Alfonso X (also occasionally known as Alphonso,
Alphonse, or Alfons, 23 November 1221 -
4 April 1284), called the Wise (Spanish: el Sabio), was the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 30 May 1252 until his death in
1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be Roman-German
king on 1 April. He
renounced his claim to Germany in 1275, and in creating an alliance with England in 1254, his claim on Gascony as well.
Alfonso X fostered
the development of a cosmopolitan court that encouraged learning. Jews, Muslims,
and Christians had prominent roles in his court. As a result of his encouraging
the translation of works from Arabic and Latin into the vernacular of Castile,
many intellectual changes took place, perhaps the most notable being
encouragement of the use of Castilian as a primary language of higher learning, science,
and law. Alfonso was a prolific author of Galician poetry, such as the Cantigas de Santa
Maria, which are equally notable for their musical notation
as for their literary merit. Alfonso's scientific interests—he is sometimes
nicknamed the Astrologer (el Astrólogo)—led him to sponsor the
creation of the Alfonsine tables, and the Alphonsus crater on the moon is named after him. As a legislator he
introduced the first vernacular law code in Spain, the Siete Partidas. He created the Mesta, an
association of sheep farmers in the central plain, but debased the coinage to
finance his claim to the German crown. He fought a successful war with Portugal, but a less successful one with Granada. The end of his reign was marred by a civil war with
his eldest surviving son, the future Sancho IV, which continued after his death.
Life
·
Early life
See Alfonso X as a judge, from his Libro de los juegos,[1] completed
ca. 1280.
Born in Toledo, Kingdom of Castile,
Alfonso was the eldest son of Ferdinand III of Castile and Elizabeth
(Beatrice) of Swabia.
His mother was the paternal cousin of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, to whom Alfonso is often compared. His
maternal grandparents were Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina. Little is known about his
upbringing, but he was most likely raised in Toledo. For the first nine years
of his life Alfonso was only heir to Castile until his paternal grandfather
king Alfonso
IX of Leon died and
his father united the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. He began his career as a
soldier, under the command of his father, when he was only sixteen years old.
After the election of Theobald
I as king of Navarre, his father tried to arrange a
marriage for Alfonso with Theobald's daughter, Blanche of Navarre, but the move
was unsuccessful. At the same time, he had a romantic relationship with Mayor
Guillén de Guzmán,
who bore him a daughter, Beatrice. In
1240, he married Mayor Guillén de Guzmán, but the marriage was later annulled
and their issue declared illegitimate. In the same period (1240-1250) he
conquered several Muslim strongholds in Al-Andalus alongside his father, such as Murcia, Alicante and Cadiz.
In 1249, Alfonso married Violante of Aragon, the daughter of King James I of Aragon and Yolande
of Hungary,
although betrothed already in 1246.
·
Reign
Alfonso succeeded his father as King
of Castile and León in 1252. The following year he invaded Portugal, capturing
the region of the Algarve. King Afonso
III of Portugal had
to surrender, but he gained an agreement by which, after he consented to marry
Alfonso X's daughter Beatrice of Castile, the land would be returned to their heirs. In 1261 he captured
Jerez. In 1263 he
returned Algarve to the King of Portugal and signed the Treaty of Badajoz (1267).
In 1254 Alfonso X signed a treaty of
alliance with the King
of England and Duke of Aquitaine, Henry
III, supporting him
in the war against Louis
IX of France. In
the same year Alfonso's half sister, Eleanor
of Castile, married
Henry's heir to the throne, Edward: with this act Alfonso renounced
forever all claim to the Duchy of Gascony, to which Castile had been a
pretender since the marriage of Alfonso
VIII of Castile
with Eleanor
of England.
·
Imperial election
In 1256, at the death of William
II of Holland,
Alfonso's descent from the Hohenstaufen through his mother, a daughter of the
emperor Philip of Swabia, gave him a claim through the Hohenstaufen line. Alfonso's election as Roman-German
king (Latin: Rex Romanorum; German: Römisch-deutscher König) by the prince-electors misled him into complicated schemes
that involved excessive expense but never succeeded. Alfonso never even
traveled to Germany, and his alliance with the Italian Ghibelline lord Ezzelino
IV da Romano
deprived him of the initial support of Pope Alexander IV. His rival, Richard of Cornwall, went to Germany and was crowned in 1257 at Aachen.
To obtain money, Alfonso debased the
coinage and then endeavored to prevent a rise in prices by an arbitrary tariff. The little trade of his dominions was ruined,
and the burghers and peasants were deeply offended. His nobles, whom he tried
to cow by sporadic acts of violence, rebelled against him in 1272.
