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Alfonso X (Medieval Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Alfonso X, king of Castile, León, and Galicia (b. 1221–d. 1284; reigned 1252–1284), the firstborn son of Ferdinand III and his German wife, Beatrix (Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen), has justly been called the Emperor of Culture, owing to the renaissance of learning he championed in the 13th century in the areas of history, science, law, and literary works. Like his cousin and patron of the arts, Frederick II, king of Sicily and Holy Roman emperor (1220–1250), Alfonso was called Stupor mundi. From his parents he received a strong religious upbringing and acquired and promoted his own devotion to the Virgin Mary. Alfonso believed he ruled with Mary’s favor, and he ceaselessly fostered her devotion throughout his realms. Owing to his Hohenstaufen blood inherited from his mother, a Ghibelline delegation from Pisa visited his court in 1256 to request that he accept a nomination for the then-empty throne of the Holy Roman Empire. Alfonso acceded and, backed by many European supporters, was elected in a double election in 1257 along with Richard of Cornwall. Alfonso pursued this nomination for eighteen years, until informed by Pope Gregory X in 1275 that he would not be named. In these years, Alfonso’s own natural intelligence and curiosity about the world impelled him to patronize many works—the prose works in Castilian, the poetic ones in Galician-Portuguese—in an effort to accomplish multiple goals: the elevation of the Castilian language (he had adopted it over Latin for all his chancery documents, and did much to standardize its written form); the didactic aim of raising the level of education of the peoples of his reign; and to be seen as a dignified successor to the imperial throne. For Alfonso, politics and culture were inextricably bound. Once he decided to sponsor prose works in the general fields of history, science, and law, his financial, spiritual, and creative support never waned and, at his death in 1284, some works, many in the process of new redactions, were left unfinished. Alfonso was reared in Galicia. At age sixteen he began his life as a soldier alongside his father, who had energetically untaken the conquest of territories still under the control of the Moors in Andalusia, reclaiming for a Christian Spain the crucial cities of Córdoba (1236) Murcia (1243, the forces were led by Alfonso), Jaén (1246), and, finally, Seville (1248). After 1252 and as king, Alfonso pursued actively the conquest of territories from the Moors and the Christian repopulation of Andalusian territories. In his eighteen-year-long pursuit of the emperorship, he used up much royal revenue, twice debased the currency, opposed important clergy, and was subjected, in 1272 and after, to the rebellion of many members of the leading noble families as well as members of his own family. When his oldest son and heir, Fernando, died in 1275, his second son, Sancho, led the rebellion against Alfonso and, although technically Alfonso still ruled, he spent the last two years of his life confined to loyal Seville. If, as it claimed, his political and economic legacy is without distinction, his cultural legacy more than upholds his fame as the father of the Castilian language, the giver of Roman law, his general histories of Spain and of the world, and an impressive scientific corpus that would spread to all of Europe.
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  5. Biographies and Collections
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  7. Given the important role played by Alfonso X in 13th-century Spain, much has been written about him and the varied works of which he was creator and royal patron. Alfonso’s life and reign are chronicled in Ballesteros y Beretta 1984, O’Callaghan 1993, González Jiménez 1999, and Martínez 2010. In order to provide the best library possible, Alfonso had countless manuscripts copied or borrowed, and others were received as gifts. All of these were brought to Toledo, where he provided space for workshops of Jewish, Christian, and Arabic translators to take works from Arabic and the other classical languages of the past and convert them into Castilian and, often, Latin. This scriptorium had trained crew chiefs for each work who supervised the redactors, copyists, and illuminators. Alfonso then supervised, personally in many instances, corrections and revisions he deemed necessary. Some works were always works-in-progress, as we know from the many surviving redactions and manuscripts. Alfonso is known to have been dissatisfied with one translation or version and to have commissioned another. Much can be learned about Alfonso’s intellectual pursuits in a number of edited volumes, such as Carmona and Flores 1985; Márquez Villanueva and Vega 1990; Katz, et al. 1987 (cited under Reference Works and Collections); Burns 1990; Fraker 1996; and Montoya Martínez and Domínguez Rodríguez 1999. The journal Alcanate is exclusively devoted to Alfonso and his life and works. Márquez Villanueva 2004 is an informed study of Alfonso’s cultural concept.
  8.  
  9. Alcanate: Revista de Estudios Alfonsíes. 1998–.
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  11. Volume 1 dates to 1998–1999. It is an annual, sponsored by the Cátedra Alfonso el Sabio in El Puerto de Santa María, Spain, produced from papers on thematic issues from an annual international symposium. The most recent volume is 2013. It publishes articles, bibliographical accounts, and review articles.
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  13. Ballesteros y Beretta, Manuel. Alfonso X, el Sabio. Barcelona: Albir, 1984.
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  15. This second edition of over 1,000 pages contains several important indices the 1963 edition did not include. It was the first important biography on Alfonso X and conjoins historical events, chancery documents, his literary output, itineraries, and affairs of political, religious, and cultural importance in his national and international campaigns, to present a full account of his life, cultural production, and political and economic involvements.
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  17. Burns, Robert I, ed. Emperor of Culture, Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and His Thirteenth-Century Renaissance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
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  19. Burns’s introduction is masterful and is followed by studies on Alfonso’s governing, his standardization of language, the Cantigas, his prologues, Jewish collaborators in the scientific works, his historiographic and legislative successes, and a bibliology [sic].
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  21. Carmona, Francisco, and Francisco J. Flores, ed. La lengua y la literatura en tiempos de Alfonso X: Actas del Congreso Internacional Murcia, 5–10 de marzo de 1984. Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, Departmento de Literaturas Románicas, 1985.
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  23. The thirty-two studies in this volume are wide ranging, with three dedicated to language employed by Alfonso, four to his histories, six to his poetic works, five to the legal works, and one to his library. The rest are on other works in his time period.
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  25. Fraker, Charles F. The Scope of History: Studies in the Historiography of Alfonso el Sabio. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
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  27. This volume collects eight of the author’s studies that deal with specific subjects germane to both of Alfonso’s historical works.
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  29. González Jiménez, Manuel. Alfonso X el Sabio: Historia de un Reinado (1252–1284). 2d ed. Palencia: El Olmedo, 1999.
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  31. An engaging and solid survey of the often turbulent reign of Alfonso X, with a strong basis in documents.
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  33. Márquez Villanueva, Francisco. El concepto cultural alfonsí. Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2004.
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  35. Follows closely the wedding of Alfonso’s politics with his cultural program, and particularly focuses on aspects of Christian, Jewish, and Moorish elements absorbed into his cultural activities. The first edition was published in 1994. This edition is revised and amplified.
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  37. Márquez Villanueva, Francisco, and Carlos Alberto Vega, eds. Alfonso X of Castile: The Learned King (1221–1284); An International Symposium, Harvard University, 17 November 1984). Cambridge MA: Deptartment of Romance Literatures and Languages of Harvard University, 1990.
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  39. The collection contains four studies on the Cantigas, one on Alfonso as patron of astronomy, another on Alfonso’s cultural concept, and one on the General Estoria.
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  41. Martínez, H. Salvador. Alfonso X, the Learned: A Biography. English translation by Odile Cisneros. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2010.
  42. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004181472.i-589Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  43. The original was published in Spanish in 1993 (Madrid: Polifemo). A thorough accounting of the life and times of this monarch in the national and the international times he lived in. Each chapter is focused and well crafted, and the bibliography is ample and current. There are several pages of color illustrations.
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  45. Montoya Martínez, Jesús, and Ana Domínguez Rodríguez, eds. El Scriptorium alfonsí: De los Libros de Astrología a las “Cantigas de Santa Maia.” Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 1999.
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  47. This volume contains three studies on Alfonso’s legislative works, eight on the poetic works, one on the scientific works, and two on other more general literary aspects of his production. Each study is grounded in solid bibliographical scholarship.
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  49. O’Callaghan, Joseph F. The Learned King: The Reign of Alfonso X. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
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  51. An excellent guide to the reign of Alfonso; especially strong on the political struggles occasioned by his pursuit of empire, the controversies over the succession, and accounts of his loyalists and enemies. Accounts of Alfonso’s cultural accomplishments are interwoven throughout.
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  53. Reference Works
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  55. There are separate scholarly bibliographies—some annotated, others not—on Alfonsine prose in general (Eisenberg 1982–1983), the scientific works (Cárdenas 1982–1983 and Fernández Fernández 2013), his legal works (Craddock 1986; Craddock, et al. 1995; Craddock 2001) and the poetic works (Snow 2012). Additionally, there are two online compilations of Alfonsos’s prose works, Alfonso X 2011 and Gago Jover 2013, both part of the Digital Library of Old Spanish Texts.
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  57. Alfonso X. Prose Works of Alfonso X el Sabio. Edited by Francisco Gago Jover, Lloyd Kasten, John Nitti, and Wilhelmina Jonxis-Henkemans. Middleton, WI: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 2011.
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  59. Includes twenty works, most all of which are transcribed from mss. from the Royal Scriptorium and, in particular, the historical and scientific works treated in this bibliography (includes full texts, indices, and concordances).
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  61. Cárdenas, Anthony. “A Survey of Scholarship on the Scientific Treatises of Alfonso X, el Sabio.” La corónica 11.2 (1982–1983): 231–247.
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  63. For its time, the first and most complete survey. There are annotations in this well-divided bibliography, and an index of all relevant topics. There is a list of nineteen items on editions and seventy-one bibliographical entries. Updated in Craddock, et al. 1995.
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  65. Craddock, Jerry R. The Legislative Works of Alfonso X, el Sabio: A Critical Bibliography. Research Bibliographies and Checklists 45. London: Grant and Cutler, 1986.
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  67. This lengthy bibliographic survey is well organized by a leading scholar of Alfonso’s legal works; it is fully annotated and indexed.
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  69. Craddock, J. R. “The Partidas: Bibliographic Notes.” In Las Siete Partidas: The World of Clerics and Laymen. Vol. 1. Translated by Samuel Parsons Scott. Edited by R. I. Burns, xli–xlvii. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
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  71. In discursive essay form, the author updates his previous legislative surveys, including the new and improved editions of the legislative works.
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  73. Craddock, J. R., B. DiMarco, and A. Cárdenas. “A Decade of Alfonsine Studies: Working Notes and Bibliography.” Romance Philology 49.2 (1995): 192–244.
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  75. Updates Craddock 1986 and adds many nonlegislative works, especially in the scientific area, the contribution of Cardenas.
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  77. Eisenberg, Daniel. “Alfonsine Prose: Ten Years of Research.” La Corónica 11.2 (1982–1983): 220–230.
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  79. Contains some initial commentary and a checklist of seventy-six items on historical and scientific works.
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  81. Fernández Fernández, Laura. Arte y ciencia en el scriptorium de Alfonso X el Sabio. Seville: Puerto de Santa María, Cátedra de Alfonso el Sabio, Universidad de Sevilla, 2013.
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  83. The bibliography (pp. 387–429) is an excellent survey for editions and studies of the scientific works of Alfonso X.
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  85. Gago Jover, Francisco, ed. Spanish Legal Texts. Middleton, WI: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 2013.
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  87. Here are texts, indices, and concordances for forty-nine legal texts from the 3th–16th centuries, including the Siete Partidas, Espéculo, Libro de las tahurerías, the Fuero Real, and the Fuero Juzgo.
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  89. Snow, Joseph T. The Poetry of Alfonso X: An Annotated Critical Bibliography (1278–2010). Woodbridge, UK: Tamesis, 2012.
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  91. The coverage is of both the profane and the religious poetic corpuses and contains almost two thousand annotated entries. A supplement is being prepared.
