthetic, gospel
music is the product of West African rhythmic, emotive, and improvisational
antecedents; the uncomplicated lyrics and melodies of spirituals and revival
and camp-meeting songs; and Baptist lining hymns. It also incorporates the
urbanity of music genres such as jazz, swing, and blues in its use of blue notes,
flatted thirds, and lyrics culled from the vernacular of everyday life.3 It is a
musical elision of the past and the present used to articulate messages of hope,
encouragement, praise, and worship—a cathartic experience for the singer/
musician as well as the listener.
Gospel music’s progenitors, however, described the new music more simply
and poignantly. Sallie Martin wrote that gospel songs “are the result of sleepless
nights and care-worn days.”4 Kenneth Morris described gospel as evangelical
songs that carried “soul and heart messages” about “everyday experiences.”5 Ma-
halia Jackson explained that “blues are the songs of despair. Gospel songs are the
songs of hope.”6 Thomas A. Dorsey simply referred to gospel as “the good news.”
While gospel as a composition style traces its roots back to the nineteenth
century, Methodist minister Charles Albert Tindley is considered the African
American hymnist who launched the twentieth-century gospel music move-
ment. His earliest songs, written in 1901, forsook lofty lyrics for the language
of the common person. They included “What Are They Doing in Heaven”
and “I’ll Overcome Someday”—upon which the civil rights anthem “We Shall
Overcome” is based. His songs were included in the National Baptist Conven-
tion’s Gospel Pearls songbook, first published in 1921. From Tindley on, gospel
songs have articulated a straightforward message by borrowing the rhythm
and phrasing of the folk preacher, phraseology from church vernacular, mother
wit passed from generation to generation, and the expressions of the poor and
working-class African American migrant.
Both Tindley and Lucie E. Campbell-Williams are considered the “Progeni-
tors of the Gospel Song.” A schoolteacher from Memphis, Campbell wrote en-
during songs such as “Something within Me,” which gospel historian L. Stanley
4 Introduction

Davis calls a “National Anthem” in black churches. As a leader in the National

Baptist Convention, Campbell was a significant force behind the 1921 publication
of Gospel Pearls, the first African American songbook to use the word “gospel”
in the title. Songs by Campbell were included in Gospel Pearls.
It is instructive to define gospel music also by the sociopolitical role it
played in the African American community. Sociologist Robert Lee Sutherland
noted in 1930 that “religion, as found in Negro churches in Chicago, provides
salvation for the individual . . . giving him higher goals to work for . . . or by
attacking his problems directly in an effort to make his life here and now more
endurable and satisfying.”7 He added that, for the poor African American, if
“insults, orders and scrub brushes remind him of his place” during the week,
on Sunday the black church leader could mount “the rostrum in his store
front church to become the spokesman of God.”8 Indeed, churches provided
black Chicagoans leadership opportunities within their congregations, on
usher boards and in athletics, women’s and men’s groups, the senior choir,
and eventually gospel choruses and music departments that included gospel
singers and musicians. Migrants with little or no voice in their employment,
housing, education, and social status could achieve rank as respected gospel
singers, choristers, directors, songwriters, musicians, and eventually owners
of sheet music and record companies.
At its roots, gospel music was a populist activity. The first gospel choruses
organized by Thomas A. Dorsey and Theodore R. Frye were social organiza-
tions that not only welcomed everyone, especially the transplanted southerner,
to participate but also were managed by migrants. By establishing leadership
offices such as president, secretary, and treasurer, gospel choruses adopted
the formal structure employed by other church associations. Most impor-
tantly, gospel choruses and gospel singing were expressions that belonged to
the people, a democratic means to elevate the lowliest worker during the week
to star status on Sunday morning when he or she put on a long robe, marched
down the aisle with the gospel chorus, stood proudly behind the pastor, and
sang the glory down. The least talented singers and musicians in the smallest
storefront church could get a hand clap and an amen for their attempt.
Within a decade after Dorsey and Frye’s first gospel chorus, gospel music be-
came a commodity created, presented, and sold by blacks with minimal reliance
(at least initially) on white commercial interests. For example, Sallie Martin and
Kenneth Morris’s Martin and Morris Music Studio gave unknown but talented
writers the chance to have their song-poems set to a melody and included in a
song folio that would offer both song and songwriter national exposure.
After the Second World War, gospel music ascended to a new level of
commercial appeal. Historian Jerma Jackson observes that the intersection
of gospel and commerce transformed the gospel community of amateurs into
 Introduction 5

professionals who grasped for the brass ring to further their artistic accom-
plishment. In many cases, their visibility came at the cost of diminished control
over their music and the trajectory of their career. And while gospel afforded
some practitioners a measure of financial gain, others, including many talented
and respected singers and musicians, struggled under the crushing weight of
economic poverty. The most poignant gospel songs and performances often
arose from their personal struggles.
Music that survives the test of time is not a means to its own end. It is an
expression of the human spirit at a specific period in time, but it also tran-
scends time. It expresses with simplicity the universal emotions of joy and
thanksgiving, sorrow and hope, hurt and aspiration, desperation and rebirth.
If early gospel songs were resplendent with personal pleas for assistance and
mercy, the 1960s witnessed gospel singers joining popular and folk artists in
raising their voices against personal and universal wrongdoing. Artists such
as Mahalia Jackson rolled up their sleeves and participated actively in the civil
rights movement at the local and national level.
The songs, performance styles, and arrangements produced by men and
women in Chicago’s African American churches, high school auditoriums,
and community centers forever altered the sound of popular music. Today,
any singer in any genre who bursts forth with a mouthful of melismatic runs,
trills, blue notes, and bent notes owes a debt of gratitude to the pioneers of
Chicago gospel music.

Implicit in A City Called Heaven are five main arguments:

First, gospel music became a way for African American migrants to ex-
press personal frustration with the class-preoccupied status quo and establish
their place and status within the city’s church and social communities, even
if it meant starting new churches. But gospel music was not simply meant to
transplant the soul-stirring church music enjoyed back home. The gospel per-
formance aesthetic, and even how the music was transmitted, expressed indi-
vidual aspirations to be part of the cosmopolitan landscape. Like the postwar
blues scene, gospel music combined the emotion of southern religious worship
with the exciting, swinging rhythms of the city, thus enabling migrants to retain
their traditions while establishing their place within modern urban society.
Second, gospel music as developed in Chicago transcended denominational
boundaries. By singing wherever and whenever they were welcome, gospel sing-
ers and musicians moved seamlessly from Baptist to Pentecostal to Holiness
to Spiritual to nondenominational churches, picking up songs and techniques
along the way. Besides live performances, which have always been the bedrock
6 Introduction

of gospel music, the communication of the music in sheet music form and
on recordings, radio, and television assisted greatly in its ecumenical sweep.
These means of expanding a church’s ministry beyond its four walls also broke
through racial and cultural boundaries. In so doing, gospel influenced musi-
cians of all walks of life as it made its way across the country and ultimately
around the world.
The ecumenism of gospel suggests, and rightly so, that many church de-
nominations brought their styles to bear on the development of gospel. While
Baptist, Holiness, and the Church of God in Christ were early adopters of the
new music, one cannot omit the contributions of musicians, singers, and pastors
from the Churches of the Living God, Spiritual churches, Apostolic churches,
community churches, and nondenominational churches.
Third, the gospel music industry grew out of the necessity for entrepreneur-
ship among African American migrants. Since few job opportunities were
available for the city’s growing black population, the alternative was to find
one’s own way. In Selling the Race, social and cultural historian Adam Green
posits that blues, rhythm and blues, and gospel artists in Chicago used their
music to speak to the collective consciousness of African Americans while
providing a model of entrepreneurship and mobility on their own terms.9
Singers as well as musicians, songwriters, publishers, record company own-
ers, distributors, record store proprietors, radio broadcasters, television hosts,
and even pastors could craft their own Promised Land through the medium of
gospel music. While most did not achieve significant financial success, some
did, notably Mahalia Jackson, Sallie Martin, Roberta Martin, and Rev. Clar-
ence Cobbs. Still, Green’s premise that the vernacular (e.g., gospel music) “tied
communal culture to commercial interest” underlies the Chicago gospel story
and, in many ways, forever changed the genre’s landscape.10
Fourth, like most styles of music, gospel music was periodically altered by
the young. The first half century of Chicago gospel produced two generations
of practitioners, each carrying the ball further down the field. But if the body
of gospel changed, its soul did not. Gospel music was, and continues to be, a
worship expression that reflects the socioeconomic circumstance of the times
and uses the music of the times to articulate it. The revolution Dorsey started
by swinging the sacred is not unlike today’s gospel artists adding the rhyth-
mic thump of R&B. Kirk Franklin’s “Stomp” is distant kin to the sanctified
beat of the Pentecostal Church. The street-corner evangelism of Sister Rosetta
Tharpe—her inventive guitar licks and sassy, staccato lyricism—can be found
in the street talk of today’s Christian rap and hip-hop artists. As early as 1949,
Morris recognized that gospel music should meet the “requirements and de-
mands of the modern Christian,” and that the music of the church should
“keep step with modern progress, culture, and the times.”11
 Introduction 7

And finally, six historic tipping points helped establish what is known today
as gospel music. All of them occurred in Chicago:
1. Arizona Dranes’s 1926 recording of “My Soul Is a Witness for My
Lord,” the first known commercial recording to combine several per-
formance techniques attributable to the gospel sound.
2. The formation of the first modern gospel chorus at Ebenezer Baptist
Church by Thomas A. Dorsey and Theodore R. Frye in December 1931.
3. The establishment of the Roberta Martin Singers, which gave gospel
its signature ensemble sound.
4. The debut of the First Church of Deliverance radio broadcast in 1935,
which spread gospel music across several states and across cultural
and denominational lines.
5. The founding of the largest African American–owned gospel music
publishing enterprise, Martin and Morris Music Studio, in 1939.
6. The 1947 release of Mahalia Jackson’s best-selling record “Move On Up
a Little Higher,” which stimulated the gospel music recording boom.

