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Cervantes, Ricote and the expulsion of the Moriscos

The story of Ricote towards the end of Part II of the Quijote, is an instance of the sensitivity of Cervantes towards contemporary issues. That he was not unaware of the political concerns of his time is exemplified by his incorporation, also in Part II, of the person of Roque Guinart [Pero Roca Guinarda, the notorious Catalan outlaw]. Both episodes enable Cervantes to extend the scope of his ironic vision, amongst other objectives. At a time when more attention is being paid to the Morisco communities in Spain, and to the circumstances of their existence and expulsion, it is perhaps appropriate to revisit the story of Ricote, in order to explore some of the ways in which Cervantes exploits popular knowledge of events of enormous contemporary concern. What is proposed, therefore, is a reading of the chapters in which Ricote appears, principally in the light of contemporary attitudes towards the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain, from 1609.1 Ricote and Roque Guinart are examples of personages suggested by, or drawn from, circumstances and situations familiar to those living in Philip III’s Spain. In this procedure, Cervantes was interlocking fact with fiction, yet for the overarching framework of the Quijote, he had recourse to the converse technique, that is to say, fiction posing as history. However, the baffling complexities inherent in the presence of Cide Hamete Benengeli, his invented chronicler, were his response to the perceived requirements of the genre.2 Why was there so much emphasis on Don Quijote as a ‘verdadera historia’? There had to be many people falsifying history for an author to want to impress on his readers the fact that he was writing a true historically verifiable account. Passing fiction off brings to mind the remarkable Jesuit Padre Jerónimo Román de la Higuera, the teacher of Latin at the Jesuit College of Toledo who allegedly rechronicled Spain’s