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  93. Scientific Works
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  95. One simple statement says it all. Alfonso was deeply interested in—and pursued avidly this interest from early days—the multiple ways in which the heavens (the stars, the constellations, zodiacal divisions, etc.) influence one’s life and fortunes. To this end, he assembled groups of translators, principally trilingual Jews adept also in Castilian and Arabic, but also Latinists and other scholars, to bring many original works from Arabic and other classical languages into Castilian for the first time, and from there—in the many works he commissioned—into the annals of European science. This was so especially in the fields of astronomic instruments, astrology, and even magical and talismanic objects not considered superstitious in the hands of true masters. He sought out books, initiated projects, instructed the teams of translators, and actively participated in revisions and clarifications, according to the prologues that were a common feature of these works. He was involved in the Lapidario project as early as 1243 and oversaw the completed translation in 1250, while still a prince. The last of the scientific works he sponsored, the Astromagia, is dated 1280–1283, almost coinciding with Alfonso’s death in 1284. When dissatisfied with one translation from an Arabic source, Alfonso would commission a new one. In 1276 he ordered the compilation of sixteen earlier projects, of which three were retranslations. It was completed in 1278. Not all translations were slavish, as he granted permission to his translators to add new information and materials to the source. A few were not translations at all, but rather new works inspired by recent observations. The Alfonsine Tables in its Latin version (the Castilian original is lost) is one such work based on over a decade of astronomical observations recorded in Toledo. These tables were, thanks to a French translation, the most enduring of Alfonso’s scientific works. The one volume that treats the full corpus of the scientific works, their manuscripts, and their contents is Fernández Fernández 2013. One of the positive results of such extensive translating was the need to find ways in Castilian to express the nuances of the unfamiliar Arabic lexicon, with the resulting enrichment of the expressiveness of Castilian in the second half of the thirteenth century. Both Romano 1992 and Roth 1990 present full coverage of the trilingual Jewish translators Alfonso employed.
  96.  
  97. Fernández Fernández, Laura. Arte y ciencia en el “scriptorium” de Alfonso X el Sabio. Seville: Puerto de Santa María, Cátedra de Alfonso X el Sabio, Universidad de Sevilla, 2013.
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  99. This is a compendious and detailed examination of all the manuscripts of Alfonso’s scientific works, with profuse illustration in both black and white and color. Provided are the dates, names of the translators, and the sources for their work, especially Aristotle and Ptolemy and the Arabic authors whose astronomical commentaries are vital components. An additional advantage is that the work is organized by chronology.
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  101. Romano, David. La ciencia hispanojudía. Madrid: Mapfre, 1992.
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  103. In chapter 5 (pp. 123–158), Romano comments on each of the Jews in Alfonso’s scriptorium versed in science. He casts doubts as to how active the king was in selecting books and in his interventions in, specifically, the scientific works.
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  105. Roth, Norman. “Jewish Collaborators in Alfonso’s Scientific Work.” In Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and his Thirteenth-Century Renaissance. Edited by Robert I. Burns, 59–71. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
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  107. Roth gives a detailed accounting of the differing collaborations of Jewish translators, along with critical commentary on earlier accounts of the same. Three charts associate the names with the works translated, with dates, and, if known, with other collaborators.
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  109. Lapidario
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  111. The principal manuscript, in the Escorial library [h-I-15], contains four lapidaries, described in Diman and Winget 1980. It is astrological in nature, and was translated by Yehuda ben Moses Cohen, one of Alfonso’s principal Jewish translators. Yehuda corrected many observations and added new material. This work focuses on gemology: the stones were assigned to one of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, as studied in Domínguez Rodríguez 2007. The Lapidario shows confluences with three other works: Picatrix, Libro de las estrellas fixas del octavo cielo (Book of the fixed stars in the eighth heaven), and Libro de la formas et ymagenes (Book of forms and images). Nunemaker 1928 first compiled an index of the stones of the Lapidario.
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  113. Diman, Roderick, and Lynn Winget, eds. Alfonso el Sabio: “Lapidario” and “Libro de las formas & ymagenes.” Madison, WI: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1980.
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  115. This superb edition pinpoints Alfonso’s interest in the virtues and powers of stones and minerals and how they become magnified when celestial bodies are in favorable alignments. They describe and edit the four lapidaries in Escorial manuscript h.I-15.
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  117. Domínguez Rodríguez, Ana. Astrología y arte en el “Lapidario” de Alfonso el Sabio. Murcia: Academia de Alfonso el Sabio, 2007.
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  119. While some of the illuminations are decorative, most have a moral meaning. The scope of this study includes many European lapidaries, and it justifies the claim that it was the only complete cycle of the figures of the constellations known in Alfonso’s time. Each of the forty-eight constellations is studied. Chapter 5 takes up the Lapidario’s connections with other Alfonsine works: Picatrix, Libro de las formas et ymagenes, and Libro de las estrellas fixas del octavo cielo.
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  121. Nunemaker, John Horace. “Index of the Stones in the Lapidario of Alfonso X, with Identifications in Other Lapidaries.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1928.
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  123. This groundbreaking study served the work of later scholars both for its contents and its information about the stones.
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  125. Libro conplido de los Iudizios de las Estrellas (Complete Book of the Judgments of the Stars)
  126.  
  127. The translator of this work is the same Yehuda ben Moshe ha-Cohen of the Lapidario, with the collaboration of Juan d’Aspa. The work has eight divisions, or books, and was edited in two groupings by Gerold Hilty in Hilty 1954 and Hilty 2005. The purpose of the Libro was to be able to foretell human destinies from the observation of the stars: it contains detailed descriptions of the stars, the planets, and the Zodiac. It warns that the lore involved should only be put into practice by specialist masters, as bad effects are produced if practiced by the uninitiated. The Castilian work was twice translated into Latin to make it more available to European students of astrological science. Its manuscripts were assessed by Fernandéz Fernández in 2013 (see Scientific Works).
  128.  
  129. Hilty, Gerold, ed. El libro conplido de los iudizios de las estrellas. By Aly Abn Ragel. Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1954.
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  131. Hilty edits the first five books (the only ones then known) of the Castilian translation from the Arabic of Aly Aben Ragel. It remains the best. The introduction is an exemplary essay on the progress of the Castilian language as it assumes literary status in thirteenth-century Toledo.
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  133. Hilty, Gerold, ed. El Libro Conplido de las Estrellas: Partes 6 a 8. By Aly Abn Ragel. Zaragoza: Instituto de Estudios Islámicos y del Oriente Próximo, 2005.
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  135. When manuscript copies (an important one in Portuguese, the basis for Book 7) of the final Books 6–8 of the Libro conplido appeared, the editors produced a reliable scholarly edition. The introductory materials give information on the translators, noting that it was the first work completed after the Lapidario. The bibliography was substantial and up to date.
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  137. Picatrix
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  139. This book is involved with magic and was translated into Castilian by Yehuda ben Moshe ha-Cohen in 1256–1257. His translation is lost, but it was the basis for a translation into Latin. Pingree 1986 is the edited Latin version. Picatrix contains four books that deal with, respectively, the outer planets and how they affect affairs on planet Earth; astronomic models and the secrets of each which wise men have kept hidden; the participation of the stars in the three realms; and, lastly, the magic of Kurds, Ethiopians, and others and the magical incantations they use—see Villegas 1982. The focus falls on the relationships between things in the microcosm (animals, gemstones, plants, etc.) and the influence each receives from the macrocosm (stars, planets, zodiac, etc.), establishing, as studied in Kahane, et al. 1966, a strong link to the third Lapidario. Its connection to the Lapidario is also studied in Forcada 1990.
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  141. Forcada, Miguel. “El Picatrix, fuente del Lapidario.” In “Ochava espera” y “Astrofísica.” Edited by M. Comè, 209–220. Barcelona: Instituto de Cooperación con el Mundo Árabe, Universidad de Barcelona, 1990.
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  143. Forcada clarifies many aspects of the debt owed by one work to the other, showing that Picatrix was a source for the third Lapidary.
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  145. Kahane, Henry, Renée Kahane, and Angela Pietrangeli. “Picatrix and the Talismans.” Romance Philology 19.4 (1966): 574–593.
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  147. In their efforts to reveal the true identity of Picatrix, the author of the work, and noting textual digressions that equate magical practices with correlatives in Greek Philosophy, the authors specify Harpocration, adapter of the Greek Kyranic, as their candidate. He was previously suggested by Ritter and Plessner, in their German translation of the Picatrix (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1962).
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  149. Pingree, David, ed. The Latin Version of the “Ghayat-al-Hakim.” London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1986.
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  151. Presents an excellent edition as well as a complete review of the Picatrix and its complicated contents with good notes and analyses.
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  153. Villegas, Marcelino, ed. Picatrix: El fin del sabio y el mejor de los medios para avanzar. By Abul-Kasim Maslama ben Ahmad. Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1982.
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  155. Villegas offers a modern Spanish translation from the Arabic original and gives details of the contents in his introduction, also speculating on the purposes for which it was assembled.
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  157. Libro de las Cruzes (Book of the Crosses)
  158.  
  159. Translated by Yehuda ben Moshe al-Cohen and Juan D’Aspa in Toledo in 1259, Libro de las Cruzes was well edited in Kasten and Kiddle 1961 from an original manuscript (not a later copy) produced in the royal scriptorium. The main thrust of this work was to match the stars and their judgments with affairs taking place during Alfonso’s reign, and it had an immediacy the other works did not. The translators provide updates of earlier pre-Islamic astrological lore and add new chapters, making it a fully contemporary work.
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  161. Kasten, Lloyd, and Lawrence Kiddle, eds. Libro de las cruzes. By Alfonso el Sabio. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), 1961.
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  163. This edition includes plates in black and white. The introduction is heavily involved in detailing the ways that Alfonso X was responsible for the development of the Castilian language.
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  165. Tablas Alfonsíes, or Alfonsine Tables
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  167. This scientific work is original, based on new astrological observations compiled in Toledo between 1263 and 1272. Chabás and Goldstein 2008 is a valuable edition. The authors of the Tables (note: this work is not a translation from the Arabic) were Isaac ben Sid (commonly referred to as Rabiçag) and, again, Yehudah ben Moshe ha-Cohen. Their “cánones” (ca. 1272), are a handy guide for users of the Tablas. Later, from the Latin translation of the Tablas, a French translation was made in 1327, and this helped Alfonso’s work gain a foothold in European scientific circles. Gingrich 1987 explores the ongoing impact of the Tablas.
  168.  
  169. Chabás, José, and Bernard R. Goldstein, eds. Las Tablas Alfonsíes de Toledo. Toledo, Spain: Diputación Provincial, 2008.
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  171. The thorough introduction covers the history of astrological charts and the production of the new one in Alfonso’s court. It provides relevant information on the technical terminology of the Tablas, including commentary on its astronomical contents. There is also an overview of Alfonso’s intellectual court, plus notes on the influence of the Tablas through the mid-14th century.
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  173. Gingrich, Owen. “The Alfonsine Tables in the Age of Printing.” In De Astronomia Alphonsi Regis: Proceedings of the Symposium on Alfonsine Astronomy (Berkeley, August, 1985). Edited by M. Comé, et al., 89–95. Barcelona: Instituto Millás Vallicrosa de Historia de la Ciencia Árabe, 1987.
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  175. Gingrich follows the fortunes of the Alfonsine Tables through the 16th century and adds his useful observations as a professional astronomer.
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  177. Libro del saber de astrología (Book of Astrological Knowledge)
  178.  
  179. This is a compilation of sixteen previously prepared translations carried out between 1276 and 1278. This collection was first edited by Rico y Sinobas in 1863–1867 in five volumes and titled Astronomía instead of Astrología, but Cárdenas 1979–1980 argued that the title was erroneous. Cárdenas also produced a new and more accurate edition in his doctoral dissertation (Cárdenas 1974) but it was never published as a book; his description of a future edition (Cárdenas 1986) and his bibliographical article (Cárdenas 1982–1983) advanced a greater understanding of this scientific miscellany. There exists a valuable color facsimile (Vol. 1 of a 2-volume set) Libros del Saber de Astronomía del rey Alfonso X. The first treatise, known as Los IIII Libros de la Ochava Espera o de las Estrellas Fixas (The four books of the eighth sphere, or of the fixed stars) has roots in Ptolemy’s Almagest with its forty-eight constellations, the latter introduced to the West in a Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona in 1175. Another source was the Arabic Kitab suwar al-kawukib of al-Sufi. Its translator, Rabiçag, introduced in his version many Christian motifs. Samsó 1994 offers several studies on different parts of this miscellany. Fernández Fernández 2013 publishes and has commentary on the prologues to all the treatises (see Scientific Works). See also Samsó 2004.