A City Called Heaven is by no means an exhaustively detailed study of gospel

in Chicago. Its intent is to chronicle the development of Chicago gospel music
during its first five decades, from pioneers such as Thomas Dorsey and Sallie
Martin to the start of the contemporary gospel era of the 1970s, when the focus
shifted from Chicago to California. The book also paves the way for a thorough
treatment of the city’s gospel community since the 1970s, a story that in some
ways compares to what the pioneers experienced, and in other ways is com-
pletely different but nevertheless is richly deserving of its own volume. I hope
that this work stimulates a renaissance of scholarship on Chicago gospel music.
There is so much more to be learned, so many more stories to be uncovered.
Meanwhile, the reader will gain a greater understanding of, and appreciation
for, a fascinating time in American history, and a people who moved physi-
cally to better their condition, only to discover that betterment rested within
themselves, and in their songs, services, musicals, and believing community.
Finally, A City Called Heaven seeks to settle the long-standing argument
about which city can properly claim the title “Birthplace of Gospel Music.” I
argue that the birthplace is Chicago, but there was no instantaneous musical
fission, no big bang that brought gospel into being. Rather, gospel was a steady,
incremental work in progress from the 1920s onward, starting with the Pente-
costal and Holiness churches and spreading into mainline Protestant churches
during the 1930s.
Because this story is essentially about the quest for freedom, let us begin
our narrative with that universal symbol of freedom: the train.
P ar t O n e

Roots
 C hap t er 1

Got On My Traveling Shoes

Black Sacred Music and the Great Migration
Rise, shine, and give God the glory, glory;
Rise, shine, and give God the glory, glory;
Rise, shine, and give God the glory in the Year of Jubilee.
“Do You Think I’ll Make a Soldier,” Wiseman Sextet version

The Gospel Train Is Comin’

The Illinois Central passenger train screeched to a stop at the Twelfth Street
depot on Chicago’s South Side, its smokestack coughing up frothy puffs of soot
as if the fatigue of traveling 1,126 railroad miles north from New Orleans had
caused it combustible indigestion.1 From among the train’s human cargo, black
men, women, and children trudged slowly through the passenger car doors
and made their first footfalls on the platform.
The Promised Land.
Once inside the Illinois Central station’s bustling lobby, the new arrivals
searched the sea of faces, looking for family members, friends, and neighbors
who had already settled in Chicago and promised to meet them when their
train arrived. Those who had nobody waiting for them could hail a porter or
redcap and seek explicit directions to their final destination
For the majority of arrivals, that destination was Bronzeville—the “city
within a city,” the Black Metropolis—the primary residential and commercial
district for Chicago’s black population during the nineteenth and early twen-
tieth centuries.2 In those days, Bronzeville was an eight-and-one-half-square-
mile community concentrated between Roosevelt Road (1200 South) as the

11
12 Part One: Roots

northernmost border, Cottage Grove as the easternmost border, Wentworth

Avenue as the western boundary, and a southern border that shifted over time,
from Thirty-First to Thirty-Fifth, then to Forty-Seventh and eventually Sixty-
Third Street.
Many of the earliest southern migrants got their first eyeful of Bronzeville
from the streetcar as they traveled the few miles south on State Street from
the IC Station at Twelfth Street into the heart of The Stroll, Bronzeville’s main
entertainment district during the 1920s and 1930s. The area along State Street
between Thirty-First and Thirty-Fifth Streets was packed with entertainments
of every kind, a Chicago equivalent of Beale Street in Memphis or Rampart
Street in New Orleans. Patrons of the Grand Theater enjoyed generous helpings
of classic blues from Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, who made her entrance onto the
stage by bursting forth from a giant papier-mâché Victrola. On the same block
as the Grand were the Lincoln Theater and the Vendome Theater, where Louis
Armstrong and Carroll Dickerson’s Orchestra got patrons dancing after the
motion-picture show. For fourteen-year-old Wealthy L. Mobley, who migrated
with his family from Minter City, Mississippi, on Christmas Day 1935, the sight
of Chicago was “awesome!” He explained, “Well, you know, coming out of the
country, the only light we saw was the lighting up of a lightning bug!”3
Squeezed between the come-hither facades of dazzling theaters, cafés, and
restaurants were furniture stores, funeral parlors, beauty shops, and sparse,
somber storefront churches. As if to underscore the difference between them
and their gaudier neighbors, these churches were minimally furnished with
wooden folding chairs facing the pulpit in meticulously arranged rows, rever-
ently awaiting the next service. On Sunday mornings and evenings, the rhyth-
mic singing and shouting coming from Pentecostal and Holiness churches
along State Street were so exuberant that one might suspect the buildings’
proximity to the clubs had infected their congregations with the jazz bug.
Passersby were as much an expression of the area’s contrasts as the buildings.
Walking along State Street were men in sharp suits, women in smart dresses,
factory workers in overalls covered in grease and dirt, and slaughterhouse em-
ployees splattered with animal blood. On one corner might be a battered man
in an even more battered fedora, a cigarette dangling from his mouth while
he played bottleneck country blues on guitar. On the other corner might be
a sturdy, serious woman dressed in a long, dark dress, somber hat, and black
Oxford shoes. Like the bottleneck guitarist, she sang with passion, but whereas
his repertory was blues, hers was the gospel hymn and evangelistic song. He
sang about hurt, she about salvation, but both strummed the same chords, sang
with the same raw and genuine feeling, and hoped for a few coins in their cup
or tambourine by day’s end.
 1. Got On My Traveling Shoes 13

Chicago did not look or feel like the Promised Land as proffered by the
Chicago Defender, the largest weekly newspaper by and about African Ameri-
cans. The streets were not paved with gold, and some were not even paved. Still,
Chicago did not have lynch mobs, sharecropping, or “Colored Only” signs. You
could ride the streetcar and not have to move when a white person sat down
next to you.
Starting around 1916, but given an official start date by the Defender of May
15, 1917, the Great Northern Drive, or the Great Migration, sent wave upon wave
of black men, women, and children crashing upon Chicago’s shores.4 Between
1910 and 1920, the Great Migration swelled Chicago’s black population from
44,103 to 109,458, placing the city fourth among all U.S. cities in total black
population by 1920.5 Of blacks living in Chicago in 1920, more than 80 per-
cent—some 91,000—had been born outside Illinois, with the largest percentages
arriving from Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia,
and Mississippi. Most came from Alabama and Mississippi.
The Great Migration was called an exodus for good reason. Entire families
evacuated plantations, small towns, and rural villages, but mostly left the cities
of post-Reconstruction Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia,
Tennessee, and Kentucky. In 1918, an adult could purchase a one-way ticket
on the Illinois Central from New Orleans to Chicago for $22.52; by 1927, the
one-way fare rose to $37.76. Individuals unable to afford the fare from savings
sold property and personal goods or sought financial assistance from family
or friends already established in Chicago. Especially enterprising individuals
organized family, friends, and neighbors into “emigrant clubs” that enabled
them to negotiate group discount fares with the train companies. When police
began patrolling southern train stations to prevent the black labor force from
leaving, ticketholders hid behind trees and brush north of the station. As the
train lumbered past, the entire area seemed to spring to life, like jubilee: black
men, women, and children, bags in hand, darted from behind cover and ran
toward the train doors.
Regardless of the way migrants traveled, Chicago was the destination of
choice, particularly for those from Atlanta, Birmingham, Mobile, New Orleans,
and Memphis. Myriad reasons were given for leaving the South, but they could
all be summarized as “to better my condition.” That is what Chicago promised,
what the Defender screamed from its front pages and editorials, what Pullman
porters spoke about, and what relatives, friends, and neighbors—the pioneers
who traveled to Chicago to test the waters—described in postcards, telephone
calls, and during occasional visits back home.6 Some things told about Chicago
were not true, but as one newcomer noted, “So much of it true, don’t mind the
other.”7
14 Part One: Roots

The Promised Land?

