“Forma mentis tamen muris”. Home, food and perception of the city in the fable of the two mice in the Libro de Buen Amor and the Libro de los gatos (fourteenth century)

Abstract

This essay focuses on an examination of the literary image of the medieval city offered by the fable of the rural mouse and the urban mouse, present in the Libro de Buen Amor and the Libro de los gatos, both from the fourteenth century, through the theme of home and food. In both stories, the opposition between sobriety/scarcity and excess/abundance in the culinary sphere of mouse life is projected, metaphorically, into the moral realm, with particular implications in each book. But beyond this, the vicissitudes of the mice illuminate certain aspects of daily life in medieval cities of the late Middle Ages that drive the plot of the example, primarily the level of conflict that social and economic relations presented for their inhabitants and visitors.