"Since three hundred and seventy years, the people of Alcázar de San Juan
keep on defending with solidity, as one of their best shades of glory, the
tradition that states that Alcázar is the place where the Prince of the Spanish Ingenuities,
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, was born. This has given them rise to many taunts and jokes;
but the people of Alcázar keep on being firm in their beliefs, not due to the stupidity of
naive little towns, as they have been called, but due to conviction first and second
due to the unproper ways that others have tried to show them that they may be wrong.
And not only the lack of courtesy has been used against the Alcazarean theses, but also
against all those who have supported them. A good proof of this is the black legend
that was plotted against the eminent Spanish paleographer Blas Nasarre,
discoverer of the
baptismal certificate of Alcázar,
who in his own handwriting wrote down on the margin: «This is the author of the story of
Don Quixote».
I intend to explain some historical data that the course of time erases
in the memories of people and makes persons and things look different to how they really were.
Ineluctable facts and that we only decipher when, studying in depth, we see
that most of them were made disappear on purpose. We should not, therefore, be guided by
just true wise and learned persons which were not blinded by passion and, if making mistakes
is typical of the wise ones, what shall we say about the pseudowise ones?;
but at last, let's not digress and go into the theme; you have to make do with
what Cervantes said: «Time is stronger to undo and change things, than the human wills»
(Cervantes, «Don Quixote of de la Mancha», 1st part, Chapter XLIV).
Francisco Saludador Merino.
Considerations about Cervantes' true birthplace:
a) The two baptismal certificates.
It is well known that the first biography of Cervantes was written by Gregorio Mayáns y Siscar
in 1737.
Lord Carteret, famous English Hispanist, admirer of Cervantes, who had correspondence with Mayáns,
influenced in his mind and pressed him to write his life. Mayáns supposed that Cervantes
had been born in Madrid.
Blas Nasarre died in 1751 and we believe firmly that it is around 1740 when he
made inquiries in Alcázar, as he considered that this town of La Mancha was Cervantes'
fatherland, either because he knew the tradition that Friar Alonso Cano defended,
or because he knew any other cause or reason that has not reached us and that would not be
of extreme credibility, taking into account that travelling in the 18th century was not
comfortable and it implied a great sacrifice for the traveller, as well as involving an
adventure that not everyone was willing to have, even when, like in this case, the travel
could turn out to be trivial, if his forecasts had not been based on solid arguments.
Until two years later of Nasarre's death there was no news about Alcalá's Cervantes.
The first clue was given by the Benedictine Friar Martín Sarmiento,
who read in the «Topography and General History of Algiers», by Father Friar Diego de Haedo
-published in Valladolid in 1612- the passage that the author dedicates to
a Miguel de Cervantes, main nobleman from Alcalá, which was inserted in
the sheet 184, second dialog of the Martyrs.
This discovery served as a clue to Agustín Montiano y Luyando
to find the Alcalá birth certificate in 1753, what he wrote down in his
«Second speech about Spanish tragedies», published in Madrid in the same year.
We see, therefore, that when Blas Nasarre annotated in his own handwriting the Alcázar
birth certificate of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra or Saabedra, which is the same,
it was not to establish a fight or controversy with Alcalá. He did that because,
independently to the certificate he found, he would have other reasons that would
drive him, as it happened to Agustín Montiano with the Alcalá certificate,
fifteen years after that, when Blas Nasarre had already died.
One thing is supporting and trying that our truth prevails due the correlations of facts,
and another one is inventing lies, scorning the worth of people who
took part in them, treating them as inept persons and forgers, as well as discrediting
them as «anticervantists», by assuring that a certain document is apocryphal or false
without presenting a trustworthy paleographer that certifies so. Precisely
Blas Nasarre met these characteristics, as he was a distinguished paleographer in the 17th century,
so he had enough merits to know how to detect the mistakes of scribes and priests of that time
with their obscure and arbitrary handwriting and, therefore, he could confirm that
Saabedra or Saavedra meant the same.
It is not absurd, but ridiculous to believe and estimate that Blas Nasarre could have been deceived and that he made a
wrong interpolation or a forgery of a simple birth certificate and that he discovered and
annotated an apocryphal document.
On the contrary, we cannot say the same about the family name that appears in the Alcalá
certificate, and about the interpretation that their Cervantes is Carbantes or Carabantes,
whether the scratch that Menéndez Pelayo pointed out is to be admitted or not, we have nothing to add to this.
It is widely-known that the father of Alcalá's Cervantes used the Carvantes family name.
So it can be seen in the rescue certificate, as well as in his sister's.
It is even more important the absolute lackness of the Saavedra family name
in all the masculine branch of his ancestors. In the documents discovered by Narciso Alonso Cortés,
from the chancellorship of Valladolid, there is not under any circumstances any mention
to Saavedra; it is also completely noticeable that the Saavedra family name,
which the author of Quixote always used, is composed in one unique family name, the father's.
And it is very significant that it does not take the preposition «de» («of»),
which would be used if the family name corresponded to the mother, or if it had been
adopted from a certain relative. Had this not been like this, according to the nobility of
the Alcalá's Cervantes, this word would not be lacking, as substituting a Saavedra with a Cortinas
did not prevent him from putting this additional preposition «de», which would always give
renown to the surname.
This so evident anomaly was ignored by the Alcalá's Cervantists, by saying that in those
times it was common to change family names. This is an utter mistake, as many of the casuistic
skills without generic foundation of which they made use to get their own way.
But we all know that, starting from 1547, this change had been forbidden, with the
regularization of the parish registries in order to avoid the problems that this change
in the true personality supposed, with the only exception of use of those people of ill repute
who, as nowadays, fear the prosecution of Law. A proof of this is the trick
the Alcalá's Cervantists resorted to in order to destroy the discovery made by Rodríguez Jurado
about Cervantes de Córdoba, who signed a document as a witness by saying that he came from
Córdoba. The Alcalá's Cervantists interpret that the fact that he came from this city means in reality
that his ancestors had been born in Córdoba."
