In Spanish, libros de caballerías, or books of chivalry: prose narratives of knights who roam exotic lands killing giants and rescuing maidens, of which Amadís of Gaul is the model. They are the reading that dries up the gentleman's judgment, the library that the priest and the barber examine and in part condemn to the fire, and the genre the canon of Toledo criticizes for lacking form and plausibility. The gentleman defends them because they were printed with the king's license.
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Quotes
the said author asks of those who read it, as a reward for the immense labor it cost him to inquire into and search all the Manchegan archives to bring it to light, nothing more than that they give it the same credit that the discerning customarily give to books of chivalry, which are so highly valued in the world.
Part One: The Cage and the Canon, the narrator, at the end of Part One