  180.  
  181. Cárdenas, Anthony. “A Study and Edition of the Royal Scriptorium Manuscript of El libro del saber de astrología by Alfonso X, el Sabio.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1974.
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  183. In his dissertation, Cárdenas produced a new and more reliable edition of the work than the one published by Rico y Sinobas (1863–1867). Lamentably it remains unedited but is available for scholarship. Available through University Microfilms International.
  184. Find this resource:
  185. Cárdenas, Anthony. “A New Title for the Alfonsine Omnibus on Astronomical Instruments.” La Corónica 8.2 (1979–1980): 172–178.
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  187. Cárdenas rejects Rico and Sinobas’ use of “astronomia” in preference to “astrología” for the title of this miscellany, and modern scholars have followed suit.
  188. Find this resource:
  189. Cárdenas, Anthony. “A Survey of Scholarship on the Scientific Treatises of Alfonso X, el Sabio.” La corónica 11.2 (1982–1983): 231–247.
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  191. This first bibliographical survey (through the early 1980s) of all the scientific works of Alfonso has an important introductory essay and sample annotated entries for a few of the studies in the survey.
  192. Find this resource:
  193. Cárdenas, Anthony. “Hacia una edición critica del Libro del Saber de Astrología de Alfonso X: Estudio codicológico de la obra regia (mutilaciones, fechas y motivos).” In Homenaje a Pedro Saínz Rodríguez, Vol. 2, 111–120. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria, 1986.
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  195. Cárdenas outlines, from his experiences in editing the miscellany for his PhD thesis, the status of the manuscript and what will be required to produce a complete critical edition. (One advantage of the Rico y Sinobas edition is that its plates show the state of the manuscript before the late 19th-century mutilations of its illustrations.)
  196. Find this resource:
  197. Libros del Saber de Astronomía del rey Alfonso X. 2 vols. Barcelona: Planeta-Agostini, 2004.
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  199. These two large format volumes comprise the facsimile edition in full color and a volume of studies on its codex, illuminations, and range of astronomical lore. It utilizes the often incorrect transcriptions of Manuel Rico y Sinobas (Madrid: Eusebio Aguado, [5 vols.] 1863–1867). Comparison of that edition’s illustrations and those in the facsimile reveal the mutilations of the miniatures from the late 19th century.
  200. Find this resource:
  201. Samsó, Julián. Islamic Astronomy and Medieval Spain. Variorum Collected Studies CS 428. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1994.
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  203. These varied studies, in English and Spanish, are a valuable source for information on several of the treatises on astronomical instruments in the Libros del saber.
  204. Find this resource:
  205. Samsó, Julián. “La astronomía en los libros del saber de astrología.” In Estudios y Transcripción. Vol. 2 of Libros del saber de astronomía del rey Alfonso X. Edited by Manuel Sánchez Mariana, xxix–xxxv. Barcelona: Planeta-Agostini, 2004.
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  207. This expert provides insights into the primacy and originality of Alfonso’s miscellany, as well as honoring it as the first programmatic compilation for astronomical investigation in Europe.
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  209. Libro de las formas & ymagenes (Book of Forms and Images)
  210.  
  211. This work is also a late compilation (1276–1278), the contents of which demonstrate Alfonso’s interest in the virtues and powers of minerals (stones) and how these are magnified when celestial bodies—stars and constellations—are in favorable positions and connect with planets and signs of the Zodiac. The manuscripts have been edited in Diman and Winget 1980 (See also Lapidario).
  212.  
  213. Diman, Roderic, and Lynn Winget, eds. “Lapidario” and “Libro de las formas & ymagenes.” By Alfonso el Sabio. Madison, WI: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1980.
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  215. The editors’ base manuscript, Escorial Ms h-I-16, contains a table of contents for a projected work of ten lapidaries and eleven treatises on magical properties of certain shapes and images. The treatises recommend when and how to carve stones for talismanic use, according to the position of the constellations and planets. The editors also explore the overlap of certain passages with others from the four lapidaries edited in this same volume.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. Astromagia (Astral Magic)
  218.  
  219. This is the final compilation commissioned by Alfonso in the early 1280s; it contains parts of the Libro de las formas & ymagenes, Picatrix, and the Libro de Razielis (translated from the Hebrew in Alfonso’s scriptorium by Juan d’Aspa in both Castilian and Latin) and three other unidentified sources, as determined in D’Agostino 1992. García Avilés 1997 analyzes the component parts and the diffusion of Alfonso’s work in France, Holland, and Italy, and notes that the Razielis has not as yet been edited critically. Rubio García 1985 comments on Alfonso’s library.
  220.  
  221. D’Agostino, Alfonso, ed. Astromagia. By Alfonso X. Naples, Italy: Liguori, 1992.
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  223. The Astromagia is edited in Spanish and Italian translations made from the Latin manuscript. Astromagia combines planetary forces, Zodiacal influences, and magic in a unitary design. One central notion holds that talismanic powers can be defended in the right hands, but may end tragically if misused. With black-and-white plates from the base manuscript: Vatican Reginense Latino 1283.
  224. Find this resource:
  225. García Avilés, Alejandro. “Imágenes mágicas: La obra astromágica de Alfonso X y su difusión en la Europa bajomedieval.” In Aportaciones de un rey castellano a la construcción de Europa. Edited by Carlos Estepa Diez, 135–172. Murcia: Editorial Regional de Murcia, 1997.
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  227. The author recognizes the large library of such books available in Alfonso’s scriptorium and the philosophical bent they lent to the scientific works he sponsored. And unlike other scholars, he believes the Libro de formas & ymagenes was a complete work.
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  229. Rubio García, Luis. “En torno a la biblioteca de Alfonso X, el Sabio.” In La lengua y la literatura en tiempos de Alfonso X. Edited by Francisco Carmona, 531–551. Murcia: Universidad, 1985.
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  231. The titles and provenance of a considerable number of the source manuscripts acquired by Alfonso are detailed in this ambitious study.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Other Scientific Works
  234.  
  235. For other scientific works, see Cosmología de Ibn al-Haytham, Cánones de Albatení, Tablas de Azarquiel, Libro del cuadrante señero, and Millás Vallicrosa 1956.
  236.  
  237. Cánones de Albatení.
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  239. The text is assigned to Alfonso’s scriptorium in Arsenal Ms. 8322. Millás Vallicrosa accepted it as by Alfonso, even though Rico y Sinobas (1863–1867) disclaimed it. It is the source of one of the treatises in the Libro del saber de astrología—Unknown until 1903, it has been edited by George Bossong (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1978).
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Cosmología de Ibn al-Haytham.
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  243. This work has survived only in a Latin translation done by “Don Abraham,” Alfonso’s Jewish physician, in about 1259. He revised it and added new materials. It has not yet been edited. See Fernández Fernández 2013, pp. 40, 49, and 279.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Libro del cuadrante señero, Arsenal Ms. 8322.
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  247. This work is also unique to Arsenal Ms. 8322. This piece is an astronomical treatise dedicated to the construction and use of the quadrant. Responsible for it was one of Alfonso’s usual translators, Rabiçag of Toledo. It is edited by Millás Vallicrosa. See also Fernández Fernández 2013, pp. 326–329.
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Millás Vallicrosa, J. M. “Libro del cuadrante sennero.” Al-Andalus 21 (1956): 59–92.
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  251. This is a study and edition of the surviving eight chapters of the Libro del cuadrante señero, translated by Rabiçag and therefore a genuinely Alfonsine work. It deals in part with astronomical techniques of trigonometric calculation.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Tablas de Azarquiel, Arsenal Ms. 8322.
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  255. This work, composed c. 1263, is also unique to Arsenal Ms. 8322. These tables served Alfonso as one of the base texts for his own Tablas, as studied by J. M. Millás Vallicrosa in Estudios sobre Azarquiel (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Ciéntificas, 1943–1950). See also Fernández Fernández 2013, pp. 326–329.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Legal Works
  258.  
  259. A main ideal of King Alfonso was to rule with justice uppermost and to create a unified law code to replace the many fueros (customary laws and local charters) operating in his kingdoms. These charters were initially drafted by municipalities, copied and adopted by other towns, and, in time, standardized and issued by the king to towns and cities. Alfonso’s ideal was to create a single code, and there were three successive works involved: the Espéculo (Mirror of Laws), c. 1256, used in official documents 1258 to 1261; the Fuero Real (Royal Charter) (1255); and the Siete Partidas (Seven Divisions of Law) (1254–1265, revisited in 1272 and after). This latter work, while believed to have some legal force until approximately 1272, was officially promulgated only in the following century. However, until such a unified legal code could be promulgated, Alfonso continued to grant fueros, or local charters, to different towns and cities. The first legalistic compilation, begun after he assumed the throne in 1252 and lasting until 1255—when it assumed legal force in the land—was the Espéculo, or Mirror of Laws which remained in force until 1272, and was designed for use in the royal court. In 1255 Alfonso promulgated the Fuero Real, or Royal Charter, which updated previous charters in force under his father, Fernando III, but was perceived by nobles as cancelling their traditional privileges. Already in the early years of his reign (1256–1265), his legal teams were working on a new compilation adapting Roman law for use in the peninsula. This vast and complicated project, known as the Siete Partidas, or Seven Divisions, absorbed much from the earlier legal works listed above, was reworked in 1272 and the years following, and, although it would finally form an impressive codification of Roman law for Spain, was promulgated eighty years later by Alfonso XI in 1348. The final work Alfonso X sponsored and took part in was the Setenario, or Seven Books: it was composed after 1276 and finished in Seville in 1282–1284, and is essentially a reworking of the first Partida.
  260.  
  261. Espéculo (Mirror of Laws)
  262.  
  263. The date given in Craddock 1981 for its promulgation is 5 May 1255. It received a critical edition in MacDonald 1990, with a useful study that describes it as a legal code, begun c. 1252–1253. It is divided into five books (it had seven, but the last two have not survived) and its legal validity spanned 1255–1272. The sources for these laws include the Bible, Roman law, canon law, the earlier Fuero Juzgo, municipal law, and even doctrinal literature (i.e. exempla). As Alfonso’s first law code, it was an influence on the Siete Partidas (Seven Divisions of Law) and shares textual similarities with both the Fuero Real (Royal Charter) and the Setenario (The Seven Books). Alfonso intended it to be a way to unify the practices of jurisprudence and to grant equality of laws for all his realms, and as such it focused on the administration of justice by judges he appointed. Craddock 1990 comments on this work. After 1272 the Espéculo no longer had legal force. However, much of its content was retained and updated in the Siete Partidas.
  264.  
  265. Craddock, Jerry R. “La cronología de las obras legislativas de Alfonso X el Sabio.” Anuario de Historia de Derecho Español 51 (1981): 365–418.
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  267. In his thorough examination, Craddock’s careful conclusions establish an accurate time line for the dating of all of Alfonso’s legislative works.
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  269. Craddock, Jerry R. “The Legislative Works of Alfonso el Sabio.” In Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and his Thirteenth-Century Renaissance. Edited by Robert I. Burns, 182–197. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
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  271. This dense article gives a full panorama of the legislative career of Alfonso, and is designed to appeal to a wide audience. Craddock also reviews critically editions and major studies.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. MacDonald, Robert A., ed. Espéculo. Madison, WI: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1990.
