Alfonso X Of Castile Le N

A truly groundbreaking book, presenting a portrait of Alfonso X, monarch and medieval intellectual "par excellence," and the extraordinary cultural history of Spain at that time.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

Alfonso X (1221–1284) reigned as king of Castile and León from 1252 until his death. Known to history as El Sabio, the Wise, or the Learned, his appreciation for science and the arts led him to sponsor a number of books on the history of Spain since its Roman settlement. Among them were the Cantigas de Santa Maria, a collection of over four hundred poems exalting his favorite patron saint, Mary, and chronicles of all the kings of Castile and León, Navarre, Aragón, and Portugal. Alfonso X died before his own life could be written. His was a reign fraught with political intrigue and double crosses, almost constant war and equally constant diplomacy, royal largesse and economic instability—all of which led to open revolt and efforts by Alfonso's own son to depose the king. It would be another sixty-some years before King Alfonso XI would commission Fernán Sánchez de Valladolid to write Cronica de Alfonso X to memorialize his great-grandfather. As Alfonso XI's trusted counselor, ambassador, diplomat, and legist, Fernán was an understandable choice, but in the centuries since, his convoluted prose has proven extremely difficult extremely difficult for scholars. Chronicle of Alfonso X is the first and only translation of the king's history. The original "clumsy Castilian" of Fernán Sánchez has now been transformed into literate and engaging English.

Alfonso X of Castile (1252-1284) was a true philosopher-king, a medieval monarch whose contributions to science, music, historiography, poetry, fiction, and art have had lasting influence. His grand vision was to bring Castile into the mainstream of high civilization and to create a united artistic and religious people. To that end, he established Castilian as a proper language (it is now the fourth most spoken in the world) and wrote one of the most extensive and influential law codes in western history. After centuries of attention to the northern European countries, scholars increasingly are turning to Hispanic countries in general and to Alfonso's vast influence in particular. The contributors to this volume are all Alfonsine experts who offer the broadest and most comprehensive survey of the ruler's cultural influence. Their topics include Alfonso's role in the founding of Castilian, his patronage of art and theatre, his scientific projects, his rhetoric and chancery, his link to Dante, his achievements as historian and troubadour, and his contribution as the greatest lawgiver of his time. Emperor of Culture fills a gap in English language studies of Alfonso's vast influence. It will be valuable to all students and scholars of medieval Spain.

The Triumph of an Accursed Lineage analyses kingship in Castile between 1252 and 1350, with a particular focus on the pivotal reign of Alfonso XI (r. 1312–1350). This century witnessed significant changes in the ways in which the Castilian monarchy constructed and represented its power in this period. The ideas and motifs used to extoll royal authority, the territorial conceptualisation of the kingdom, the role queens and the royal family played, and the interpersonal relationship between the kings and the nobility were all integral to this process. Ultimately, this book addresses how Alfonso XI, a member of an accursed lineage who rose to the throne when he was an infant, was able to end the internal turmoil which plagued Castile since the 1270s and become a paradigm of successful kingship. This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval Spain, as well as those interested in the history of kingship.

This book analyses text, image and manuscript layout to deepen our understanding of the different ways in which Alfonso is presented as a learned king in the manuscripts he commissioned, and reassesses the number of manuscripts copied for him.