Reconciliation was bought by Alfonso's son Ferdinand in 1273.
In the end, after Richard's death,
the German princes elected Rudolph
I of Habsburg
(1273), Alfonso being declared deposed by Pope Gregory X. In 1275 Alfonso tried to meet with
his imperial vicar in Italy, William VII of Montferrat (who had succeeded Ezzelino) and his Ghibelline allies in Piedmont and Lombardy to celebrate the victory against the Guelph Charles
I of Anjou and be
crowned in Lombardy; he was however halted in his imperial ambitions in
Provence by the Pope who, after a long negotiation, obtained Alfonso's oral
renunciation of any claims to the Holy Roman Empire.
·
Civil war
See Portrait of Alfonso X from the codex Tumbo 'A' de
Santiago (Dated between 1229 and 1255)
Throughout his reign, Alfonso
contended with the nobles, particularly the families of Nuño González de Lara, Diego
López de Haro and Esteban Fernández de Castro, all of whom were formidable soldiers and instrumental in maintaining
Castile's military strength in frontier territories. According to some
scholars, Alfonso lacked the singleness of purpose required by a ruler who would
devote himself to organization, and also the combination of firmness with
temper needed for dealing with his nobles.[2] Others have argued that his efforts
were too singularly focused on the diplomatic and financial arrangements
surrounding his bid to become Holy Roman Emperor.
Alfonso's eldest son, Ferdinand, died in 1275 at the Battle
of Écija against
the Moroccan and Granadan invasion armies, leaving two infant
sons. Alfonso's second son, Sancho, claimed to be the new heir, in
preference to the children of Ferdinand de
·
Economic policy
In 1273, he created the Mesta, an association of some 3,000 petty and great
sheep holders in Castile, in reaction to less wool being exported from the
traditional sites in England.[3] This organization later became
exceedingly powerful in the country (as wool became Castile's first major
exportable commodity[3] and reported a trade surplus,
called "white gold", as the wool amount was critical to the health of
the population during the winter), and eventually its privileges were to prove
a deadly wound in the Castilian economy.One side effect of the quickly
expanding sheep herds was the decimation to the Castilian farmland through
which the sheep grazed.[3]
The original function of the Mesta
was to separate the fields from the sheep-ways linking grazing areas.
·
Legislative activity
As a ruler, Alfonso showed
legislative capacity, and a wish to provide the kingdoms expanded under his father
with a code of
laws and a
consistent judicial system. The Fuero Real was undoubtedly his work. He
began medieval Europe's most comprehensive code of law, the Siete Partidas, which, however, thwarted by the
nobility of Castile, was only promulgated by his great-grandson. Because of
this, and because the Partidas remain fundamental law in the American
Southwest,[4] he is one of the 23 lawmakers
depicted in the House of Representatives chamber of the United
States Capitol.
·
Military training
See Equestrian seal of Alfonso X of Castile.
From a young age Alfonso X showed an
interest in military life and chivalry. In 1231 Alfonso traveled with Pérez de
Castron on a military campaign in lower Andalusia. Writing in Estoria de
España, Alfonso describes having seen St. James on a white horse with a
white banner and a legion of knights fighting a war above the soldiers of
Spain.[5] This vision of a heavenly army
fighting in Jerez and participation in military campaigns likely left Alfonso X
with a high degree of knowledge and respect for military operations and
chivalric knights. Alfonso's respect for chivalry can also be seen in his
writing of Spanish law. Spanish Chivalric conduct was codified in the Siete Partidas (2,21) where he wrote that knights
should be, "of good linage and distinguished by gentility, wisdom,
understanding, loyalty, courage, moderation, justice, prowess, and the
practical knowledge necessary to assess the quality of horse and arms (Siete Partidas, 21,1-10)."[6] These efforts to make a codified
standard of chivalric conduct were likely meant to both encourage strength of
arms (prowess) and to restrain the use of violence for only just
(state-sponsored) usage.
Court culture
Main article: Literature of
Alfonso X
King Alfonso X developed a court
culture that encouraged cosmopolitan learning. Alfonso had many works
previously written in Arabic and Latin translated into vernacular Castilian in
his court. Alfonso "turned to the vernacular for the kind of intellectual commitments
that formerly were inconceivable outside Latin."[7] He is credited with encouraging the
extensive written use of the Castilian
language instead of
Latin as the language used in courts, churches, and in books and official
documents (although his father, Ferdinand III,
had begun to use it for some documents). This translation of Arabic and Classic
documents into vernacular encouraged the development of Spanish sciences,
literature, and philosophy.