Substandard housing was one of the migrant’s first disillusionments in the
Promised Land. Blacks who moved to Chicago prior to the Great Migration
found living accommodations without much difficulty, even though the city’s
restrictive housing covenants kept them within the confines of Bronzeville’s
narrow rectangular border. But by 1920, when more than one hundred thousand
African Americans had settled in the city, Bronzeville was packed to burst-
ing. When demand for flats outweighed supply, landlords subdivided already
subdivided housing stock, creating the kitchenette—a cramped, dingy, and
unsafe efficiency unit.
Employment was another disappointment. Many men toiled under the
same backbreaking work in the northern steel mills and slaughterhouses as
they had endured in the South. Migrants had also not escaped domestic ser-
vitude by coming north. The work available to them included jobs as janitors
and wait staff, and maids and laundresses for women. When funds were avail-
able, women entered beauty schools, trained to become teachers, or studied
nursing at Bronzeville’s all-black Provident Hospital or the city’s Contagious
Hospital. Jobs in Chicago paid better than those in the South, but with higher
wages came long, arduous hours of manual labor.
Resistance to new migrants sometimes escalated to violence. The Race Riot
of 1919, during which 38 persons were killed and 537 injured, proved that race
relations in Chicago were on shaky ground.8 Further, between July 1, 1917, and
March 1, 1921, 58 black-inhabited buildings in Chicago were bombed.9 In 1925,
a Baptist church on Michigan Avenue was bombed so repeatedly that the con-
gregation took out insurance against bombing.10 One Congregational church
on South Michigan Avenue received national attention for placing a bulletin
board in front that stated “A White Congregation Worships Here.”11
If unemployment, substandard housing, and hostility weren’t bad enough,
the new migrants faced prejudice and discrimination from within the black
community as well. Some “Old Settlers,” members of the black middle-class
establishment who were born or settled in Chicago prior to the Great Migration,
believed the migrants’ country behavior compromised any real or perceived ra-
cial harmony that existed in the city. One Old Settler commented, “There was no
discrimination in Chicago during my early childhood days, but as the Negroes
began coming to Chicago in numbers it seems they brought discrimination
with them.”12 Others criticized the uncouth manners of some newcomers. One
unattributed article in the Defender declared, “When in Chicago, for goodness
sake, do as Chicagoans do!” The writer admonished black workers for “riding
busses and trains in their overalls and dirty clothes used at work” and advised
them to wash before coming home and leave dirty clothes at the workplace.13
 1. Got On My Traveling Shoes 15

The intraracial friction boiled down to class differences. Old Settlers did not
work in factories—they were never afforded the opportunity. They developed
stable incomes as postal employees, Pullman porters, housekeepers for wealthy
white families, and doormen. In keeping with their urban middle-class stand-
ing, they cultivated a sense of refinement and respectability. They belonged to
social clubs, were active politically, and fostered an appreciation for classical
music. They favored highbrow performances of the all-black Apollo Chorus,
Umbrian Glee Club, William E. Myricks’s Federal Glee Club, and the women’s
Laredef Glee Club (Federal spelled backward), and Professor J. Wesley Jones’s
Metropolitan Prize-Winning and Radio Choir. They were embarrassed by
southern migrants’ folk mannerisms. Since restrictive covenants forced Old
Settlers and new arrivals to live side by side, every wave of migrants found the
middle class fleeing further south within the city’s black belt boundary. They
clustered in communities around Forty-Seventh Street, then around Sixty-
Third Street.14 As the black population continued to swell, Old Settlers moved
southwest into the Englewood neighborhood. The more affluent made their
homes in Morgan Park. It was not long before the migrant population was so
pervasive that the Old Settlers could not go anywhere without finding new
settlers living on the same block or in the same building.
It might seem that the one institution to which the new settlers could turn
for solace was the church, but class differences were just as pronounced in
the religious community as elsewhere. The worship style of the established
Protestant churches in the urban north was dramatically different from what
migrants practiced down South. The Great Migration and the resulting clash
between the Old Settlers and the newcomers ultimately changed the religious
order as profoundly as it did the social order, raising questions about what it
meant to be black, religious, urban, and modern in the twentieth century.15

“How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land?”

Communal worship, with its emotional music, preaching, rhythm, singing,
and dancing, originated in West African sacred and secular traditions. Black
gospel music in particular retained African-derived aesthetic markers, includ-
ing falsetto, religious dancing or shouting, improvisation, repetition, hand
clapping and foot patting, dynamic rhythms, communal participation, an-
tiphonal response (call-and-response), and oral transmission of the music.16
West Africans recognized spirit possession, a hallmark of the sanctified church,
as the supreme religious experience. They regarded music and dance as both
religious and secular, central to daily life and participatory.
Further, the folk preacher is a descendant of West African tribal leaders,
serving as a spiritual leader and spokesperson and carrying musical elements
16 Part One: Roots

into ritual. Jon Michael Spencer has observed that the “African rhythms of
black preaching” gave the traditional black sermon its “melodiousness” as well
as its “momentum and its momentousness.”17 It is also easy to hear the folk
preacher’s melodiousness, momentum, and momentousness in the delivery of
a gospel song sung by a soloist or lead singer.
The black church evolved from the combination of “habits of belief” car-
ried by Africans to the New World and “religion they were taught here.”18
“Brush arbor” or “brush harbor” meetings, named for the slaves’ practice of
gathering to worship under cover of brush or bushes to escape the notice of
plantation owners, combined several African indigenous practices, including
antiphonal, or call-and-response, singing and exhortations, impassioned ora-
tory, and extroverted body movement. White Methodist missionaries taught
psalms and hymns to slaves as they traveled the South and Southeast during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in search of converts.19 The conver-
sion process or “seekin’ the Lord,” a rite of passage similar to African initiation
rites, encouraged slaves to make public testimonies or confessions of faith.20
As slaves Africanized Christianity, they brought biblical themes of escape
and deliverance into their own repertory of slave songs and spirituals. They
were especially attracted to the mournful long-meter, or “lining out,” psalms
and hymns, in which a church leader recited or “called” a stanza of a psalm
or song and led the congregation in a sung response. This practice, developed
in mid-seventeenth-century white New England congregations in the absence
of hymnbooks or instruments, was introduced to slave communities around
1750 by Samuel Davies, a New Light preacher. “Doc Watts” hymns—in essence,
any long-meter hymn written by Isaac Watts and other hymnists—can still be
heard “raised” or “lifted” by a deacon for congregational participation prior to
a worship service in black Baptist churches.21
The songs and oratory of fundamentalist preachers and evangelists who
pitched revival tents in rural areas and cities in nineteenth-century America
also appealed to the black community. The use of vernacular language, emo-
tional persuasion, and impassioned preaching echoed the slaves’ brush arbor
and plantation mission meetings and pray’s house experiences.22 The sprightly
camp meeting spirituals and revival songs were crafted, like the long-meter
hymns, so that attendees could learn them easily and quickly.
To facilitate congregational singing, gospel hymns and camp-meeting songs
sometimes incorporated a portfolio of movable couplets and single lines that
floated from song to song. For example, the opening verse of “Amazing Grace”
was so well known by Christians that song leaders could incorporate it into
any gospel hymn or set it to any melody with complete confidence that the
congregation could join in.
Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs, published by white evangelists Ira D. San-
key and Philip P. Bliss in 1875, was the first book to use the phrase “gospel
 1. Got On My Traveling Shoes 17

hymns” in association with religious songs. Their Gospel Hymns No. 2 followed
a year later. Both hymnals attempted to capture the spirit and ardor of antebel-
lum camp meetings, the Protestant City-Revival Movement of the 1850s, and
the Sunday school songs that accompanied the revivalism.23 More often than
not, they seemed more solemn than celebratory. Nevertheless, they were far
more popular among free blacks at the time than the spirituals, which served
as embarrassing reminders of servitude’s indignity.24 More than a dozen of
the hymnbook’s songs, including “Pass Me Not,” “I Need Thee Every Hour,”
“Come Ye Disconsolate,” “The Solid Rock,” and “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross,”
remain popular hymns in the African American church.25 Walter Pitts noted
that worshippers often referred to these songs as “Sankeys.”26
Independent black churches in southern states were established after the
abolition of slavery. Individuals affiliated with one of several Protestant de-
nominations, such as African Methodist Episcopal (AME), Baptist, Methodist
Episcopal (ME), Colored (Christian) Methodist Episcopal (CME), and AME
Zion. Regardless of denomination, the African American church was more
than a house of worship. It was the most important black-centric institution—
“the only institution,” according to historian Carter Godwin Woodson, “that
the race controls.”27 The church was a house of worship, a community center,
youth center, senior center, social service center, news and information bureau,
arbiter, mediator, and entertainment venue. Generations were born, baptized,
married, and buried in the same church. According to Leroi Jones, “The Negro
church, as it was begun, was the only place where the Negro could release emo-
tions that slavery would naturally tend to curtail. The Negro went to church,
literally, to be free, and to prepare himself for his freedom in the Promised
Land.”28 Church congregations were communities within communities, suf-
ficiently intimate that members knew one another by name and family geneal-
ogy. Membership was an important measure of status, and volunteer positions
held within the church conferred additional standing.