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  275. This edition was the culmination of a huge project that covers the work, the historical situation, and the surviving copies of Alfonso’s first law code. Meticulous, its critical apparatus include an extensive and useful glossary of the legal lexicon used, possible lawmakers who may have been involved, a compendium of Alfonso’s family and leading citizens, a splendid bibliography, and several indexes covering its more than 550 pages.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Fuero Real (Royal Charter)
  278.  
  279. Craddock 1981, cited under Espéculo (Mirror of Laws) dates the royal charter to July 1256. It was a collection of laws of a general nature in the form of a privilege granted to a town of certain population, containing customs and usages that had been maintained over an extended period. The purpose of such fueros, or charters, was to provide a single law code that took precedence over diverse laws, stressing the equitable administration of justice. Martínez Diez 1988 is a reliable modern edition. Craddock 1990, cited under Espéculo (Mirror of Laws), pp. 184–187, details the contents and the purposes of the work.
  280.  
  281. Martínez Diez, Gonzalo, ed. Leyes de Alfonso X. Vol. 2, Fuero Real. Ávila, Spain: Fundación Sánchez Albornoz, 1988.
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  283. The edition and extensive critical analysis includes a history of nineteen early editions, some problems in its transmission, changes in structure, and possible authors other than Jacobo de las Leyes. There are forty-eight black-and-white plates illustrating a companion chapter by J.M. Ruiz Asensio on its paleographic features.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Siete Partidas (Seven Divisions of Law)
  286.  
  287. This was Alfonso’s dream product: that one law code, based in Roman law, that could be applied universally in all his realms. Its seven parts, or divisions, are, in fact, an edifice of general legislation much more so than the narrow, local law codes in force at the time. The first printed edition of 1491 was flawed from the outset: a solid edition in 1555 by Gregorio López was the base text for the 1931 English translation by Samuel Parsons Scott, edited in Burns 2001, with a section on law in Alfonso’s times in O’Callaghan 2001 and a bibliographical update in Craddock 1990. A modern version sponsored by the Spanish Royal Academy was produced in 1807 and an edition based on it, with the Spanish modernized, appeared in 2008 (Alfonso X 2008). The seven Partidas cover the medieval church, clerics and laymen (Part I); medieval government, kings and nobility, warriors (Part 2); medieval law, lawyers and legal workings (Part 3); family, women, merchants, laws of the sea (Part 4); and justice applied to the underworld of the deceased, the criminal class, and the marginalized (Parts 5, 6, and 7). Inspired by the renaissance of Roman law that was transforming Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries, Alfonso engaged many professional experts to produce a complex architecture of systematic Roman legal norms. Each Partida is subdivided into Titles and Laws. These Laws are small essays that tell us much about ordinary society and, as a whole, mirror daily living in encyclopedic form. Carpenter has two studies, one on Jews (Carpenter 1986a) and the other on Moors (Carpenter 1986b) in the Partidas, and Stone 1990 studies the treatment of marriage, children, and kinship ties in them. Since as yet there is no critical edition, it is now an essential desideratum. Pérez Martín 1992 is a study that assesses the place of the Partidas and their fundamental role in the legal works of Alfonso X.
  288.  
  289. Alfonso, X. Las Siete Partidas. Barcelona: Linggua, 2008.
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  291. An edition of the text only (no introduction, notes, or bibliography). It modernizes the 1807 Academy of History’s edition.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Burns, Robert I., ed. Las Siete Partidas. Translated by Samuel Parsons Scott. 5 Vols. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
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  295. Burns performs a signal service in updating Scott’s English translation made in 1931 (based on the 1555 Gregorio López edition) with detailed summaries of, and a table of contents for, each of the Partidas. These summaries provide copious insights into the social, intellectual, and cultural history of medieval Spain, and the Partidas, built on the armature of a law code, proves to be a formidable encyclopedia of medieval life in Spain.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Carpenter, Dwayne E. Alfonso X and the Jews: An Edition of and Commentary on Siete Partidas 7.24 “De los judíos.” University of California Publications in Modern Philology 115, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986a.
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  299. Carpenter contrasts the vital roles played by Jewish collaborators in Alfonso’s court and scriptorium versus the legal status of Jews in Spanish jurisprudence. The twelve statutes in 7.24 center on such issues as the early treatment of Jews, acceptable Jewish conduct, Jews in public office, the synagogue and Sabbath legislation, conversion, Jews proselytizing to Christians, Jews as slave masters, and the requirements of wearing distinguishing marks. The seventh Partida proves to be tolerant in areas of religious practice and economic livelihood. “Restrained tolerance” describes Alfonso’s pragmatic approach.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Carpenter, Dwayne E. “Alfonso el Sabio y los moros.” Al-Qantara 7 (1986b): 229–252.
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  303. Partida 7.25 has eleven laws concerning the way Moors are to be treated when they convert to Christianity, but it also shows Alfonso’s disdain for the religion they professed, contrasting this treatment with that shown to the Jews.
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  305. Craddock, Jerry R. “The Legal Works of Alfonso X.” In Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and his Thirteenth-Century Renaissance. Edited by Robert I. Burns, 182–197. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
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  307. Craddock describes the contents, the purposes, the successes of, and the opposition to the Siete Partidas (1272) in favor of the reigning sets of fueros. His remarks on the Partidas show how they advanced judicial knowledge. It is suggested that they were undertaken after his acceptance as a candidate for the crown of Empire (1256). All known editions of the work are listed.
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  309. O’Callaghan, Joseph F. “Alfonso X and the Partidas.” In Las Siete Partidas. Vol. 1. Edited by Robert I. Burns, xxx–xl. Translated by Samuel Parson Scott. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
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  311. The origin of Alfonso’s law code lies with Fernando III. Its purpose was to have one universal law code. The upholders of customary law offered resistance (1272) to the Partidas. One event that led to its completion was his nomination to the crown of Empire in 1256. He follows the process of formation of the Partidas, its codices and editions, the years in which they were composed, authorship, the system of internal divisions, and a summary of the main sources.
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  313. Pérez Martín, Antonio. “La obra legislativa Alfonsina y puesta que en ella ocupan las Siete Partidas.” Revista de Historia del Derecho Europeo 3 (1992): 9–63.
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  315. The entire span of Alfonsine law codes is measured, and the seminal role that his most ambitious and successful work, the Siete Partidas, played in it. One focus is on Jacobo de las Leyes, the only known collaborator; a second focus falls on possible and known sources and the history of its transmission after the thirteenth century.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Stone, Marilyn. Marriage and Friendship in Medieval Spain: Social Relations according to the Fourth Partida of Alfonso X. New York: Peter Lang, 1990.
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  319. The study offers much information about betrothal, marriage and dowries, various kinds of kinship, treatments of children, and friendships as filtered through these Titles and Laws.
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  321. Setenario (The Seven Books)
  322.  
  323. Vanderford 1984, the modern editor of the Setenario, believed this was the earliest of Alfonso’s legal works; however, an important correction to this view, made in Craddock 1986 and now accepted by scholars, is that it was indeed the final legal work. Craddock adduces the very same reasons that Vanderford did to defend his own more reasonable dating: post-1276. Craddock 1986 sees this work as an attempt to rework the first Partida.
  324.  
  325. Craddock, Jerry R. “El Setenario: Última e inconclusa refundición de la Primera Partida.” Anuario de Historia de Derecho Español 56 (1986): 442–466.
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  327. Craddock’s view is that the Setenario was not independent of the Siete Partidas, but rather is a later reworking of the first Partida. He speculates that the praise of Fernando III in the Setenario (post 1276) may reflect a low point in Alfonso’s fortunes and his gambling on his father’s memory to bolster his morale. Modern scholars have accepted Craddock’s dating of the Setenario.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Vanderford, Kenneth H., ed. Setenario. By Alfonso el Sabio. Estudio preliminar de Rafael Lapesa. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 1984.
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  331. Vanderford presents the Setenario as an early work of Alfonso, and as a tribute to his father, Fernando III, who, it is claimed, first conceived it. In the editor’s view it anticipated the Siete Partidas, but this dating was reversed by Craddock 1986. Lapesa’s view of Alfonso’s Prologue is theocentric. The edition includes ten plates from the Toledo and Escorial manuscripts. The first edition is 1945.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Libro de las tahurerías (Lawbook for Gambling Establishments)
  334.  
  335. This minor legal work is a compilation of fifty-four rules for governing the licensed gambling industry, noting legal punishments for cheating and other disturbing activities. It is scrupulously edited in Macdonald 1995 and commented upon in Carpenter 1998 and Orellana Calderón 2007. These games—especially dicing—are featured also in several of the Cantigas de Santa Maria (CSM, see Carpenter 1998) as well as in the Libro de los Juegos (see also Other Works).
  336.  
  337. Carpenter, Dwayne E. “‘Alea jacta est’: At the Gaming Table with Alfonso the Learned.” Journal of Medieval History 24 (1998): 333–345.
  338. DOI: 10.1016/S0304-4181(98)00013-XSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. Alfonso shows concern for the practical side (control of royal revenue) as well as for the pious side (public morals) of the gambling industry in the Libro. Also studied are nine CSM that deal with gamblers.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. MacDonald, Robert A. Libro de las tahurerías: A Special Code of Law, concerning Gambling Drawn up by Maestro Roldán at the Command of Alfonso X of Castile. Madison, WI: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1995.
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  343. The work documents the often riotous behavior, not limited to cheating (by owners and gamblers), that required this juristic code. Gambling houses had to be licensed but there were clandestine operations as well. Topics include licensing, what games may involve betting, what items may be used in betting (money, wine, foodstuffs), illegal behaviors, and much more.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Orellana Calderón, Raúl, ed. Libro de los juegos: Acedrex, dados e tablas; Ordenamiento de las tafurerías. By Alfonso X el Sabio. Madrid: Fundación José Castro, 2007.
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  347. The editor dates this compilation of laws by Maestre Roldán in 1276. Some of the punishments are harsh (hands cut off for cheating, tongues removed in the case of blasphemers, etc.). Stiff fines were administered for operating outside the law. Both of the works in the title are edited in this volume.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Historical Works
  350.  
  351. The histories Alfonso wished to produce were two: the Estoria de Espanna (EE), and the General Estoria (GE). The Estoria de Espanna, designed to concentrate on peninsular history, follows a basic chronological orderly and then with señoríos, or periods, dominated by ruling groups. Occasionally, the text of EE is amplified by thematic strands that depart from the general organizational patterns. The first half of EE traces events from the Greek heroes in Spain until the time of the Moorish invasions of 718; the second deals with the resistance to further Moorish expansion in the peninsulas by Pelayo, king of Asturias (718) and reaches to the 13th century reign of Fernando III. With the General Estoria (GE), the goal was to begin ab ovo, with the Creation, and effectively compile an exhaustive world history, interlacing biblical and lay events, but unfortunately the GE project never advanced beyond the birth of Christ. Although much material, sources, and translations, as well as working procedures, are shared by the teams of scholars Alfonso had working on his two histories, neither was completed. Owing to different styles of composition, the histories were elaborated separately, complicating the preparation of critical editions. There are three royal scriptorium manuscripts of the histories that survive; however, there are numerous later copies of parts of both of them, parts that are not preserved in any of the royal manuscripts. The individuals assigned to work on different sections were not always imbued with the same historiographical vision. However, since the late 19th-century work initiated by Ramón Menéndez Pidal, heroic strides have been made in clarifying what must have once seemed an impossible task, with so many manuscripts, different compilations, and successive versions of both histories to deal with.
  352.  
  353. Estoria de Espanna
  354.  