·
Translations
From the beginning of his reign,
Alfonso employed Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars at his court, primarily
for the purpose of translating books from Arabic and Hebrew into Latin and
Castilian, although he always insisted in supervising personally the
translations. This group of scholars formed his royal scriptorium, continuing the tradition of the
twelfth-century Escuela de Traductores de Toledo (Toledo School of Translators). Their final output promoted Castilian as a
learning language both in science and literature, and established the
foundations of the new Spanish language. This evolved version of the
Castilian language also acquired significant relevance in the royal chancery,
where it came to replace Latin, which until then had been the language commonly
used for royal diplomacy in Castile and León.[8]
The very first translation,
commissioned by his brother, Fernando de
The primary intellectual work of
these scholars centered on astronomy and astrology. The early period of
Alfonso's reign saw the translation of selected works of magic (Lapidario,
Picatrix, Libro de las formas et las
ymagenes) all translated by a Jewish scholar named Yehuda ben Moshe (Yhuda Mosca, in the Old Spanish
source texts). These were all highly ornate manuscripts (only the Lapidario
survives in its entirety) containing what was believed to be secret knowledge
on the magical properties of stones and talismans. In addition to these books of astral magic,
Alfonso ordered the translation of well-known Arabic astrological compendia, including the Libro
de las cruzes and Libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas.
The first of these was, ironically, translated from Latin (it was used among
the Visigoths), into Arabic, and then back into Castilian and Latin.[10] Most of the texts first translated at
this time survive in only one manuscript each.
·
Astronomy
See Monument to Alfonso X in La Puebla del Río, province of Seville.
As an intellectual he gained considerable
scientific fame based on his encouragement of astronomy, which included astrology at the time and the Ptolemaic cosmology as known to him through the Arabs. He surrounded himself with mostly Jewish
translators who rendered Arabic scientific texts into Castilian at Toledo. His
fame extends to the preparation of the Alfonsine tables, based on calculations of al-Zarqali, "Arzachel". Alexander
Bogdanov maintained
that these tables formed the basis for Copernicus's development of a heliocentric understanding in astronomy.[11] Because of this work, the lunar
crater Alphonsus is named after him. One famous, but
apocryphal, quote attributed to him upon his hearing an explanation of the
extremely complicated mathematics required to demonstrate Ptolemy's theory of astronomy was "If the Lord
Almighty had consulted me before embarking on creation thus, I should have recommended
something simpler."[12] Gingerich (1990) says that a form
of this alleged quotation was mentioned (but rejected) as early as the 16th
century by the historian Jerónimo de Zurita, and that Soriano Viguera (1926) states that "nothing of the sort
can be found in Alfonso's writings."[13] Nevertheless, Dean Acheson (U.S. Secretary of State,
1949-1953) used it as the basis for the title and epigraph of his memoir Present
at the Creation.[14]
·
Chronicles
Alfonso also commissioned a
compilation of chronicles, the Crónica general, completed in 1264. This chronicle sought to
establish a general history and drew from older chronicles, folklore and Arabic
sources.[15] This work enjoyed renewed popularity
starting in the sixteenth century, when there was a revival of interest in history;
Florián de Ocampo published a new edition and Lorenzo
de Sepúlveda used
it as the chief source of his popular romances.
Sepúlveda wrote a number of romances having Alfonso X as their hero.
·
Historical works
Alfonso's court compiled in
Castilian a work titled General Estoria. This work was an attempt at a
world history that drew from many sources and included translations from the Vulgate Old Testament mixed with myths and histories
from the classical world, mostly Egypt, Greece, and Rome.[15] This world history was left
incomplete, however, and so it stops at the birth of Christ.[16] The main significance of this work
lies in the translations from Latin into Castilian.[16] Much like his chronicles, the
ability of Alfonso's court to compile writings from a variety of cultures and
translate them into Castilian left a historic impact on Spain.
Alfonso X is credited with the first
depiction of an hórreo, a typical granary from the
northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. The oldest document containing an image of
an hórreo is Alfonso's Cantigas de Santa Maria (song CLXXXVII) from XII A.C. In this depiction, three rectangular hórreos
of Gothic style are illustrated.