The African American Church in the Urban North

While African American Protestant churches in northern urban centers served
a similar role to their southern counterparts as community, social, and enter-
tainment centers, migrants discovered that the African American church in
the urban North had by and large distanced itself from the southern worship
experience. The northern worship style tended to reflect the refined tastes of
its upwardly mobile middle-class membership. Some educated black preachers
winced at the “spontaneous improvisation and antiphonal chaos” of congre-
gational singing.29 AME bishop Daniel Alexander Payne and others sought to
tamp down exuberant expression during services and replace the practice of
lining out with “well trained church choirs” and classical musical instruments.
18 Part One: Roots

Just as the spirituals were shunned by former slaves, educated preachers con-
sidered antebellum worship practices involving excessive body movement and
vociferous exclamation to be voodoo, superstition, or, at the very least, not in
accord with racial uplift.30
Interestingly, Elizabeth Kilham, a white teacher of freed blacks, predicted
as early as 1870 that the traditional worship practices and hymns were in dan-
ger of disappearing: “The distinctive features of negro hymnology are gradu-
ally disappearing. . . . The cause for this lies in the education of the younger
people. . . . Already they have learned to ridicule the extravagant preaching,
the meaningless hymns, and the noisy singing of the elders. . . . In the cities,
the young people have, in many cases, taken the matter into their own hands,
formed choirs, adopted the hymns and tunes in use in the white churches.”31
Gradually more northern AME, Baptist, and other mainstream African
American Christian denominations came under the influence of university-
educated pastors and ministers who delivered learned homilies and integrated
classically trained choirs into the worship service and musicals. Still, as blacks
assumed full control of their churches, some pastors were amenable to con-
gregants expressing “spontaneous religious emotions through active partici-
pation in worship.”32 Sutherland notes that among Chicago’s black church
congregations in the late 1920s, “a large share of the members recognize[d] that
they [were] in a changed environment and that their rural religious practices
[were] out of accord with the generally accepted standards,” but that “oc-
casional demonstrations occurred at Olivet, Metropolitan, Berean, Greater
Bethesda, and others,” though “usually of a mild degree.”33 On the other hand,
Rev. Elijah J. Fisher, pastor of Olivet Baptist Church around 1915, said he be-
lieved “in enthusiastic religion but did not countenance a church in demoniac
pandemonium.”34
Sociologist Vattel Elbert Daniel categorized black churches in Chicago ac-
cording to worship style: liturgical (e.g., Roman Catholic and Lutheran, in
which the pastor or priest followed “liturgical ceremonial”), deliberative (e.g.,
Baptist, AME, CME, and ME, which preferred “sermon-centered services”),
semi-demonstrative (e.g., Baptist, AME, CME, and Community, which “in-
dulge in demonstrative assent”), and ecstatic cults (e.g., Church of God in
Christ, Spiritual, and Church of the Living God).35 Liturgical and deliberative
churches preferred refined singing and worship practices, while semi-demon-
strative churches did not mind a shout or two. Ecstatic cults encouraged de-
monstrative worship and singing. Daniel felt that of the four categories, semi-
demonstrative churches were most closely related to the traditional (southern)
African American church.
To black progressives, indigenous religious practices were more than embar-
rassing reminders of slavery times. They reinforced the very racial stereotypes
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 En este copo de amor
Os presento un ave hermosa,
Qu’es la vuestra mariposa.

Don Diego Ladron dió otro á la señora doña María, su mujer, y

dixo:
En este copo de amor
Os presento un muy gran dón,
Un ave vuestro Ladron.

Don Francisco Fenollet dió otro á la señora doña Francisca, su

mujer, y dixo:

En este copo de amor

Por ave Francisco doy,
Pues que de Francisca soy.

Don Miguel Fernandez dió otro á la señora doña Ana Mercader,

su mujer, y dixo:
En este copo de amor
N’os presentó cosa vana
Por ave la mayorana.

Don Baltasar Mercader dió otro á la señora doña Isabel, su mujer,

con este dicho:
En este copo de amor
Doy lo que de vos más quiero,
Un ave qu’es, mucho quiero.

Don Berenguer Aguilar dió otro á la señora doña Leonor Gualvez,

su mujer, y dixo:
En este copo de amor
A mi Leonor se da
Por ave mi aguila.
Tras estos copos de amor sacaron muchas maneras de potajes:
manjar blanco de amor en blanco, y mirrauste de mal miraste, y
diamante del amante, y aves cocidas de escocidas, y escodillas de
salsas de falsas, y salchichones de burlones, y longanizas de falsas
risas, y sobreasadas de refalsadas, y pollastres de desastres, y
porcellas de querellas, y cabritos de malditos, y cabezas de ternera
de parleras, y tortras de mal de otras, y empanadillas de rencillas; y
por postres dieron peras de mal esperas, y queso de mal seso, y
aceitunas de importunas, y camuesas de feezas, y ragea de mal se
vea, y muchas maneras de confituras de amarguras; todo
Fué con tanto cumplimiento,
Que por burla como á cuento
He sacado
Los manjares que he burlado,
Que hablando muy de véras
Sin falsete,
Nunca fué mejor banquete.

Acabada que fué la comida, dixo el Duque: Quien promete en

deuda se mete. Yo prometí ser juez para juzgar cuál de los dos, ó
Joan Fernandez, ó don Luis Milan, agora podeis decir las coplas que
os hecistes, que, oidas las dos partes, yo diré mi parescer.
Dixo don Luis Milan: Pues vuestra excelencia lo manda, y
estamos en juicio, tengámosle los que habernos de ser juzgados en
ser bien sufridos,
Que en el lugar de las verdades
Decir mentiras, son maldades.

Y tratando muy gran verdad digo, que Joan Fernandez vino al

juego de la pelota muy canicular en los dias caniculares, en cuerpo,
sin capa, vestido de monte ó de mote, con un sayo y calzas y
montera de paño, y un jubon algodonado de fustan; todo tan verde
que no vino nada maduro, con tan grandes calores como hacia, que
no se podia vivir con tafetanes; y diciéndome don Francisco Fenollet:
¿Qué risa es ésta que se ha levantado tan grande? yo le dixe: Del
cielo viene lo que por castigo se hace, ¿no veis cuál ha venido
nuestro amigo, un Enero en Juliol hecho un verderol? Y por esto le
hice estas tres coplas, que si comienzan con puntos de música, fué
por burlar de la suya, pues burla de la de todos, y recíbalo con
paciencia.
Que poco enoja
La burla que desenoja.

Dixo Joan Fernandez: Decildas, que las burlas sin dañar nunca
obligan á enojar.
Señor, ut, re, mi, fa, sol,
Joan Fernandez sin par,
Ogaño os podrán pescar
En la mar por verderol.
Un tiempo fuistes pajel
Trayendo turca de grana,
Yo no sé por cuál desgana
Dejastes la color dél,
Por una esperanza vana.
Suplicos se os acuerde
Sobre tal caso escribir,
Si no, habrémos de decir,
Adelante los del verde.
Y á refran tan conoscido,
Por quitar murmuradores,
Dad razon á trovadores,
Si de verde os sois vestido
Por ir verde en los amores.
Por mote no lo tomeis,
Pues es pregunta que os pido,
Si no, yo seré el corrido,
Si vos desto os correis.
Y perdone la ocasion
Que lo verde me ha dado,
Que por verderol, pescado
Entre platos y un limon,
Al Duque os he presentado.

Dixo Joan Fernandez: Con un cuento quiero responder al yerro

que sintió don Luis Milan, de malas coplas que le hice, por contentar
á quien contentando descontenta.
 Que peor no puede ser
Que á malos apetitos complacer.

Y siguióse que el Rey de Portugal hizo hacer un exercicio para

hacer galanes, y fué que armó un maestro de gala porque
amostrase á hacer el galan á quien lo hubiese menester para bien
servir á damas, porque no se daba licencia de servirlas sino á quien
fuese examinado oficial de la gala, y si el caballero sirviendo á su
dama hacia algun nescio pecado, ella le daba la pena que merescia.
Y como el mayor de todos los pecados fuese hacer malas coplas,
hizo un portugues á un competidor suyo unas, que sabian á pullas
por ser mentirosas y de bajo estilo; y la pena que su dama le dió,
fué despedirle de servidor, y él iba diciendo:
Por facer malas coplas
Perdí miña amor,
Doleyvos de meu dolor.

Yo soy este portugues, que por lo mismo fuí despedido de una

dama que serviamos don Luis Milan y yo, y despidióme con este
cantar de muertos:
No me sirvais, caballero,
Ios con Dios,
Que quien hace malas coplas,
Nescio vos.

Yo quedé tan arrepentido, que luégo rasgué todas las malas

coplas que pude haber, y de nuevo le respondí á todas las suyas con
las que agora le responderé á cuantas me dirá; y respondo á las del
verderol, que me ha hecho, con éstas:
Señor: re, mi, fa, sol, la,
Respondo al ut, re, mi, fa, sol;
Vuestro galan.
De vos se queja mi águila,
Que la hizo verderol
Vuestro milan.
En el vuelo se ha mostrado
Vuestro milan, como en caja,
 En amor.
Quien tras águila ha volado,
Si por verderol se abaja,
Es pescador.
Vos haceis lo que hacer suele
El milan en su volar
Por vivir sano.
Que por muy alto que vuele,
L’habemos visto abajar
Por un liviano.
Ese milan que teneis
Daltibajo es su gran vuelo
En llano y sierra.
Cantad lo que vos haceis,
Que vuelo hasta el cielo
Y quedo en tierra.
Las damas os desengañan,
Que n’os quieren mirar más
Si las mirais.
Pues vuestras cosas engañan,
Todo es Pedro por demas
Si festejais.
Dicen que os han descubierto
Que sois muy desamorado
En amores.
Qu’el primer dia sois muerto,
Y al tercer resucitado
Sin dolores.

Dixo don Luis Milan: Señor Duque, si estuviese en mi mano,

lloraria por no dar en reir de lo que diré, que no sé cómo lo diga,
que ya me rio del sayete de paño naranjado que sacó el señor Joan
Fernandez para ruar, ó reir á hora de vueltas; y estaba guarnescido
con una trepilla, ó tripilla cortesana de tercioperro negro, que tan
negro terciopelo nunca vi. Pues fué tan reido por la trepilla, como
trepado de todos, por ser tan corto como vizcaíno, y tan estrecho
como catalan, que don Diego Ladron, en una copla que le hizo, le
dixo que era sayo-paje, y don Francisco Fenollet, en otra, le apodó á
sayo-mono, y yo, á cuera-sayo, como en esta copla vuestra
excelencia verá:
 No caigo bien en la cuenta,
Y he caido de quién es,
Que ese sayo que traés
Á los dos os descontenta.
Para sayo más es cuera,
Para cuera más es sayo,
Librea pensé que fuera;
Digámosle sayo-cuera,
Ó si quereis, cuera-sayo.