  355. Menéndez Pidal 1906 is an edition of the EE titled Primera Crónica General. Menéndez Pidal’s text of the versión primitiva (or early version, 1270–1274) was edited from manuscript fragments, various compilations, and reworkings in an effort to simulate the complete work, free from the many interpolations that had taken place over time. He correctly identified the sources, and his edition was the model for all later scholarly work, now well advanced. Catalán 1992 elaborates the didactic and encyclopedic aims of the EE. Both Fernández Ordóñez 1993 and de la Campa Gutiérrez 2009 contain critically edited parts of EE, utilizing the Versión Crítica, which Catalán 1997 dates at the end of Alfonso’s reign, 1282–1284, noting too that the royal manuscripts differ from later ones, since the chronological system of señoríos (successive ruling groups) was not always respected. Catalán provides essential information about the processes common in the historiographic workplaces of Alfonso’s scriptorium. Dyer 1990 examines the histories for their literary qualities as narrative, and shows why Alfonsine historiographical writing practices endured until the age of printing. See also Fernández Ordóñez 1992 and Fernández Ordóñez 1993.
  356.  
  357. Catalán, Diego. La Estoria de España de Alfonso X, creación y evolución. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1992.
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  359. This collection of studies is coherently organized around different stages of the composition of the EE during and after Alfonso’s time. It covers Alfonso’s ideals as an historian, working methods in his scriptorium, main sources used, presence of literary elements in his histories, and the later influence of Alfonsine historiography These histories are marked by the symbolic, didactic, and encyclopedic components in their makeup, and the exegesis of events is a common practice in them.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Catalán, Diego. De la silva textual al taller historiográfico alfonsí: Códices, crónicas, versiones y cuadernos de trabajo. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1997.
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  363. Catalán revisits the earlier work of Ramón Menéndez Pidal and his supporters and critics to bring us up to date (as of 1997) on Alfonsine historiography. He wends his way through the maze of chronicles, distinct compilations, and working notebooks that exist, noting the more recent discoveries and new scholarship on both the EE and the GE, clarifying the complex relationships among the multiple versions.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. de la Campa Gutiérrez, Mariano. La ‘Estoria de España’ de Alfonso X: Estudio y edición de la “Versión Crítica” desde Fruela II hasta la muerte de Fernando II. Málaga, Spain: Analecta Malacitana, 2009.
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  367. This edition of the EE covers the reigns of Fruela II (king of Asturias and León, 874–925) to Fernando II (king of León, 1157–1188). The editor supplies a thorough history of the chronicle mss, its families, editions, and the transmission of same. The proposed standards for a full critical edition of the Versión crítica are employed in this edition of one of its parts.
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  369. Dyer, Nancy Joe. “Alfonsine Historiography: The Literary Narrative.” In Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and his Thirteenth-Century Renaissance. Edited by Robert I. Burns, 141–158. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
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  371. In recognizing that the EE and the GE manuscripts (and the later fragments) are widely used and reworked in later chronicles, Dyer studies the efficient cause (Alfonso himself), the material cause (the variegated source works), the formal cause (style and structure), and the final cause (the objective in writing them), and concludes that his own contribution was that of “advancing the historiographic modality toward a coherent, unified literary narrative” (148).
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Fernández-Ordóñez, Inés. “La Estoria de España, la General Estoria y los diferentes criterios compilatorios.” Revista de Literatura 50.99 (1988): 15–35.
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  375. The General Estoria approach is ab ovo, as opposed to the in medias res approach of the Estoria de España. The EE was focused on chronology in Europe, but at times it departs to adopt the more thematic approach of the GE. In contrast, the GE aims at exhaustiveness but occasionally breaks chronology for the sake of a narrative unity emphasizing exceptional biblical and secular historical events or periods.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Fernández Ordóñez, Inés. Las ‘estorias’ de Alfonso el Sabio. Madrid: Istmo, 1992.
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  379. The author collects seven earlier studies. The EE is organized by succeeding señoríos in chronological order, except for the invading Arabs, as they were recent and not fully dominant. Both Alfonsine histories incorporate concepts reflecting Alfonso’s imperial goals (1257–1275). The EE and the GE utilize the same translations but elaborate them separately. Still, contact between the works is closer than previously supposed, since they were composed simultaneously. A good bibliography is contained in the notes.
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  381. Fernández Ordóñez, Inés, ed. Versión crítica de la Estoria de España. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1993.
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  383. This edition covers the EE, from Pelayo (king of Asturias, 718–737) until Ordoño II (king of León, 871–924), and details the complicated manuscript history of multiple version of the EE, and the four chronological divisions, or parts, it covers. Contains a strong defense of the exceptional character of the later Versión crítica (1282–1284), and it logically is the basis of this edition of the monarchies of Asturias and León.
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  385. Menéndez Pidal, Ramón. Primera Crónica General: Estoria de España, que mandó componer Alfonso el Sabio y se continúa bajo Sancho IV en 1289. Madrid: Bailly Ballière, 1906.
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  387. This edition and study was a groundbreaking event in its day and provided a working model for others who followed (Menéndez Pidal trained many of them). It is thanks to the foundational works of this scholar that significant progress has been made since.
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  389. General Estoria
  390.  
  391. Alfonso’s grand scheme was to combine the biblical and secular past in one history, going beyond the more modest aim of the Estoria de España. Whereas the EE actually reached the reign of Fernando III, Alfonso’s father, the more ambitious General Estoria, which survives in five parts plus a fragment of its sixth part, reaches as far as the return to Rome of Antony after meeting Cleopatra (secular history) and the pregnancy of Ana, mother of the Virgin Mary (biblical history). All these parts are reconstructed and edited in Sánchez-Prieto Borja 2009, in collaboration with other scholars, although efforts to edit them began as early as 1930. As it has already been noted in the review of the scholarly works previously cited for the Estoria de España, their discussions take into account the GE as well and should be consulted for their studies of the General Estoria.
  392.  
  393. Sánchez-Prieto Borja, Pedro, ed. General Estoria. By Alfonso X. 10 vols. Madrid: Fundación José Castro, 2009.
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  395. This huge project, only recently completed and published, demonstrates the detailed accounting of the ambitious efforts of Alfonso’s teams of writers to produce what they actually finished of this unique world history. After fifteen years of gathering and collating all known manuscripts of the GE, the full text of the six known parts of the GE was published in these ten meticulously prepared and bound volumes.
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  397. Poetic Works
  398.  
  399. Alfonso is credited with two poetic corpuses, both composed in the Galician-Portuguese language in common use in that era for lyric composition in the central and western sectors of the peninsula (Catalan dominated in the eastern sector), though both show close ties with their French and Provençal forerunners. The first corpus is the smaller, being a collection of forty-four profane (i.e., nonreligious) poems, and there is no doubt about Alfonso’s personal authorship of these poems. Some were presumably composed in his years as prince (pre-1252), although others were composed later, based on internal references to external events. The greatest number of these lyrics partake in the genre of cantigas de escarnho e maldizer (songs of mockery, derision and ill will, an offspring of the Provençal partimen), a few belong to the genre of cantigas d’amor (songs of love, derived from the Provençal cansó) and one to the cantigas d’amigo (songs of a friend, an autochthonous genre). The second corpus, Alfonso’s Cantigas de Santa Maria (Songs of Holy Mary) is unquestionably the most celebrated of medieval Marian collections, acclaimed in Menéndez y Pelayo 1941 as the “aesthetic Bible of the thirteenth century” (p. 180). It contains 427 miracle accounts (seven are repetitions, making it 420) and songs of praise in forty-two repeated sequences of nine miracle narratives plus one praise song (loor) in the style of the medieval rosary. Each text is accompanied by music and a page of six (sometimes a double page of twelve) miniatures, in retellings of the texts in spectacular color. In the case of the Cantigas, no one asserts that Alfonso composed all the poems; instead, he encouraged collaboration by fellow poets who submitted Marian compositions for Alfonso’s royal approval before being accepted for inclusion in the next redaction.
  400.  
  401. Menéndez y Pelayo, Marcelino. “Las Cantigas del Rey Sabio.” In Obras completas, Estudios y discursos de crítica histórica y literaria. Vol. 1. By Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, 161–189. Madrid: CSIC, 1941.
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  403. In the first public review of the Academy edition of the CSM 1889, Menéndez Pelayo describes the prior history of these poems briefly and accurately. Unhesitatingly, he declares with innocent optimism that Alfonso is the sole author of this “Biblia estética del siglo XIII (p. 180). The original texts are from 1895.
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  405. Cantigas de Santa Maria, 1257–1284
  406.  
  407. These 420 poems devoted to the Virgin Mary, Alfonso’s benefactress, were composed by Alfonso and a series of anonymous poets in Galician-Portuguese, the literary language in central and western Iberia in the 13th century. There were several redactions from an early one of one hundred poems to a final corpus of four hundred, compiled shortly before Alfonso’s death in 1284. The notion was to make this collection special, and Alfonso commissioned not only poetry but also music to be included, and for each cantiga to be retold in miniatures. It is the most personal of all of Alfonso’s works, as he was not only its patron but also a contributor. His family, his political affairs, and his literary persona as a troubadour of his liege lady, Mary, all form part of this repertory.
  408.  
  409. Reference Works and Collections
  410.  
  411. For a bibliography, see Snow 2012 (cited under Reference Works). One journal was exclusively devoted to the Cantigas de Santa Maria (CSM), Cantigueiros. The Cantigas were translated into English in Kulp-Hill 2000. O’Callaghan 1998 is a monograph that offers the CSM as a poetic biography of Alfonso X. Three volumes of collected studies, Katz, et al. 1987; Parkinson 2000; and Fernández Fernández and Ruiz Sousa 2011, have thus far accompanied Cantigas studies into the 21st century. Stephen Parkinson maintains a CSM database at the Centre for the Study of the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Oxford University.
  412.  
  413. Cantigueiros.
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  415. The journal was founded by John E. Keller; it published in its thirteen-year life (Fall 1987 to Spring 2000) basic scholarship on the manuscripts, art, music, and poetry of the CSM, along with bibliographic notes and book reviews.
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  417. Centre for the Study of the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Oxford University.
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  419. Here users can find a complete database of the CSM. It has been functioning since 1995 and is directed by Stephen Parkinson.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Fernández Fernández, Laura, and Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza. Alfonso X, el Sabio, Las Cantigas de Santa Maria: Códice Rico, MS T-I-1, Real Biblioteca Monasterio de El Escorial. Vol. II. Madrid: Patrimonio Nacional, 2011.
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  423. The eighteen studies in this companion volume to the new facsimile of Escorial Ms. T.I.1 manage to cover almost all the topics the miniatures illustrate of 13th-century life. Each study is lavishly illustrated from applicable miniatures in the facsimile.
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  425. Katz, Israel J., John E. Keller, Samuel G. Armistead, and Joseph T. Snow, eds. Studies on the “Cantigas de Santa Maria”: Proceedings of the International Symposium on the “Cantigas de Santa Maria” of Alfonso X, el Sabio (1221–1284) in Commemoration of its 700th Anniversary year—1981 (New York, November 19–21). Madison, WI: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1987.
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  427. This historic collection of papers from the first-ever conference on the CSM (New York, 1981) contains six studies on the art, four on the music, fifteen on the poetry, and one on the bibliography of the CSM. One appendix covers the codices and a synoptic table of their poetic contents, and a second one citations of the CSM. The volume is illustrated and has a superb index.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Kulp-Hill, Kathleen, trans. Songs of Holy Mary of Alfonso X, the Wise: A Translation of the CSM. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000.
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  431. This handsome volume contains the translation of the index to the CSM and the complete repertory of 420 Cantigas. In addition, there is an introduction by C. L. Scarborough and twenty-two drawings by Charles L. Nelson, plus a short bibliography.
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  433. O’Callaghan, Joseph F. Alfonso X and the Cantigas de Santa Maria: A Poetic Biography. Boston and Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1998.
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  435. This is a resourceful monograph by an expert in the history of Alfonso’s reign. In it, he highlights each and every reference in the CSM to Alfonso and his family, and to known historical events. The historical sources of the poetry are fully explicated. Many interrelated topics are covered in the introduction, and the maps and black–and-white illustrations serve the volume well.