· Games
Alfonso also had the Libro de
ajedrez, dados, y tablas ("Libro
de los Juegos" (The Book of Games)) translated into Castilian from Arabic and
added illustrations with the goal of perfecting the work.[17]
It was completed in 1283.[18]
·
Music
Alfonso X commissioned or
co-authored numerous works of music during his reign. These works included Cantigas
d'escarnio e maldicer and the vast compilation Cantigas de Santa Maria ("Songs to the Virgin Mary"), which was written in Galician-Portuguese and figures among the most
important of his works. The Cantigas form one of the largest collections
of vernacular monophonic songs to survive from the Middle Ages. They consist of 420 poems with
musical notation. The poems are for the most part on miracles attributed to the Virgin
Mary. One of the
miracles Alfonso relates is his own healing in Puerto
de Santa María.[19]
Family
Violante was ten years old at the
time of her marriage to Alfonso; she produced no children for several years and
it was feared that she was barren. Alfonso almost had their marriage annulled,
but they went on to have eleven children:
- Berengaria (1253 -
after 1284). She was betrothed to Louis, the son and heir of King Louis IX of
France, but her fiancé died
prematurely in 1260. She entered the convent in Las Huelgas, where she was
living in 1284.
- Beatrice (1254-1280).
She married William VII, Marquess of Montferrat.
- Ferdinand de
la Cerda, Infante of Castile (23
October 1255 - 25 July 1275). He married Blanche, the daughter of King
Louis IX of France, by whom he had two children. Because he predeceased
his father, his younger brother Sancho succeeded to the throne.
- Eleanor (1257-1275)
- Sancho IV of
Castile (13 May 1258 - 1295)
- Constance (1258 - 22 August 1280), a nun at Las Huelgas.
- Peter, Lord of Ledesma (June
1260 - 10 October 1283)
- John, Lord of Valencia de Campos (March or April 1262 - 25 June 1319).
- Isabella,
died young.
- Violant (1265-1296). She married Diego López V de Haro,
Lord of Biscay
- James, Lord of Cameros
(August 1266 - 9 August 1284)
Alfonso X also had several
illegitimate children. With Mayor
Guillén de Guzmán,
daughter of Guillén
Pérez de Guzmán and
of María González Girón, he fathered:
· Beatrice, married King Afonso III of
Portugal. With Elvira Rodríguez de Villada, daughter of Rodrigo Fernández
de Villada,
he fathered:
- Alfonso
Fernández de Castilla (1242-1281),
also known as el Niño, he held the title of "Señor de Molina y
Mesa" through his marriage with Blanca Alfonso de Molina.
· With
María Alfonso de León, his aunt, the illegitimate
daughter of the King Alfonso
IX of Leon and Teresa Gil de Soverosa he had:
- Berenguela Alfonso of Castile, who married after
1264 with Pedro Núñez
de Guzmán but she died young
leaving behind no descendants.
Notes
1.
The Book of Chess,
Dice and Board Games.
2.
Márquez (1995) says "Some
historians have been only too quick to label him, most unfairly, as a brilliant
intellectual who was bungling and inefficient in practical affairs."
4. The medieval church : the world of clerics and laymen. Burns, Robert I.,
Alfonso X, King of Castile and Leon, 1221-1284., Scott, Samuel Parsons. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2001.
pp. xix. ISBN 9780812217384. OCLC 847550277.
5. Martinez (2010:82-83)
6. O'Callaghan (1993:65-66)
7. Márquez (1995:54)
9. Wacks (2007:86-128)
10. Carroll (2002:327-328)
11.
Bogdanov, Alexander (1996). Bogdanov's
Tektology: Book !. Hull: Centre for Systems Studies. p. 27.
12. Gingerich (1990:40 and 44n36)
14.
Acheson (1969)
15.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/14725/Alfonso-X
16. Procter (1951)
17. Burns (1990)
18.
Musser Golladay (2007:31). Although Musser Golladay is not the first to assert that 1283 is
the finish date of the Libro de Juegos, the a quo information
compiled in her dissertation consolidates the range of research concerning the
initiation and completion dates of the Libro de Juegos.