RESPUESTA DE JOAN FERNANDEZ.

Pues tambien canta estrambotes
Á mi sayo su milan,
Si quisiese ser truhan,
Ganaríale á motes.
Cuera-sayo le decis,
Y no está de vos quejoso,
Que si vos os lo vestis,
Decirle han sayo Luis,
Que se ensaya á ser donoso.

COPLA DE DON DIEGO LADRON Á JOAN FERNANDEZ.

Ya tengo perdido el norte,
No puedo saber quién es,
Ese sayo que traés
Debe ser de vuestro corte.
Ó de vuestra corte traje,
Me paresce, señor Juan,
Dalde luégo á un truhan,
Que paresce sayo-paje.

RESPUESTA DE JOAN FERNANDEZ Á DON DIEGO LADRON.

Pues el norte que perdistes
Os hizo perder la gala,
Don Diego Ginagala
Á mi sayo parescistes.
Sayo-paje le apodastes,
Y él á vos os ha apodado
Á galan Ginagalado,
Pues de Ginagala hablastes.
Á
 COPLA DE DON FRANCISCO FENOLLET Á JOAN FERNANDEZ.
Espantados vais los dos,
Vos y el sayo que traeis;
¿Cómo los dos n’os correis,
Vos con él, y él con vos?
Dende agora y’os perdono,
Y podréis os dél servir,
Si me le dejais decir
Que parece sayo-mono.

RESPUESTA DE JOAN FERNANDEZ Á DON FRANCISCO FENOLLET.

Si los dos nos espantamos,
Yo y mi sayo naranjado,
Fué de veros espantado
Por lo que de vos burlamos.
Para hacer una comedia,
Yo le dixe á mi sayete,
Mejor fueras fenollete
Que sayo-mono de Heredia.

Dixo don Luis Milan: Item más, salió el señor Joan Fernandez por
la iglesia mayor, sin capa y con el sayo desabrochado, para oir, la
oncena qu’es la misa de los perezosos. Y fué tan mortal este pecado,
que nadie lo quiso absolver, sino el Obispo de Fez de vuestra
excellencia, que perdona de todos los pecados, y porque supo que
no pecó en dia de fiesta, ni por mostrar su gentil cuerpo, sino por
remedar á un caballero mallorquin que quiso poner este mal uso en
nuestra Valencia; y fué tan reido, qu’el señor Joan no osó más volver
á pecar en este pecado, y por esto fué de las damas perdonado.
Pero no se me fué sin copla, y es ésta:
Dicho me han, señor don Joan,
Que se toma residencia
En la ciudad de Valencia
Del oficio de galan.
El pueblo está alborotado,
Que en cuerpo y desabrochado
Remedais al mallorquin:
Decidme, ¿qu’es vuestro fin,
Que de risa m’he finado?

RESPUESTA DE JOAN FERNANDEZ.

Dicho me han, señor don Luis,
Que os han hecho juez de gala,
Buena será para mala,
Si juzgais como servis.
Rey fué mal aconsejado,
Creo que vos lo aconsejastes,
Á vos y á él ha engañado,
Á él porque á vos l’ha dado,
Y á vos porque lo tomastes.

RÉPLICA DE DON LUIS MILAN.

Yo quiero renunciar
Al oficio de galan,
Mejor será para tal Joan,
Pues sabe tambien juzgar.
De razon me alcanzais,
Que mejor que yo juzgais,
L’ajeno y vuestro decis,
Vos hablais como vestis,
Y vestis como hablais.

RESPUESTA DE JOAN FERNANDEZ.

Vos sois muy buen danzador,
Y danzais para reir,
Del són os veo salir
Para ser gran tañedor.
Harto fué salir del són,
Sacarnos, como á desastre,
Á mis vestidos y razon,
Aquel juez sois de Aragon
Que ahorcó tejedor por sastre.

DON LUIS MILAN.

Yo por sastre os he tomado,
Que vos no sois tejedor,
 Ordidor ni tramador,
Sino de muy mal cortado.
Y aunque mucho habeis reido,
Del són no me soy salido,
Que despues que os guié,
De tal baja y’os saqué,
Que en el alta os he metido.

DE JOAN FERNANDEZ.
L’alta y baja que nombrastes
Es de vuestra condicion,
Alto sois de presuncion
Y muy bajo copleastes.
Contrabajo sois de tono
Por burlar de bajo traje,
Siendo contralto en linaje,
Quien dixera sayo-mono,
Sayo-cuera y sayo-paje.

DON DIEGO LADRON.

Tened al Rey, trovadores,
Qu’el Rey me ha dado poder
Que presos pueda traer
Á quien son copleadores.
Copleadores paresceis
Porque mucho os encendeis,
Que burlas n’os han de alargar,
Ya os podeis espabilar,
Que gran pábilo teneis.

Dixo el Duque: Tiene razon, don Diego Ladron, que las burlas no
deben ser largas aunque sean buenas, que si turan mucho, pueden
hacer mal estómago, por ser de mala digestion el burlar, y si son
pocas puédense digerir; y pues los caballeros no deben reñir de
burlas, no se ha de burlar para que puedan reñir de véras, porque
sufriendo muchas, parescen hombres de burlas, y siendo pocas, no
apocan á los burladores en sufrillas. Yo doy por tan buenas vuestras
coplas, que no sé á quién dar la mejoría, despues que se ha
mejorado Joan Fernandez en rasgar las malas coplas, que, por mal
consejo, hizo contra don Luis Milan.
Dixo don Francisco Fenollet: Señor, agora le pueden decir, Joan
Fernandez adobado como guante, pues ha sido tan bueno el adobo
de la dama que le despidió, que ha mejorado de coplas en las
burlas. Y vuestra excelencia, para acabar de bien juzgar, no debe
atajar que digan las demas que se hicieron, para que vea si son tan
buenas las que vernán como las pasadas, que volviéndose á
encender, yo los espabilaré y departiré con otra copla, como lo hizo
don Diego Ladron.
Dixo el Duque: Don Francisco, bien me parece lo que decis,
aguarden tiempo y lugar que venga á buen propósito, y podrán
tornar á volar el águila del Joan y el milan de don Luis, y agora
tratemos de las muy avisadas y graciosas razones que estas señoras
dixeron ántes de cazar, que yo las atajé para que mejor platicásemos
dellas despues de la comida. Y agora diga la señora doña Mencía la
suya.
Dixo la señora doña Mencía: Señor, lo que yo dixe fué, que mejor
están los amadores estando malos que buenos, porque la dolencia
de los que aman es salud para la honra de sus damas, pues estando
malos sus servidores, muestran no estar sanos de favores, y estar
los galanes dolientes, desfavorecidos, es sanidad para ellos; pues no
andan atrevidos sino para bien servir y no enojar; que si estuviesen
sanos de bien tratados, andáran descuidados en el servicio de sus
damas, pensando que no pueden parescer mal, de cualquier manera
que sirvan, los que por buenos servicios han allegado á parescer
bien y van engañados; que los que se descuidan son los que se
pierden. Y como mi señor don Luis Vique tiene bien probado ser esto
lo mejor, siendo marido se trata conmigo como á servidor, y á quien
tal hace, meresce que nunca le contradiga su mujer.
Dixo el Duque: Señora doña Mencía, no hay más que decir, sino
dígalo el señor don Luis Vique, su marido.
Dixo don Luis Vique; Señora mujer, yo ensoñé, quando os era
servidor, que os habia de ser buen marido, porque siendo leal la
dama cuando es amiga, no puede ser desleal cuando es mujer, que
si ántes de casar, cuando ella manda, se dexa mandar de la razon,
despues de casada no se puede desmandar para dar pasion.
Siempre vi en vuesa merced, cuando os servia, lo que debe hacer la
dama á su servidor cuando no merece competidor, pues vió en mí
que no lo merescia, ni por desleal para seros traidor, ni por atrevido
para mal serviros, ni por confiado para prometerme, ni por
descuidado para yo faltaros; que ni yo me confié de meresceros, ni
me desconfié para olvidaros. Y así la ventura os hizo mia, pues vió
que todo era vuestro, y con el modo que le gané la voluntad, como á
servidor, la quiero conservar como á marido, pues vuesa merced se
hizo amar como amiga, que habia de ser mi mujer. Que las amigas
que son buenas para mujeres, agradan mas que las mujeres que son
buenas para amigas.
Dixo Joan Fernandez: Señora doña Mencía, por lo que vuesa
merced ha dicho, ha mostrado qu’el señor don Luis Vique, su
marido, va tan enfermo de vuestro amor como cuando os era
servidor; y á mi parescer no se vió Luis más sano. Díganos en qué
está mal, si es dolor de quixal.
Dixo don Francisco Fenollet:
No puede ser mal de muelas,
Que sería gritador;
Más paresce mal de amor.

Dixo don Diego Ladron: Más parece el mal del tordo.