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  437. Parkinson, Stephen, ed. Cobras e Son: Papers on the Text, Music and Manuscripts of the “Cantigas de Santa Maria.” Oxford: Legenda, 2000.
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  439. This collection of a dozen new and specially prepared articles from an Oxford-sponsored symposium are first-rate (two of them touch on art, not mentioned in the title). The main thrust is focused on beginning serious thought about a new edition of the CSM, which is now under way.
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  441. Manuscripts and Facsimiles
  442.  
  443. There are four royal manuscripts of the Cantigas. The earliest one is housed in Madrid’s National Library [MS 10069, designated To] and contains one hundred poems (initiating the 9 + 1 scheme discussed above and maintained in all later redactions), plus an appendix of 27 additional poems devoted to the Virgin or to her Son, Jesus, a few of which are reassigned in expanded redactions to the main corpus (Mettmann 1986–1989 [cited under Editions], Vol. 1, pp. 35–40). The facsimile was prepared by Monteagudo (see Alfonso X 2003). A second redaction, containing 200 poems (the loss of some end folios only gives us 195), is in the Escorial library [MS T.I.1, designated T], and this is known as the Rich Codex (the Códice Rico), owing to the program of full-page sets of miniatures plus music for each cantiga. The facsimile was prepared by Fernández Fernández and Ruiz Souza (see Alfonso X 2011). In Florence’s Biblioteca Centrale [Banco Rari 20, designated F] is the second half of the Rich Codex, designed to have 200 cantigas also, but it was, unfortunately, abandoned when Alfonso died. It has only 113 texts and a mix of complete, incomplete, and null illustrations. None of the music staves are filled in. The facsimile was prepared by Edilan (see Alfonso X 1989). The final manuscript, containing the full set of 400 cantigas (with added poems forming an appendix) is also in the Escorial library [MS J.b.2, designated E] and is known as the Musician’s Codex (Códice de los músicos), as its illustrative scheme is limited to the decadal songs of praise (10, 20, 30, etc), accompanied by a single panel miniature with one or two musicians playing a wide variety of musical instruments, a visual source of historical importance for musicologists. The only facsimile is that prepared by Anglés (see Alfonso X 1964).
  444.  
  445. Alfonso X. Cantigas de Santa Maria. Vol. 1. Coordinated by Higinio Anglés. Barcelona: Diputación Provincial de Barcelona/Biblioteca Central, 1964.
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  447. Facsimile of E: Escorial Ms. J.b.2. This is the third and final volume of Anglés’s major study of the CSM music, completed with his base manuscript’s facsimile, the only ms. containing the 400 cantigas plus the additional ones in its appendix.
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  449. Alfonso X. Cantigas de Santa Maria. Vol. 1. Madrid: Edilan, 1989.
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  451. Facsimile of F: Florence Ms. Banco Rari 20. Vol. 2 contains CSM studies. Vol. 1 shows the current state of the manuscript, with its empty music staves, the incomplete miniatures, and, of the planned 200 texts, the 113 that were completed at the time of Alfonso’s death.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Alfonso X. Cantigas de Santa Maria. Coordinated by Henrique Monteagudo. Santiago de Compostela: Consello da Cultura Galega, 2003.
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  455. Facsimile of To: Madrid’s manuscript 10069. Shows the first redaction of the CSM with its corpus of 100 cantigas plus an appendix of 27 others. There is a presentation miniature, music, and the texts. This early redaction did not yet illustrate its cantigas with miniatures.
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  457. Alfonso X. Las Cantigas de Santa Maria. Vol. 1. Coordinated by Laura Fernández Fernández and Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza. Madrid: Patrimonio Nacional & Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 2011.
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  459. Facsimile of T: Escorial Ms. T.I.1. Vol. 2 contains eighteen illustrated studies. Vol. 1 contains the introductory poems and cantigas 1–195 (196–200 were on now lost parchment folios), the music, and the splendid six or twelve panel visual versions of the poems.
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  461. Editions
  462.  
  463. A few of the CSM of biographical interest about Alfonso were cited as early as the 16th century, up to the time of the first full edition, under the directorship of Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto, Marquis of Valmar (Cueto 1889). His edition, with its many faults, remained in use until Higinio Anglés and Walter Mettmann reedited the CSM (see Anglés 1964 and Mettmann 1986–1989). All three editors used as the base manuscript for their work the Musicians Codex [J.b.2, or E] of the Escorial library. In Mettmann 1986–1989, Mettmann reedited and corrected his edition, and it remains today’s standard edition. The decadal loores (praise songs) are edited separately in Figalgo 2005. Chatham 1976 is an edition of the marginal prose miracles of the CSM.
  464.  
  465. Anglés, Higinio. La música de las “Cantigas de Santa Maria” del Rey Alfonso el Sabio: Facsímil, transcripción y estudio crítico. Vol. 1. Publicaciones de la Sección de Música 19. Barcelona: Biblioteca Central, 1964.
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  467. This is Volume 1 of the work (though the last to appear in print); it is the only complete facsimile edition of Escorial Ms. J.b.2 and concludes Angles’s great work on the music of the CSM. Anglés made his musical transcriptions (1943) from this ms., the study of which was completed and published later (1958).
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Chatham, James R. “A Paleographic Edition of the Alfonsine Prose Miracles of the Virgin.” In Oelschlaeger Festschrift. Edited by David Darst, et al., 73–111. Chapel Hill, NC: Estudios de Hispanófila, 1976.
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  471. These prose miracles, copied into Escorial ms. T.I.1 below the texts of CSM 2–25, are edited carefully, with notes on the potential sources. Many prose accounts contain materials not present in the verse version of the cantiga.
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  473. Cueto, Leopoldo, Marques de Valmar, ed. Las “Cantigas de Santa Maria” de Alfonso el Sabio. 2 vols. Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1889.
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  475. These two volumes initiated serious modern scholarship on the CSM. The chapters on previous studies, themes, sources, language, versification, the codices, and the personality of Alfonso X are solid first steps, inevitably surpassed in later studies. It remained in use until the 1943 edition prepared by Higinio Anglés. Reissued by the RAE in 1990 in a photographic facsimile.
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  477. Figalgo, Elvira, ed. As Cantigas de Loor de Santa Maria: Edición y comentario. Santiago de Compostela: Centro Ramón Piñeiro, 2005.
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  479. An unsurpassed critical edition of the forty-two decadal loores of the CSM, with extensive annotations and commentaries, plus a full bibliography.
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  481. Mettmann, Walter, ed. Cantigas de Santa Maria. 3 vols. By Alfonso X. Madrid: Castalia, 1986–1989.
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  483. This is a much better, corrected version of Mettmann’s earlier edition of the texts printed in Coimbra (1959–1964), and, until the promised new critical edition of Parkinson is ready, it is today’s standard edition. The fourth volume, a glossary that accompanied the Coimbra printing (published in 1972), is not part of the Castalia edition but remains extremely useful.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Music
  486.  
  487. The early work of Ribera y Tarragó, claiming that Arabic music was the prime source of the CSM music (see Ribera y Tarragó 1922), has been discredited by most all critics, none more important than Higinio Anglés, whose edition of the music and claims for liturgical and Latin sources is still largely accepted even if with modifications (see Anglés 1943). One recent scholar who has led a renewal of interest in post-Arabic Andalusian melodic influence in the CSM is Pedro Manuel Ferreira (see Ferreira 2000 and Ferreira 2009). French and Provençal contrafacta melodies are noted in Rossell 2005. The musical instruments on display in Escorial Ms. J.b.2 have been the object of study, and the attention they received from Álvarez 1987 remains useful. In 1987 the papers of an international colloquium on “Alfonso X y la música,” were published in Madrid’s Revista de musicología 10.1 and separately as a book, in which Álvarez 1987 was published.
  488.  
  489. Álvarez, Rosario. “Los instrumentos musicales en los códices alfonsinos: Su tipología, su uso y su origen; Algunos problemas iconográficos.” In Alfonso X el Sabio y la Música, 67–104. Madrid: Sociedad Española de Musicología, 1987.
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  491. The typology, use and origin of the instruments featured in Escorial Ms. J.b.2 are the core of this piece. String instruments predominate. Though largely drawn from real life, there remain problems in some of the miniature representations. Illustrated. Also published in Revista de Musicología 10.1 (1987): 67–104.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Anglés, Higinio. La música de las ‘Cantigas de Santa Maria’ del Rey Alfonso el Sabio: Facsímil, transcripción y estudio crítico. Vol. 2. Barcelona: Diputación Provincial–Biblioteca Central, 1943.
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  495. This monumental study has two more volumes (1958 and 1964), but it is in this volume that his musical transcriptions appear. The comparative and historical approach to notational systems for medieval music, including those of the trans-Pyrenees trouvères and the troubadours is extensive. There is a thematic index of the melodies. Anglés here laid the groundwork for all future studies of the music of the CSM.
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  497. Ferreira, Pedro Manuel. “Andalusian Music and the Cantigas de Santa Maria.” In Cobras e Son: Papers on the Text, Music and Manuscripts of the “Cantigas de Santa Maria.” Edited by S. Parkinson, 7–19. Oxford: Legenda, 2000.
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  499. Classical Arabic music as proposed by Ribera, while largely discounted, peeks through this revived interest in the musical rhythms of Andalusia that were contemporary with Alfonso. Examples are provided for select compositions to show this influence, though it is not claimed for all of the music of the CSM.
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  501. Ferreira, Pedro Manuel. “Rondeau and Virelai: The Music of Andalus and the Cantigas de Santa Maria.” In Poets and Singers: On Latin and Vernacular Monophonic Song. Edited by Elizabeth Aubrey, 267–280. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009.
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  503. In this analysis of the similarities of the Arabic strophic forms (the zéjel and the muwašša), and noting that the rondeau and virelai forms in the CSM are closer to the Andalusian models than to the French, the author ventures interesting conjectures about contacts between the Cantigas music and the music of the royal court of Seville.
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  505. Ribera y Tarragó, Julián. La música de las Cantigas: Estudio sobre su origen y naturaleza con reproducciones fotográficas del texto y transcripción moderna. Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1922.
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  507. This controversial study about the Arabic genesis of the music of the CSM was criticized as because the theories are intuitive and cannot be put to the proof (Arabic music notation does not survive, only treatises). Useful still is the section that deals with those treatises and written accounts of performances. Ribera y Tarragó transcribes his versions of 127 compositions from the first redaction of the CSM (Ms. 10069 in Madrid’s Biblioteca Nacional).
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Rossell, Antoni. “Música y poesía en la lírica medieval.” In Poesía Medieval: Historia literaria y transmisión de textos. Edited by Vitalino Valcárcel Martinez and Carlos Pérez González, 287–304. Burgos: Fundación Instituto Castellano y Leonés de la Lengua, 2005.
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  511. The oral repertory of song frames this study of the transmission of some nuclei of texts and melodies in the music of the CSM, where contrafacta exemplify the realities of musical memory. CSM 422 shows the Sibilia as a forerunner; CSM 340 rehearses music in a famous song of Cadenet, and Bernart de Ventadorn’s “Can vei la lauzeta mover” has musical nuclei that appear in Alfonso’s tensó with Arnaut Catalan (see Lapa 430).
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  513. Miniatures
  514.  
  515. The first truly major compilation of work on the miniatures, unfortunately in black and white only, was assembled in Guerrero Lovillo 1949, and followed by Menéndez Pidal 1986. Studies have mushroomed ever since, however. Domínguez Rodríguez 1987 brings the evangelical content of the CSM to the surface, while the role of Mary as Co-Redemptress is examined in Domínguez Rodríguez 1998. Corti 2008–2009 examines rhetorical models adapted for the miniatures. Prado-Villar 2005 sees in several miniatures the Virgin attending to peoples of all faiths in a transformation of Gothic art. There is a generous bouquet in the 2011 volume edited by Fernández Fernández and Ruiz Souza (see Alfonso X 2011, cited under Manuscripts and Facsimiles), with its eighteen studies on architecture, ocean travel, images and idols, military armor, clothing, textiles and ornaments, painting and sculpture, and other facets of life in Alfonso’s Spain. See also Domínguez Rodríguez and Treviño Gajardo 2007.