19. Keller, John E.
(2015). Daily life depicted in the Cantigas de Santa Maria. Cash, Annette
Grant, 1943-. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. p. 31. ISBN 9780813159096. OCLC 900344519
References
·
Acheson,
Dean (1969), Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department, New
York: W. W. Norton
· Ballesteros-Beretta, Antonio (1963), Alfonso X el
Sabio, Barcelona: Salvat
·
Burns,
Robert I. (1990), "Stupor Mundi: Alfonso X of Castile, the Learned",
in Burns, Robert I. (ed.), Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile
and His Thirteenth-Century Renaissance, Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, pp. 1-13
·
Carroll,
James (2002), Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews, Boston:
Houghton-Mifflin
· Demontis,
Luca (2012), Alfonso X e l'Italia: rapporti politici e linguaggi del potere,
Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso
·
Gingerich,
Owen (1990), "Alfonso the Tenth as a Patron of Astronomy", in
Márquez-Villanueva, Francisco; Vega, Carlos Alberto (eds.), Alfonso X of
Castile: The Learned King (1221-1284): An International Symposium, Harvard
University, 17 November 1984, Cambridge, Mass.: Department of Romance Languages
and Literatures of Harvard University, pp. 30-45, reprint in Owen
Gingerich, The Eye of Heaven: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler (New York: American
Institute of Physics, 1993)
·
Hamilton,
Thomas Wm. (1975), A King for the Stars (planetarium show)
· Márquez,
Francisco (1995), "Vita: Alfonso X", Harvard Magazine, Jan.-Feb.: 54
·
Martinez,
H. Salvador (2010), Alfonso X, The Learned: a Biography, Translated by Odille
Cisneros, Leiden: Brill
·
Musser
Golladay, Sonja (2007), Los Libros de Acedrex Dados E Tablas: Historical,
Artistic and Metaphysical Dimensions of Alfonso X’s Book of Games, Tucson: PhD diss., University of Arizona,
archived from the original on 2011-07-17, retrieved 2018-10-10
·
Nicholas,
David (1999), The Transformation of Europe 1300-1600, London: Arnold
·
O'Callaghan,
F. (1993), The Learned King: The Reign of Alfonso X of Castile, Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania Press
·
Procter,
Evelyn S. (1951), Alfonso X of Castile: Patron of Literature and Learning,
Oxford: Clarendon Press
· Soriano Viguera, José (1926), Contribución al
conocimiento de los trabajos astronómicos desarrollados en
· Valdeón Baruque, Julio (2003), Alfonso X: La forja
de
·
Wacks,
David A. (2007), Framing Iberia: Maqamat and Frametales in Medieval Spain,
Leiden: Brill
Further reading
· Alfonso X (1836), Opúsculos Legales del rey Don Alfonso el Sabio: Tomo I, Madrid: Real Academia de
· Alfonso X (1836), Opúsculos Legales del rey Don Alfonso el Sabio: Tomo II, Madrid: Real Academia de
·
Doubleday,
Simon R. (2015), The Wise King: A Christian Prince, Muslim Spain, and the Birth
of the Renaissance, New York: Basic Books
·
Gordon,
Stewart (July-August 2009). "The Game of Kings". Saudi Aramco World. Houston. 60 (4): 18-23. Archived from the original on 2009-07-20. (PDF version) Cf. especially
section on "The Alfonso X 'Book of Games'".
·
Liuzzo
Scorpo, Antonella (2011), "Religious Frontiers and Overlapping Cultural
Borders: The Power of Personal and Political Exchanges in the Works of Alfonso
X of Castile (1252-1284)", Al-Masaq, 23 (3): 217-236, doi:10.1080/09503110.2011.623910
· Márquez, Francisco (1994), El concepto cultural
alfonsí, Madrid: MAPFRE
·
Martínez,
H. Salvador (2010), Alfonso X, the Learned: A Biography, Leiden: Brill
·
O'Callaghan,
Joseph F. (1993), The Learned King: The Reign of Alfonso X of Castile,
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
·
Remensnyder,
Amy G. (2011), "The Virgin and the King: Alfonso X's Cantigas de Santa
Maria", in Jason Glenn (ed.), The Middle Ages in Texts and Texture:
Reflections on Medieval Sources, Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
pp. 285-298
·
Thomas,
Phillip Drennon (1970). "Alfonso el Sabio". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 1. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
· Samsó, Julio (2007). "Alfonso X". In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical
Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 29-31. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version)
·
Weiler,
Björn (2007), "Kings and Sons: Princely Rebellions and the Structures of
Revolt in Western Europe, c.1170-c.1280", Historical Research, 82
(215): 17-40, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2281.2007.00450.x
External links
- Lewis E 245
Fuero real (Royal municipal code) at OPenn
- Cantigas de Santa Maria
- Alphonso X - Book of Games
- Libros del Saber de Astronomía - Images of manuscript from 1276.
- Free scores by Alfonso X of Castile at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Free
scores by Alfonso X of Castile in the Choral
Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- Alfonso X de Castilla y León, at Cancioneros
Musicales Españoles.
- Works by or about Alfonso X of Castile at Internet Archive
- Works by Alfonso X of Castile at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
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