Dixo don Luis Milan: Más será el del gavilan, que, por gentileza, á
la mañana suelta la presa.
Dixo la señora doña Mencía: Señores desamorados, como no
teneis amor, habeis burlado del mal de mi señor don Luis Vique; Don
Francisco Fenollet ha acertado, que deste mal fué oleado.
Dixo don Luis Milan: Y cuán oleado, y áun batizado del agua del
palo, que mal frances fué su amor.
Dixo don Francisco Fenollet: Ximeno, por su mal conoce el ajeno.
Dixo Joan Fernandez: Don Francisco, vos no quereis acabar de
conoscer ese milan; por él se dixo: El mal de milano, las alas
quebradas y el pico sano.
Dixo don Luis Milan: Señor Joan Fernandez, pues quereis que
tenga pico, repico. Bien se os acuerda, cuando fuisteis dama de don
Enéas Ladron, que os sacó á danzar en el Real, estando en sarao la
Reina, mi señora, y su excelencia, y vos no le negastes vuestro
cuerpo, que parescistes la reina Dido, que iba danzando con su
Enéas troyano, como vos con el vuestro, que parescia Enéas gitano,
que por parescernos vos tan feo para dama como él para galan, le
apodamos á Camafeo, y á vos á dama fea. Pues fué el caso tan feo,
que no hallamos con qué salvaros, sino con Lope de Rueda, que lo
quisistes contra-hacer por dar placer á costa vuestra, como esta
copla muestra:
Bueno vais, señor don Joan,
Puesto estais en buena fama,
Y’os tenía por galan,
Y hanme dicho que sois dama.
Bien podeis cantar de hoy más
Aquella triste sonada
De Dido, la desdichada:
Enéas, pues que te vas
Y me dejas tan burlada.

RESPUESTA DE JOAN FRNANDEZ.

Cantó l’alba la perdiz,
Más le valiera dormir,
Pues danzastes con Betriz
Para darnos que reir.
Gilot lo supo despues
Que con su Betriz danzastes,
Pues de su casa llevastes
Á la vuestra el mal frances,
Que á don Francisco pegastes.

Don Francisco los departió y dixo:

Tené al Rey, no más burlar,
Que ya dais mucha ocasion,
 Como á don Diego Ladron
Quando os quiso espabilar.
No paseis más adelante,
Y de mal frances no hablemos;
Enviémoslo á Alicante,
Que lo embarquen á Levante,
Que los tres harto tenemos.

Dixo el Duque: Yo quiero poner en medio, para departir como

maestro de esgrima, la vara, y es del palo del canónigo Ester.
Dixo el Canónigo: Señor, un dia me diréu lo canonge boix, puix
me habeu fet de palo.
Dixo el Duque: Canónigo, por mi vida, no haya más, pues no sois
para ménos; y diga la señora doña Castellana Belvis la razon que en
la caza le dixe que la dexase para agora.
Respondió la señora doña Castellana: Vuestra Excelencia manda
que diga lo que no querrian oir los malos maridos. Yo dixe, quando
don Pedro, mi señor, me presentó el ciervo con los cantores, que
para conoscer si estuvieron enamorados de véras los amadores,
ántes de casar, que siendo casados, siempre han de venir delante
sus mujeres, como á servidores, para ser buenos maridos, con
mucho deseo á beber de la fuente del deseo de su mujer; porque en
perderse los deseos, reinan los menosprecios. Y por esto las
menospreciadas son las mal casadas.
Y hombres menospreciadores
Siempre saben á traidores,
Y desleales,
Abren puerta para males.

Vengan pues con el deseo que viene el ciervo herido al agua, y

creerá la mujer que su marido no se dice don Olvido, como en este
cuento oirán. Una señora amiga mia, siendo mal casada, siempre
nombraba á su marido don Olvido, y él le puso nombre á ella doña
Olvidada. Hiciéronles esta cancion:
Si quereis saber quién son
Don Olvido y doña Olvidada,
 Mal marido y mal casada.

El Duque se rió de buena gana y dixo: Señora doña Castellana,

atapado nos ha las bocas, aunque no para reir, que no hay más que
decir. Caballeros, sirvamos á nuestras mujeres como amigos, y ellas
servirnos han como á mujeres.
Dixo Joan Fernandez: Señor, vuestra Excelencia da unos consejos
que saben á conejos casolanos, que son mal sanos; gran trabajo es
hacer el siervo para ser señor, por esto rehusó de casar un sabio que
en este cuento diré. El Petrarca, siendo canónigo de Padua,
dispensaba el Papa que casase con madona Laura, por quien él
mostró estar tan enamorado della, como en sus Triunfos y sus
sonetos se ve, y consentia que viviese con sus rentas eclesiásticas si
se casaba, porque no escandalizase con amor temporal á su hábito
eclesiástico; y él, no queriendo casar, respondió al Papa: No quiero
trocar los placeres del amiga por los enojos de la mujer.
Dixo doña Hierónima, mujer de Joan Fernandez: Senyores, quin
preycador de bulles falses es mont marit; non prengau ninguna, que
totes les que ell preyca porten al infern.
Respondióle su marido: Mujer, engañada vais, que poco há me
aparesció una mujer que murió de amores de su marido, y díxome
que era salvada por haber tomado una bulla que yo preyco, y es,
que ninguna mujer se puede salvar si no muere de amores de su
marido.
Dixo doña Hierónima, su mujer:
De tal marit com vos,
¿Qui pot morir de amors?
Que jaus diuen Joan farcer,
Puix farçes feu de la muller.

La Reina rió mucho y dixo: Doña Hierónima, siempre querria que

hablásedes en valenciano, que en vuestra boca es gracioso; las dos
podemos cantar:
Mal me quieren mis comadres,
Porque les digo las verdades.
 Y diga, Gilot, ¿quién son las comadres?

Dixo Gilot: Senyora, puix vostra altesa ho mana, yo diré qui son
les comares ab est cuento. En lo carrer de la Nau dos dones eren
grans amigues per ser enemigues de sos marits, baralléuenlos cada
dia, y ells deyen: Vosastres no sou dones, sino homens; y elles
responien: Homens som, puix vosastres sou dones no fentnos parir,
y posárenlos nom, les comares. Nou dich perque sa Excellencia y
Joan Ferrandiz ó siem en cara que may han fet parir á ses mullers.
Dixo Joan Fernandez: Gilot, ¿tú no sabes que á su Excelencia y á
mí nos han parido dos mujeres? Que este mal de ser estériles no
está en nosotros, sino en las rabiosas,
Que por maravilla paren
Las que rabias conciben,
Pues que matan y no viven,

segun dice la regla de medicina.

Dixo doña Hierónima, su mujer: Senyora, ¿qui li par á vostra
altesa de mont marit? ¿Quin metge y buller que es? ab bulles falses
que preica, diu que posa dones en parais, y ab regles fingides de
medisina nos infama que som rabioses, y per ço no parim. No sería
mal acusarlo, que l’atre dia tragueren á la scala un buller falsari y un
metge no doctorat.
Dixo la Reina: Doña Hierónima, por adúltero meresceria más ser
sacado á la vergüenza, pues tiene tan poca que nos dice cara á cara
que les han parido dos mujeres.
Dixo el Duque: ¿Vuestra alteza sabe lo que me ha dicho al oido
Joan Fernandez? díxome: Mire qué primor diré, que diciendo una
gran mentira que nos han parido dos mujeres, diré una gran verdad;
que dos mujeres, que son nuestras madres, nos han parido.
Dixo la Reina: Eso teneis los hombres engañadores, que de las
verdades haceis mentiras y de las mentiras verdades. Mudemos de
nuevas, que en casos hay que es bien mudar para desenojar. Dixo
don Miguel Fernandez: Si como dixo vuesa alteza mudemos de
nuevas, dixera mudemos de costumbres, las mujeres no serian tan
rabiosas, y los maridos serian más caseros, y mi mujer y yo
terniamos mejor vida, porque siempre le digo: Mujer, mudemos de
nuevas; y ella me responde: Marido, mudavos de costumbres; yo le
respondo: Mujer, vos de condicion.
Y la señora doña Ana, su mujer, le dixo: Dexad vos la que habeis
tomado de vuestro hermano Joan Fernandez, yo dexaré la que tengo
de la señora doña Hierónima, su mujer, pues las dos más tenemos
los maridos mozeros que dameros por tener gustos bajos, que no
son sino de cortesanos de rameras cortesanas, bien mereceis el
nombre que os han puesto las damas, que en veros dicen: Hé aquí
los viejos mozos, y dicen bien, pues sois viejos para vuestras
mujeres, y mozos para las mozas de vuestra casa, que siempre
andais á caza dellas, que peor es que de moxcas.
Tomó la mano don Berenguer, y dixo: Señora mujer, pues á decir
condiciones de casados va, yo diré la vuestra y la mia, y su alteza
séanos juez cuál de las dos es mejor; yo le digo á doña Leonor, mi
mujer, cantando por casa:
Tus ojos, Leonor,
Mis enemigos son;

y ella me responde con este otro cantar:

Quitad el caballero
Los ojos de mí,
No mireis ansí.