  516.  
  517. Corti, Francisco. “Lectura retórica visual de la Cantiga 4.” Alcanate 6 (2008–2009): 227–238.
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  519. In this sample of Corti’s work, he takes the six panels of CSM 4, studies them in the context of classical rhetoric, and makes of the notions of rhetorical theory and the art of illustration in the CSM an open path for assessing the advances in art made by the miniaturists of the CSM.
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  521. Domínguez Rodríguez, Ana. “Iconografía evangélica en las Cantigas de Santa Maria.” In Studies in the “Cantigas de Santa Maria”: Proceedings of the International Symposium on the “Cantigas de Santa Maria” of Alfonso X, el Sabio (1221–1284) in Commemoration of its 700th Anniversary year—1981 (New York, November 19–21). Edited by I. J. Katz, John E. Keller, Samuel G. Armistead, and Joseph T. Snow, 53–80. Madison, WI: Hispanic Seminary of Hispanic Studies, 1987.
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  523. Follows the depiction of events in the life of the Virgin from birth to her Coronation in Heaven, and everything in between, and this was the first study to do so in such detail. In these depictions, the author senses a new form of religiosity advocated by Alfonso X. Illustrated.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Domínguez Rodríguez, Ana. “Compassio y Co-redemptio en las Cantigas de Santa Maria.” Archivo Español de Arte 281 (1998): 17–25.
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  527. The postures the artists place the Virgin in at the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment indicate that they heralded later iconographic patterns. In the first instance, for her grasping of the Cross, she is esteemed by churchmen for her Co-Suffering with her son, and in the second instance, for baring her maternal breast to Jesus, she is seen in the role of Co-Redeemer. Illustrated.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Domínguez Rodríguez, Ana, and Pilar Treviño Gajardo. Las Cantigas de Santa Maria: Formas e Imágenes. Madrid: AyN Ediciones, 2007.
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  531. Its seven chapters and thirty-page bibliography cover much artistic ground in Alfonso’s Marian repertory. Worth noting are the observations on differences between text and image, the depictions of Alfonso in many guises in the work, the inclusion in several narratives of the source text used, and a discussion of the different artistic styles and forms reflected in the CSM. Many color plates.
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  533. Guerrero Lovillo, José. Las Cantigas: Estudio arqueológico de sus miniaturas. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1949.
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  535. The text is principally interested in clothing (lay and religious, male and female, Jew and Moor), and in architectural and artistic forms and of much more, enhanced by the author’s own sketches. The plates are from the Códice Rico. Groundbreaking in its day, it is still widely consulted. With 212 black–and-white plates.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Menéndez Pidal, Gonzalo. La España del siglo XIII leída en imágenes. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1986.
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  539. Not only recommended for its utilization of the miniatures to allow us to see the 13th century, but also for its recourse to the incomplete Florence manuscript to show the stages of the creation of the miniatures. A sampling of themes: Exteriors, interiors, ceremonial occasions, schools, businesses, the hunt, roads, pilgrims, games, music, war, justice, battles on land and sea, and so much more. There is a good bibliography and an onomastic Index. With black–and-white plates.
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  541. Prado-Villar, Francisco. “The Gothic Amorphic Gaze: Regarding the Worth of Others.” In Under the Influence: Questioning the Comparative in Medieval Castile. Edited by C. Robinson and L. Rouhi, 67–100. Boston and Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005.
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  543. Alfonso’s Virgin reflects his own political praxis in that she administers to all faiths. The alluring promise of a national utopia, constantly asserted by a Virgin who brings others to the new faith as they recognize elements of their own faith in her, is fundamental to the author’s notion of a transformation of Gothic art in the CSM.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Poetry
  546.  
  547. A work as vast as the CSM permits entry from a multiplicity of thematic directions, though only a few of these will serve this small sample. Clarke 1955 shows that later Spanish metrical patterns were all accounted for in the CSM. Parkinson and Jackson 2006 explains how the CSM were assembled. Carpenter 1992 highlights the roles of Moors and Jews. Snow 1979 points out the troubadour presence in the work, and Snow 1992 posits Alfonso as a second protagonist of an organic whole. The strong representation of Andalusia is detailed in Montoya Martínez and Juárez Blanquer 1988. The numerous Marian shrines are featured in Kassier 1990, Gaspar 1996, and Montoya Martínez 2006. Monastic life is developed fully in DiSalvo 2013, and a close historical grounding is borne out in Kinkade 1992. Betti 1997 contributes a complete study of the rhymes of the CSM, with a lexicon of all words used as rhymes. Betti 2005 takes up the metrical range of the CSM.
  548.  
  549. Betti, Maria Pia. Rimario e lessico in rima delle CSM di Alfonso X di Castiglia. Pisa, Italy: Pacini, 1997.
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  551. An exhaustive repertory of the masculine and feminine rhymes of the CSM, arranged alphabetically and in descending order of frequency. There is also a complete listing of all words that appear in rhyme position.
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  553. Betti, Maria Pia. Repertorio metrico delle CSM di Alfonso di Castiglia. Pisa, Italy: Pacini, 2005.
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  555. The complete metrical repertory of the CSM is definitive and its multiple indices are very user-friendly.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Carpenter, Dwayne E. “Social Perception and Literary Portrayal: Jews and Muslims in Medieval Spanish Literature.” In Convivencia: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain. Edited by V. B. Mann, et al., 61–87. New York: Brazillier, 1992.
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  559. Several of the CSM figure in this study, showing the Virgin helping both Jews and Muslims, but protecting her own images and churches against infidel desecrations.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Clarke, Dorothy Clotelle. “Versification in Alfonso el Sabio’s Cantigas.” Hispanic Review 23 (1955): 83–98.
  562. DOI: 10.2307/470916Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. Convincingly argues that the CSM laid the foundations for later Spanish metrics through the Siglo de Oro (Golden Age), in verse forms, strophic patterns, the use of metrical combinations, hiatus, run-on lines, caesura, and even free verse.
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  565. DiSalvo, Santiago. Los monjes de la Virgen: Representación y reelaboración de la cultura monacal en las CSM de Alfonso X. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2013.
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  567. In this volume, the author treats religious and military orders, hermits, monks, monasteries, and the work carried on by these religious folk in the CSM. Their liturgical songs influence some of the music, and their forms of faith are present in the doctrinal content of the CSM. Many supplementary appendices and indices increase the value of this study. With many color plates.
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  569. Gaspar, Ana Blaser. “Santa María de Terena nas Cantigas de Alfonson X.” In Actas del Congresso Internacional Luso-Español de Lengua y Cultura en la Frontera (1994). Vol 1, 73–84. Cáceres: Universidad de Extremadura, Servicio de Publicaciones, 1996.
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  571. The shrine at Portugal’s Terena, featured for its powers in restoring health in the CSM, maintains the same role in modern times. Alfonso’s teams probably gathered the Terena miracles, since no collection is known to have existed from which they could have been drawn.
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  573. Kassier, Theodore. “The Salas Miracles of the Cantigas de Santa Maria: Folklore and Social Reality.” Bulletin of the Cantigueiros of Santa Maria 2 (Fall 1990): 31–38.
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  575. This Marian shrine in Huesca accounts for twenty-two of the CSM, and they are seemingly tilted toward folklore, social concerns (childhood illnesses), and peninsular realities. Since thirteen of these occur in a space of twenty miracles, a written source is a good probability.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Kinkade, Richard. “Alfonso X, Cantiga 235, and the Events of 1269–1278.” Speculum 67 (1992): 284–323.
  578. DOI: 10.2307/2864374Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  579. This detailed historical account covers personal illnesses and cures of Alfonso in the decade of the title, along with the death of his son and heir, the refusal of the pope to crown him emperor, and the political unrest over the royal succession.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Montoya Martínez, Jesús, ed. Cancionero de Santa María del Puerto (o Nuestra Señora de los Milagros) mandado componer por Alfonso X el Sabio. El Puerto de Santa María: Centro Municipal del Patrimonio Histórico, 2006.
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  583. The twenty-four miracles (plus four loores) of this Marian sanctuary are presented in a facsimile edition, with full transcriptions and Spanish translations provided by the editor. The forty-page introduction covers the extent of Alfonso’s personal attachment to this Marian shrine.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Montoya Martínez, Jesús, and Aurora Juárez Blanquer, eds. Historia y anécdotas de Andalucía en las Cantigas de Santa Maria de Alfonso X. Granada, Spain: Universidad, 1988.
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  587. All the Andalusian-based CSM are treated here for content and linguistic styles. The commentaries are accompanied by the full texts of the sixty-nine cantigas and by a glossary.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Parkinson, Stephen, and Deirdre Jackson. “Collection, Composition, and Compilation in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.” Portuguese Studies 22.2 (2006): 159–171.
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  591. These three components are the undergirding of the various redactions of the work: (1) acquisition of the materials; (2) the processes of elaboration (text, music, miniatures), and (3) the ordering or compiling in a determined order of the selected components of the redaction. The use of one composition, CSM 113, to illustrate, works splendidly.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Snow, Joseph T. “The Central Role of the Troubadour Persona of Alfonso X in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 56 (1979): 305–316.
  594. DOI: 10.1080/1475382792000356305Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595. The presence of the troubadour persona from the beginning to the conclusion of the CSM offers cohesion to a miscellaneous miracle repertory. This secondary narrative recounts a spiritual (auto)-biography of the devout troubadour (Alfonso) of Mary. The adoration of the Virgin is inspired by the Provençal love cansó and, taken as a unit, these poems offer a subtle signature to the work as a structured literary whole.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Snow, Joseph T. “Alfonso X como segundo protagonista en sus Cantigas: últimas consideraciones.” In Studia Hispanica Medievalia II: III Jornadas de Literatura Española Medieval, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1990. Edited by Rosa E. Penna, María A. Rosarossa, 32–41. Buenos Aires, Argentina: University Católica, 1992.
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  599. Linking the thematic strands of three initial CSM (Prologue B, and Cantigas 1 and 10) with those of three concluding ones (CSM 400, 401 and 402), and with a nuanced reading of CSM 300, the author projects the internal voice of a protagonist whose personal rewards will encourage others to follow in his Marian footsteps.
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  601. Alfonso X: Profane Poems
  602.  
  603. Alfonso entertained at his court poets from France, Catalonia, and the areas over which he ruled, and he learned their poetic art from them. His profane poetry is limited to forty-five in number, most all of them based in satirical genres. A few are love songs, and there is one indigenous “song of a friend” (cantiga d’amigo). In the satirical poems he attacks other poets, misers, cowards, the obese, the women who follow the troops, those who flirt with Moors, and more, not so much seriously as to perform in a competitive poetic atmosphere of verbal jousting. As in the CSM, some compositions reveal autobiographical data worthy of study.
  604.  
  605. Reference Works and Editions
  606.  
  607. For a bibliography, see Snow 2012 (cited under Reference Works), which is indexed for these poems on pp. 409–411 and 434–435. The poems have been translated into Spanish in Paredes Núñez 2010b. The first to edit them fully was Rodrigues Lapa in 1965 and in a revised edition in 1970 (see Lapa 1970). Mercedes Brea edits them as well in Brea 1996, her magisterial complete corpus of Galician-Portuguese poetry (not, however, incorporating the religious Cantigas of Alfonso X). The latest and best of the editions is Paredes Núñez 2010a.
  608.  
  609. Brea, Mercedes, ed. Lírica profana galego-portuguesa, Corpus completo das cantigas medievais con estudio biográfico, análise retórica e bibliografía específica. 2 vols. Santiago de Compostela: Centro de Investigacións Lingüísticas e Literárias Ramón Piñeiro, 1996.
