Luis Lobera de Avila

Banquete de Nobles Caballeros (1530)

Luis Lobera de Avila’s Vergel de Sanidad (the name of the second edition of this work) was addressed specifically to cavalleros y senores and depended primarily on Arabic authors. It was written in the court of the Emperor Charles V while he was passing through Augsburg. He mentions that people occupied by weighty business and nobles of the highest estate should avoid eating much old beef or at least should correct it with mustard. But otherwise the only food he specifically associates with rustics is garlic, and even this is not so damnable if twice roasted. (From “Eating Right in the Renaissance” by Ken Albala)

“The first text is El Vanquete de Nobles Cavalleros of 1530, here examined in its second edition of 1542 with the title Vergel de sanidad, composed by Luis Lobera de Avila.

… by the time we reach the 1530s when Lobera's Spanish dietary was published

Returning to Lobera, there was significantly no reason why he should have been ignorant of the Galenic revival, either in 1530 or when his work was reissued in 1542 or down to his death in 1551 when a third incarnation of his dietary theories appeared as the Libro del Regimento. Strangely enough, even a German edition appeared in 1556 as Banket der Hofe und Edelleut published in Frankfurt by the Christian Egenolffs firm …

Yet Lobera's work remains thoroughly Arabist, and in its general tome, the type of recommendations it offers, and even in the specific details it reads not unlike a dietary of the late middle ages. … But in the dietary literature Lobera is the very last to cling to Arabist ideas, a full forty years after the last major Arab-influenced author has written. Lobera's contemporaries elsewhere in Europe had become without exception Hellenists and even if they had not totally abandoned Arabic authorities, they certainly made use of the new revised and complete Galen.

Perhaps because of the relatively early composition of El Vanquete in 1530, and being written on the road in Augsburg while Lobera was court physican to Charles V, this meant that the author had no opportunity of seeing the new editions of Hippocrates coming from the Aldine Press in Venice after 1525. Nor might he have seen the work of English humanists like Thomas Linacre, though Lobera had apparently been in England too. Whether Lobera had access to the new works or not, or whether he chose to ignore them in 1530 and in subsequent editions is not important.

More significant is the fact that a Spanish author, on his own volition and without any official coercion, remained traditional in his medical outlook, and it appears that this was a calculated decision to cater to a specific audience, in this case courtly. His dietary is explicitly written for "los cavalleros y senores assi de Espana y de Francia y de Allemana como de Italia, y otras partes usan agora y tienen mucho en costumbre de hazer se los unos a los otros banquetes y bever autun que agora..."

Why would a courtly readership of the cosmopolitan kind following Charles V want an Arabist dietary? I would argue that it is because the Arabist and late medieval position is far less restrictive and guilt-laden than the Hellenist theories. Lobera does, in fact, warn against too great a diversity of foods, which courtiers are particularly prone to while sitting at the sumptuous tables of kings and emperors.

But, in general, his dietary is relatively easy-going, giving simple guidelines concerning what order to eat foods, what time is best to eat and whether the afternoon or evening meal should be larger, which wines should accompany which foods. Incidentally, those foods harder to digest, like fish, require stronger wines in his opinion. These are all standard issues in the dietary literature; what is significant is that he is not dogmatic or strict, nor does he say anything likely to upset his courtly readers.

For example, he advises "persons with weighty business, nobles of great estate, should avoid frequent use of cow and oxen flesh, especially old, or if they do eat it, let it be in little pieces and in small quantity, or with some mustard sauce."

Most importantly, the ultimate criterion in deciding which foods are best is the individual's own taste, an idea directly from Avicenna and usually quoted in Latin as "quod sapit nutrit" or what tastes good is nourishing. In Spanish, Lobera relates "y su abilidad de sabor: son convenientes a los cuerpos humanos. Todo manjar quanto es mas sabroso, tanto mas delectable y a los cuerpos humanos mas conveniente. Y quanto es apartado del sabor tanto menos delectable y menos conveniente a la natura humana."

Again, for banquet-going courtiers this is exactly the sort of advice they want to hear, precisely the same that Platina gave the Roman court in the 1470s, that Manfredi gave the Este in Ferrara, that benedict of Nursia gave the Sforza. Revealingly, no one else in the early 16th century offers similar advice. The very last was Symporien Champier whose Rosa Gallica was written for the French court in 1514. But elsewhere in Europe, by the mid-16th century, the dietary writers were no longer employed at court. In this case it seems that the audience determined the nature of the advice.