Dixo la señora doña Leonor á la Reina: Pues vuestra alteza es

nuestro juez, dígame si tengo razon de mirar de mal ojo á marido
que viene fuera casa tomado de mala vista, que todo el año
tenemos los dos mal de ojos, él de perderme de vista, yo de buscalle
con la mia, que sombra está de asombrado de bajos amores, pues
siguiéndole me huye, y huyéndole me sigue como sombra; que ya le
pueden decir lo que dicen las damas á don Francisco Fenollet, que
vuestra alteza lo debria saber de don Luis Milan por un cuento
donoso que dél me contó.
Dixo la Reina que lo contase.
 Don Luis Milan respondió: Que no convenia decir cuento tan bajo
delante su alteza.
Dixo don Francisco: Si lo decis, yo diré otro de vos, mucho peor.
Yo le respondí: Porque vea su alteza quál corrió lança más baja
de vos ó yo, quiero decille; sepa vuestra alteza que el cuento es
éste: Yo visité á don Francisco, que estaba mal de unos amores
bajos, que yo se lo conoscí por este villancico que me dixo:
Herediano es el mi amor,
Herediano es
Quien me le hizo aragonés.

Y contóme que tenía amores con una hermosa cortesana

aragonesa, que se decia Herediana; y pensando estar sólo en esta
baja que danzaba, supo que un mercader ginoves, nombrado micer
Maltevollo, tenía amores con ella, y don Francisco quísola dejar y no
pudo de muy herediano. Quedó don Francisco con este concierto
que Herediana no diese más de un hora al dia á Maltevollo, y si más
se detenia y no se queria ir de casa, salia don Francisco amortajado
con una mortaja de tela negra diciendo: Guarda la sombra, guarda
la sombra; y Herediana decia: Ios, ios, Maltevollo, que ya viene la
sombra de mi padre del otro mundo, que me quiere matar porque
sea buena; y no queriendo irse Maltevollo, por comer una buena
cena que se habia hecho traer, salió otra vez la sombra diciendo:
Vate, Maltevollo; y él decia: Prima vollo manjar. Y él que no, y el otro
que sí, y abrazáronse los dos y rodaron la escalera abaxo. Maltevollo
huyó con la cabeza quebrada, y don Francisco cerró la puerta y
comióse la cena de Maltevollo; y quedó desta caida cojo de
reputacion, y por esto le dicen las damas don Francisco Sombra, que
sombra es quien de baxos amores se asombra.
Don Francisco dixo: Pues nos habeis resfriado con mi cuento, yo
escallentaré con el vuestro de risa. Bien se os acuerda que estando
vos enamorado de una criada de una dama que serviades, en pago
desta baja traicion burlaban de vos desta manera: La señora hacia
con su criada que os hiciese estar en un árbol de su huerta haciendo
el mochuelo toda la noche, porque no fuésedes descubierto,
esperando que la criada os diese entrada, y cuando hubieron
muchas noches burlado de vos, una noche que su marido de la
señora era fuera Valencia, subieron ella y su criada al terrado, y
decian:
Mal canta este mochuelo,
Matémosle;

y vos deciades:
No tireis piedras,
Que yo cantaré bien.

Y ellas decian: ¿Qué, los mochuelos hablan? vos algun ladron

debeis ser; respondíades vos: No soy sino mochuelo de amores; y
ellas á tirar piedras y vos hacer el mochuelo, hasta que os derribaron
del árbol abajo, y fuístesos apedreado como el gallo de
Carnestoliendas.
Que peor es que mochuelo
Quien sirve la señora,
Y pára en ser mozero.

El chiste que hicistes sobre esto quiero decir, pues tan bueno es
para contar como para hacer reir, y es éste:
Quéjome de una dama
D’ella á ella.
Que no puedo estar sin vella
Y no la veo.
Vengo yo d’este deseo
Á llorar.
Miedo tengo de cegar,
Mejor sería.
Pues no veo á quien querria,
Que sois vos.
Alabado sea Dios,
Que os crió,
Para que cegase yo,
Que ya lo’stoy.
 Pues no veo por do voy
Á las gentes.
Diciendo van entre dientes,
Hélo, hélo.
Vuelto se nos ha mochuelo,
Que tal sería.
Cierto no ve de dia
Y va mirando.
Vémosle estropezando
En sus amigos.
Señales son y testigos
De su muerte.
Dícenme: muy mala suerte
Habeis tenido.
Yo les digo: no ha sido
Sino buena;
Que no ver no me da pena,
Pues no veo
Á la que más ver deseo,
Que’s mi dama.
Dícenme si me defama,
Yo les digo:
Las obras son el testigo
Del amor.
¿Veisme ciego amador
Y burlais?
Plega á Dios que os veais
Como yo.
Mas no de quien me cegó.

Dixo la señora doña Violante Mascó:

Dios lo guarde á mi marido
De mochuelo,
Que no lo está de ser mozero.

Respondió don Luis Margarit, su marido:

Guardado estoy de mozero,
Pero no de ser mochuelo.
 Dixo la señora doña Mencía: No temo yo de mi marido que se me
haga mochuelo ni mozero desvergonzado viéndose tan bien casado;
que cantando va por casa:
Soy mozo y vergonzoso,
Soy mozo.

Respondió don Luis Vique, su marido:

Quien de vos se vió mochuelo,
¿Cómo puede ser mozero?

Dixo doña Castellana Belvis:

Como gavilan en mano,
Tan leal fué mi mochuelo.
Que jamas le vi mozero.

Dixo don Pedro Mascó, su marido: Señora mujer, quien no

asegura no prende.
La señora doña Ana Mercader dixo:
Claro se deja entender,
Que no fiemos de maridos
Que aseguran por prender.

Respondió don Miguel Fernandez, su marido:

No me entiendo yo en esto,
Que jamas os fuí travieso.

Dixo Joan Fernandez: Nunca son creidos los que tienen sus
mujeres por maridos.
Respondió la señora doña Hierónima, su mujer: ¿Cómo os va de
calor? que de frio no digo nada.
Dixo don Diego Ladron: Señora doña Hierónima, habiendo salido
el señor Joan Fernandez y vuesa merced una primavera de amor, ni
él puede tener frio ni vuestra merced calor.
 Dixo la señora doña María, su mujer: Piénsase el ladron que
todos son de su condicion.
Dixo la señora doña Isabel Ferrer:
Señora hermana,
No correis carrera vana,
Que ladron tengo yo el mio,
Que mi prima no le fio.

Respondió don Baltasar Mercader, su marido: Si mal es de quien

no deben confiar, peor es de quien se debe no fiar.
Dixo don Berenguer Aguilar: nunca pudo engordar mi mujer de
no fiar.
Respondió la señora doña Leonor:
Mi señor don Berenguer,
De engordar mucho el marido
Enflaquece la mujer.

El Duque y la Reina se holgaron mucho destas cortesanías destos

caballeros y damas, y dixo: Bien sería que don Luis Milan pusiese
por obra el Cortesano que le mandaron las damas que hiciese; yo
respondí: Si vuestra Excellencia me avisa diciendo las partes que ha
de tener el Cortesano,
Yo sabré hacer lo que no sabria,
Que del Rey se ha de tomar cortesanía.

Dixo el Duque: Yo diré mi parescer y esos caballeros digan el

suyo:
Que en las cosas de gran sér,
El Rey con los caballeros
Tiene muy buen parescer.

REGLAS DEL CORTESANO.

Á
 Comenzó el Duque y dixo: Á mí me paresce que el Cortesano ha
de tener estas reglas: saber hablar y callar donde es menester, que
no en todos tiempos ni en todo lugar ni á toda persona es bien
hablar, sino en su caso y lugar; que si se habla en tiempos que
pueden causar algun mal, mejor es callar; ni ménos se ha de hablar
en el lugar que se debe tener silencio, que ha de ser en la casa de
Dios, cuando se ha de rezar ó tener atencion á los oficios que se
dicen, y asimesmo en los lugares y casas reales estando delante del
Rey, por la fidelidad y acato que se le debe, sino cuando él lo
manda, ó hay ocasion ó interroga que delante dél se hable; ni
ménos se debe hablar á la persona qu’es prohibido, como
escomulgado con participantes, por no menospreciar la Iglesia de
Dios que lo manda; ni con hereje ni moro, sino por necesidad ó
conversion dellos, y en este caso es bueno ser amigo del amigo,
qu’es Dios, y enemigo de su enemigo, ni en lo temporal nadie debe
ser amigo de su enemigo para encender fuego en lugar de matalle, y
lo demas diga quien quisiere.
Dixo don Diego Ladron: Pues vuestra Excelencia lo manda, digo,
que el Cortesano no debria hablar sino de aquello que él sabe, pues
qualquier que habla lo que no comprende, descubre lo que no
entiende. Ni ménos debe hacer lo que ignora ó lo que no puede, que
muestra saber poco, y poder ménos quien mal se atreve.
Dixo Juan Fernandez: Yo diria que el Cortesano debe hablar
siempre á buen propósito, que apénas hay cosa mal dicha á buen
propósito ni bien hablada fuera dél, hora sea moviendo
conversacion, ó respondiendo á quien la mueve, pues sería
conversacion despropositada, como si se hablase de alegría en
tiempo de tristeza, si ya no se hiciese para alegrar á uno que se
holgase lo sanase de triste un alegre donoso.
Dixo don Francisco Fenollet: Yo digo que el Cortesano siempre
debe estar en lo que hace y dice, por no parescer descuidado, como
en este cuento diré: Iban camino dos caminantes, y pasando por un
pajar dixo el uno: ¡oh qué buena paja es ésta! y de allí á una hora
respondió el otro: para albardas. Esta paja se les podria dar á comer
á los que no están en lo que están, ni traen cuenta con quien les
habla, que no se ha de responder tarde para luégo, ni luégo para
tarde. Otros hay que no están en lo que hacen, como hacia un
justador portugues que nunca engozaba la lanza sino cuando su
contrario lo habia encontrado, y decia que se le hacia gran traicion
de encontralle ántes que él engozase; quiso ser juzgado, y el Rey de
Portugal, que era el juez, juzgó y dixo:
Descuidado justador,
Nan juste mais en amor.

Dixo don Luis Milan: El Cortesano ha de ser padre de la verdad,

hijo del modo, hermano de la crianza, pariente de la gravedad,
varon con ley, amigo de limpieza y enemigo de pesadumbre; y por
mostrar cómo lo entiendo, digo, que debe ser tan verdadero como el
padre á sus hijos, tratando mucha verdad con ellos para que sean
verdaderos, mostrando amor y correccion donde se debe, que en
casos hay que si mostrase voluntad sería tenido en poco; y porque
no lo sea, no le han de ver la cara para ser temido, sino obras para
ser amado, que no debe causar menosprecio quien ha de ser
respetado; y en todo lo que ha de tratar verdad ha de ser muy
verdadero, sino cuando va de burlas placentero.
Tambien ha de ser hijo del modo por lo que diré: Un filósofo,
haciendo vida en un desierto, vió una muy hermosa ninfa y
demandóle quién era, y ella le respondió: Soy la Justicia; dixo el
filósofo: ¿De dónde veniste? respondió: Vine del cielo; prosiguió el
filósofo diciendo: ¿Por qué vas por desiertos? dixo la Justicia: Porque
donde yo reinaba han muerto mi padre, que do el modo se pierde,
justicia no reina. Por donde se ve que el modo es padre de la justicia
y del Cortesano, que, para ser justo y llegado á razon, ha de ser su
hijo y de su condicion.
Tambien ha de ser hermano de la crianza, como en este cuento
mostraré: Topáronse cazando dos cazadores, muy lindos hombres;
dixo el uno al otro: Tan bien me paresces, que yo querria saber tu
nombre y de qué vives. Respondióle: Á mí me dicen don Venturoso,
y vivo de cazar lo que desdichados no alcanzan; yo tambien querria
saber lo mesmo de tí. Dixo el otro: Á mí me nombran don Bien-
criado, y vivo de cazar lo que mal criados pierden; el Cortesano debe
ser el uno que es don Bien-criado y cazará siempre lo que mal
criados vienen muchas veces á perder, que es el cielo y la tierra; y
puede ser el otro que es don Venturoso, porque el cielo da la
ventura á quien trabaja de ganalle con bondades y no parencerias,
como debe ser la crianza, que no ha de ser fingida para engañar,
sino verdadera para contentar.
Tambien ha de ser pariente de la gravedad, como en este cuento
diré: Un caballero de muy gran presencia y gravedad topó con una
reina, de gran hermosura y auctoridad, que se paseaba sola por una
deleitosa floresta, y díxole: Señora, ¿quién sois, que tanto contentais
á quien os mira? respondióle: Yo soy la Reina de la gravedad; dixo el
caballero: ¿Y por qué vais sola? respondió ella: Más vale soledad que
mala compañía, que la gravedad ha de ir acompañada de virtudes y
sola de vicios.
Tambien ha de ser varon con ley, como dixo un valeroso caballero
castellano, en la guerra de Granada, nombrado don Manuel de Leon,
que siendo muy amado, por su gran valentía, de un moro no ménos
valiente que él, que se decia Muza, que fué cativado en una
escaramuza, y trabajando el rey don Fernando y la reina doña Isabel
que se hiciese cristiano, viéndose muy importunado, dixo: Yo no
haré sino lo que me aconsejáre don Manuel Leon, mi gran amigo.
Fué á hablalle por mandado de los reyes y díxole: Muça, si tú te
pasas á nuestra ley y de corazon no fueres della, ni serás de la tuya
ni de la nuestra, y quedarás hombre sin ley; no dexes de serlo, que
no debe estar sin ley un momento el corazon para ser todo varon.
Muy bien mostró este caballero tener lo que aconsejaba; pues
hallándose en Roma, asaltado de malhechores una noche, hizo tan
maravillosas cosas en armas, que siendo los contrarios muchos, los
hizo pocos, venciendo á todos, huyendo de su gran corazon; y
viendo esta hazaña un romano, dixo á su mujer lo que don Manuel
de Leon habia hecho, y ella, enamorada de su gran valor, fuese á él
y contóle lo que su marido le habia dicho, ofresciéndose para
cumplir su voluntad si della se queria servir. A esto respondió él: Ios,
señora, que muy mala obra haria yo á quien me la hizo tan buena,
que fué vuestro marido; que jamas está sin ley l’agradescido.
Tambien ha de ser el Cortesano enemigo de pesadumbre,
Que si fuere pesadilla
No le cumple ir en Castilla
Ni en córte de Portugal;

que á pesados hacen mal y burlan dellos. Sepan más

Que’l buen galan,
Sus vestidos y ademan
Han de ser buenas razones,
Honestas calzas y jubones,
Capas y sayos.
Que si visten
Como mayos
De colores,

ha de ser
En justas y cañas,
Por amores.

Y al usado, honesto y limpio y adobado de buenos guantes

adobados, porque no den mala olor, de cuero de mal servidor:
Que no debe mal oler
El vestido cortesano
Porque no le den de mano

camisas y pañizuelos limpios y de buen olor

Y si fuese servidor,
En la gorra una invincion,
Que el otro monerías son.

Tambien debe tener el Cortesano buen estilo de hablar.

Que á los muy malos vocablos
Gasta bocas digo yo,
Que bocajes engendró.
Y si viene á burlar en conversacion, jugar del vocablo da buen son
Á los muy buenos oidos,
Que nunca serán reidos
Y podrán hacer reir.

Que agudeza muy graciosa, apénas es enojosa, como dixo un

cortesano á otro de amor mal sano:
Por demas sois en la gala.
Dixo el otro:
Mas no Pedro por demas,
Como vos en una sala.

Y algunas veces en burlar:

Prosa y verso debe hablar.
Y debaxo esta alegría,
No calle filosofía.
Muy de véras,
Que las burlas hacen véras.

Tambien ha de ser amigo de limpieza el Cortesano, como nos

muestra aquel animal nombrado herminio, que por no caer en el
lodo que los caçadores le ponen para caçalle, se dexa tomar. Con
más razon debe ser limpio el Cortesano, siendo herminio de damas
por ir mucho entr’ellas: lo que no son dos medio galanes nuestros
amigos. Que no son de los cumplidos los que en bajos aposentos
hacen nidos.
Dixo don Diego Ladron: Ya sé por quién preguntais.
Dixo Joan Fernandez: Por Herediano decis.
Dixo don Francisco Fenollet: No lo dice sino por su mochuelo.
Dixo el Duque: No he visto tan grandes véras parar en tan
buenas burlas; volvamos á Valencia, que yo daré mucho de mí si dan
de sí las damas y caballeros que aquí están para que nazca este
Cortesano, que no le faltarán comadres y compadres en esta
compañía cortesana, y batizarle ha el canónigo Ester y póngale
nombre luégo.
Senyor, yo so content, y de ara li pose nom el Pico, puix piccará
mes que una picaraza.
Respondió don Luis Milan:
Armad vuestra giba
Porque no reciba.

Dixo Joan Fernandez:

Yo la armaré
Con lo que sé.

Dixo el canónigo:
Armaula ab vostra muller
Y picau tots á plaer,
Que molt poch y fareu mella
Ab tal rodella.
Y restau pera corps
Picadors,
Que buitrera sou de mors.

Y dió de espuelas á su cuartago, y á más correr de corrido se fué

diciendo: Als corps, als corps. Y los pajes tras él gritando al
tartugote, canónigo giba, mendrugo Ster, y así se fué, y nosotros
tras él finados de risa hasta llegar á Valencia, y determinóse en el
camino que los cuatro á quien el Duque dió cargo que traigamos la
córte en peso, fuésemos nombrados desta manera:
Que don Diego Ladron se nombrase Diego en él; y don Francisco
Fenollet, Francisconio; y Joan Fernandez, Joanin; y don Luis Milan,
Milanteo, como nos verán nombrados en las pláticas que pasarémos
en esta córte, y aquí se acaba la primera jornada.
 JORNADA SEGUNDA.

Y en ella verán que los caballeros de los nombres mudados no

quisieron dexar los suyos, que no se debe dexar nombre de buen
renombre.
La conversacion della será declarar al principio debaxo jocosidad
el presente

SONETO.
Con alta voz yo cantaré llorando,
Pues es llorar cantar penalidades,
Á fin de bien diré muchas verdades,
Que muchos van por esto sospirando.
Mi fin será que vayan escuchando
Para mostrar las fieras crueldades,
Qu’el dios de amor, por campos y ciudades,
Á sombras va con sombras espantando.
¿Sabeis quién es el dios d’amor nombrado?
Tené por fe qu’es nuestro mal deseo,
Por desear desvergonzadamente;
Desnudo va quien es desvergonzado,
No le creais, que no es Dios ni lo creo,
Que lo qu’es Dios no reina malamente.

Dice Joan Fernandez: Don Luis Milan, vos decis en el presente

soneto vuestro estos versos que dicen:
Con alta voz yo cantaré llorando,
Pues es llorar cantar penalidades.
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

textbookfull.com