Another curious feature of Lobera's work is that it is written in both Spanish and Latin. There were other works translated from vernacular into Latin, or visa versa, but none other in two languages. And Lobera's Latin text is not merely a translation of the Spanish. In fact, they are separate works on the exact same topic. The Spanish, in beautiful black-letter gothic, is simpler and clearly written for the noble not quite fluent in Latin. The Latin text, which surrounds the Spanish like a biblical commentary, is far more extensive and specialized. On some pages two or three Spanish words are engulfed by Latinity. And it is only in the Latin that we find some evidence of familiarity with the Greek authors, though here he usually tries to reconcile Greek and Arabic sources, which would no doubt have only confused his vernacular readers.

Who exactly the intended Latin audience might have been is not entirely clear. Medical practioners seem good candidates, though at times the advice is geared explicitly toward priests. Take for example his discussion of anaphrodisiac techniques like "submerging the member of generation into freezing cold water" or the use of a perforated lead sheath to the same effect.

Another odd feature about Lobera's dietary is that it makes not one single reference to New World foods. Admittedly the works of Nicholas Monardes discussing foods and medicines from the Americas did not appear until 1536, and then the famous Dos Libros (Two Books about all things that are brought from the West Indies) not until 1565. But we might at least expect a word about products which learned people around Europe had heard about. Most dietary authors an the continent, incidentally, condemn the new foods as utterly inappropriate to nourish Europeans.

Ultimately why Lobera chose not to discuss these foods can not be determined, but certainly his adherence to Arabist authorities meant that no learned sources could be cited, and he would basically have been forced to go out on a limb and venture an independent, unsubstantiated opinion. The opinion, if following the basic guidelines of humoral physiology, would probably have been one likely to upset his noble readers as well. …

Finally, was Lobera's conservatism part and parcel of Spanish backwardness, a reluctance to consider novelty? Was it perhaps the result of his traditional scholastic training at Salamanca? I would say neither. It was merely the concerns of an elite and luxurious court that made the Arabist line far more palatable. In this case theory was shaped by culture, and the widespread publication of this work in several editions meant that readers of Spanish were stuck with what is essentially still a late medieval work.

         From The Place of Spain in European Nutritional Theory of the 16th Century by Ken Albala

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There was one text however, more of a health manual than a cookbook, Luis Lobera de Avila’s Vanquete de nobles caballeros (Banquet of noble knights; Augsburg 1530) which does give us an impression of what was eaten at the court of Emperor Charles V (Carlos I of Spain). We learn, for example, that it was the custom in Spain to eat the larger meal in the evening, which is unlike the practice in northern Europe. He also reveals the logic behind common cooking methods. Meats that have faults “we amend with art: those that are harmful because of dryness we boil, those that are harmful because too moist, we roast or place in pies with spices.” He even explains how to clean snails, and how to roast apples with sugar and anise or with pepper as they do in Viscaya.

         From Food in Early Modern Europe by Ken Albala

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Luis Lobera de Avila's 1530 health manual, Banquete de Nobles Caballeros.

"CHAPTER XII

Of the quality and use of water and of the benfits and dangers of it

It is well manifest that water is cold and humid in nature and because of this, Galen, in the first tractate, De simplici medicina says that it is thickening and congealing. Thus, the best of the spring waters is that which has its origin or birth in the rising of the sun, and when it is highest and is most continuous and lightest and does not diminish in its heat, it is better. Even better is if it were from clear stones, without notable flavor or odor. And it is better if this is rainwater, well preserved, caught at the times of your choosing. So Diascorides showed in his first chapter, where he says that in all the illnesses for which we need to administer water, rainwater is the best of all. And this is shown by its being lighter and pleasanter to the taste, and quicker to digest and quicker to receive cold or heat into itself. And therefore, in various illnesses and in various stages of them it is licit for us to administer cold water, or according to the diversity of illnesses one should cook the water with some of various things, because by itself the heating loses a large part of [the water’s] rawness. Because just as its rawness is often dangerous, so its qualities, cold and humid, in various parts and in various illnesses are very medicinal.

An example of the first: of cooked water in various afflictions,

if the tendency is of a melancholic humour, cook it with the root of common bugloss and borage leaves, or with each of these things.

If one fears a stomach affliction, with cinnamon or cloves.

If one fears paralysis, with sage and honey.

If one has great heat, with barley.

In an affliction of the liver, with chicory and common ceterach.

In obstructions, with tamarisk.

If one fears conjunctive arthritic gout, and golden.

If one has wind, with anise or cinnamon.

If urine is lacking, with licorice.

If vision is failing, with fennel and anise.

And thus, in the other illnesses they can cook it with some of these things, appropriate to the same illness. And Galen says, in De regimine acutarum, since it is as though the fever was a burning from an exterior heat, its medication should be its contrary, because the fire in its nature is hot and dry, and the fever is likewise. Cold water should be well opposed or contrary to the febrile nature, as it not only humidifies but even cools the body against the qualities of the fever..."

*Possibly this refers to boiling pieces of gold in the water.

Translation by Brighid ni Chiarain