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  611. This corpus highlight the convergence of the local with Provençal poetic traditions; Alfonso’s forty-six profane lyrics are edited in Volume 1, pp. 138–161.
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  613. Lapa, Manuel Rodrigues, ed. Cantigas d’escarnho e de mal dizer, dos cancioneiros medievais galego-portugueses. 2d ed. Vigo, Spain: Ed. Galaxia, 1970.
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  615. Alfonso’s s poems, from the 1970 edition are numbered 1–30, 150, 304, 422 and 430. Alfonso’s nonsatirical profane poems are not edited here. First edition published 1965.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Paredes Núñez, Juan. El cancionero profano de Alfonso, el Sabio. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 2010a.
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  619. First published in 2001, this new edition has expanded and updated notes and bibliography. The texts are the same, but this edition, designed for scholars, has an extensive scholarly apparatus. A complete glossary and index round out the edition.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Paredes Núñez, Juan, ed. Cantigas profanas. By Alfonso X. Madrid: Castalia, 2010b.
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  623. This is an edition of the forty-four profane poems with a solid introduction, bibliography, textual notes, and his Spanish translations. There are linguistic notes and a glossary.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Poetry
  626.  
  627. Of the forty-four poems, three are in the cansó, or love song, tradition, and one is a plaint of a young lass who misses her lover (“amigo”). The others all deal in satire, burlesque, and parody, with a strong presence of eroticism or obscenity. A sample offering would include: a study of the love song (Corral Díaz 2002), sexual disease (Cabánez Jiménez 2006), cross-ethnic sexual adventure (Liu 1999), parody and caricature (Vaquero 1991), and obscene metaphors (da Costa Fontes 1997 and Vasvari 1999).
  628.  
  629. Cabánez Jiménez, Pilar. “Enfermedades de índole sexual en las cantigas de escarnio y maldecir.” Lemir, Revista de Literatura Española Medieval y del Renacimiento 10 (2006).
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  631. Alfonso treats St. Martial’s fire and a vaginal wound in nos. 23 and 25 (Lapa ed.). Available online.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Corral Díaz, Esther. “A poesía profana amorosa de Alfonso X.” In Iberia cantat, Estudios sobre poesía hispánica medieval. Edited by Juan Casas Rigall and Eva María Díaz Martínez, 213–246. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade, 2002.
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  635. The four love songs (one is the cantiga d’amigo) are treated as a body. Treated are metrics and rhetoric. The troubadour lexicon and the themes are inherited from Occitan models.
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  637. Da Costa Fontes, Manuel. “On Alfonso X’s ‘Interrupted’ Encounter with a Soldadeira.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 31 (1997): 93–101.
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  639. This is the Lapa edition’s poem 14, which treats the voluntarily postponed sexual passion of the camp follower as a metaphor of the Passion of Christ on Good Friday. The many sexual metaphors are explored in their Iberian context.
  640. Find this resource:
  641. Liu, Benjamin. “‘Affined to Love the Moor’: Sexual Misalliance and Cultural Mixing in the Cantigas d’Escarnho e de Mal Dizer.” In Queer Iberia: Crossing Cultures, Crossing Sexualities. Edited by G. Hutcheson and J. Blackmore, 48–72. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
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  643. The sexual misdoings of Moors and Christians, as recounted in Alfonso’s poems 23 and 25 (Lapa’s ed.), explore the highly equivocal registers that are bound up in languages and cultures.
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  645. Vaquero, Mercedes. “Las cantigas d’escarnho e de maldizer como invectiva de la época.” In Actas do Segundo Congreso de Estudos Galegos, 143–149. Vigo, Spain: Galaxia, 1991.
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  647. The satirical poems by Alfonso and other poets are here seen as partaking in the demythification and subversion of epic genres.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Vasvari, Louise. “‘La madeira certeira . . . a midida d’España’ de Alfonso X: Un gap carnavalesco.” In Actas del VII Congrès de la Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval, 459–469. Castellón de la Plana: Univ. Jauffre I, 1999.
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  651. In the obscene carnivalesque treatment of the camp follower, Maria Balteira (Lapa ed., poem 11), the hyperbolic references to the male sexual member border on the infantile.
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  653. Other Works
  654.  
  655. Alfonso was interested in many areas of knowledge largely unavailable in Castilian, and given his privileged position, he was able to have works translated. Translated, perhaps initially to satisfy himself, but eventually, as king, they formed part of a plan for a broad didactic program designed to bring into Castilian entire bodies of knowledge with the aim of raising the education level of his subjects. The earliest of these works was the translation of the Indian Panchatantra (with other pieces of the Mahabharata attached) from an Arabic version, and completed while Alfonso was still a prince in 1251. The new work produced, Calila y Dimna, is a string of animal-based tales of high moral and exemplary, as well as entertainment, value. Another popular series of legends about Mohammed was circulating in Europe, and Alfonso had it translated into Castilian (that translation is now lost) and Latin. La Escala de Mahoma (The Ladder of Mohammed, 1263–1265) was a work that has been proposed and defended as a source for Dante´s Divina Commedia. A final work, completed one year before his death (1283) is the magnificently illustrated Libro de los juegos de axedrez, dados y tablas (Book of the games of chess, dice, and checkers), in which game strategies are set out and the gathered players are depicted as royalty, Christians, Jews, women, and other social entities. This work, like the Calila, has an Eastern inspiration.
  656.  
  657. Calila y Dimna (Calila and Dimna)
  658.  
  659. Alfonso’s wide-ranging interests were in tune with the lore that Eastern sources could provide, and the fame of Indian classics such as the Panchatantra and the Mahabharata gave him a strong incentive for combining them in a Castilian translation that would bring this lore and its moral fables to his peoples. The structure is that of a frame tale (tales within tales, or nested tales). Wacks 2007 study, one of the best, shows that the frame tale is considered as a genre that elicited common literary responses from all religious, linguistic, and political groups; Wacks concentrates his study on reception by Arabic and Christian audiences. Calila is, clearly, the first example of literary prose in Castilian: its frequent protagonists are animals who light the moral path for the reader, and many similarly structured works soon followed. Its immediate source, as recounted in Villegas González 2008, is the Arabic version of Abdalá Benalmocaffa, which he translates into Spanish. Haro Cortés 2007 is a modern edition and study. It was translated into English in Irving 1980.
  660.  
  661. Haro Cortés, Marta, ed. Exemplario contra los engaños y peligros del mundo. Valencia, Spain: Universidad, 2007.
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  663. This is an edition of the 1493 version of Calila y Dimna, with its fascinating woodcuts, plus three studies and a bibliographical repertory.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Irving, Thomas B., trans. Kalilah and Dimnah: An English Version of Bidpai’s Fables Based upon Ancient Arabic. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1980.
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  667. Offers a viable English version translated from the Arabic, not the Spanish.
  668. Find this resource:
  669. Villegas González, Marcelino. Calila y Dimna (obra de Abdalá Benalmocaffa, ca. 720–759). Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2008.
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  671. The introduction provides additional information on the specifics of the ethical content of these nesting tales and traces the work through versions in Sanskrit, Syriac, Hebrew, Arabic, and Alfonso’s Castilian translation. The norms for living a productive life are frequently encapsulated in maxims and sententiae that enhance the didactic program of Calila.
  672. Find this resource:
  673. Wacks, David A. “The Cultural Context of the translation of Kalila e Dimna’.” In Framing Iberia, “Maqumat” and Frametale Narratives in Medieval Spain. By David A. Wacks, 87–128. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2007.
  674. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004158283.i-279Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  675. In 1251 the literary system of Castilian was in its infancy. The Calila was an advance in the use of literary Castilian, though the Arabic original often peeps through (as it often does in the scientific translations). The exploits of the animal protagonists, entertaining while supremely didactic, are treated as universals of human behavior common to Christian and Arabic audiences alike. Indeed, the text of Calila has no specific references to Islam.
  676. Find this resource:
  677. La escala de Mahoma (The Ladder of Mohammed)
  678.  
  679. The legends of Mohammed circulated widely in the Middle Ages and found their way into both Latin and the vernaculars. The Ladder of Mohammed, which tells of the night journey of Mohammed with a guide and his ascension into the highest realms, and of those he met along the way and asked about what he saw, did not escape the notice of Alfonso, and he ordered it translated into Castilian by his faithful physician, Abraham Alfaquim, in approximately 1263–1265. The Castilian manuscript is lost, but it served as the basis for a Latin version (Incipt liber scale mochometi, Paris. Lat. 6064, fols 105v–126v) and a French version (Liure de leschiele Mahomet, Oxford LAUD misc. 537), both made by Bonaventura de Siena. Muñoz Sendino 1949 and Cerulli 1949 are edited versions. It is the Latin version that Dante must have known well, according to Asín Palacios 1961.
  680.  
  681. Asín Palacios, Miguel. La escatología musulmana en la Divina Commedia: Seguida de la Historia y crítica de una polémica. 3d ed. Madrid: Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura, 1961.
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  683. There was an initial edition in 1919 and an enlarged second one in 1943. This third edition combines that work with the essay Asín wrote about the polemic the book elicited. The Arabic Miʿ-rāŷ (Ladder) provoked this monumental work, doubtless owing to Dante’s familiarity with the Latin translation.
  684. Find this resource:
  685. Cerulli, Enrico, ed. Il Libro della Scala e la Questione delle Fonti Arabo-Spagnole della Divina Commedia. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1949.
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  687. Cerulli’s transcription, annotations, and commentary have been well-received and, like Sendino did, he gives a summary of the later Spanish version in the Escorial library, noting the contacts of the text with Dante’s masterwork.
  688. Find this resource:
  689. Muñoz Sendino, José, ed. Alfonso X, La escala de Mahoma: Traducción del árabe al castellano, latín y francés, ordenada por Alfonso X el Sabio. Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, 1949.
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  691. The eighty-three chapters of the Latin and French versions are edited in facing columns, and Sendino offers Spanish summaries of the chapters and explores the many points of overlap with Dante found in them. There are copious notes.
  692. Find this resource:
  693. Libro de Ajedrex, Dados y Tablas (Book of Games of Chess, Dice, and Checkers)
  694.  
  695. The colophon suggests a completion date of 1283 but it may well have been undertaken as early as 1275–1276. Chess moves and strategies are shown, and diverse chess and dice games and an early form of checkers (tablas) as well, are outlined in detail (designing the playing boards, the pieces that are used in playing, along with their virtues and significance. This Libro is a visual repository in brilliant color, as seen in the most recent facsimile edition, Alfonso X 2010, featuring a spectrum of multiethnic game participants and observers. Judging by the dress, it seems that these games were played by persons of wealth and prestige. Steiger 1941 compiles a useful translation and a glossary. A good summary of the contents and an appreciation of Alfonso’s role in its exuberant Prologue are available in the introductory material of Orellana Calderón 2007.
  696.  
  697. Alfonso, X. Libro de los Juegos de Ajedrez, Dados y Tablas. Valencia, Spain: Scriptorium, 2010.
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  699. The first large-format volume containing the color facsimile of the Libro. There is a companion volume with studies in Spanish of the miniatures, the codicology, the contents, and the strategies of the games (each of which is illustrated). An extremely useful benefit of this companion volume is that all the studies have been admirably translated into English (pp. 538–985, repeating the illustrations).
  700. Find this resource:
  701. Orellana Calderón, Raúl, ed. Libro de los Juegos: Acedrex, dados y tablas; Ordenamiento de las tafurerías. By Alfonso X el Sabio. Madrid: Fundación José Castro, 2007.
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  703. The introduction provides a panorama of the varied games included and relates the anecdote, originally from India, in which chess is associated with intellectual virtues, dicing with chance or luck, and tablas with cordura (sensibleness), an anecdote with which Alfonso identifies in the Prologue to the work.
  704. Find this resource:
  705. Steiger, Arnald, ed. Libros de acedrex, dados y tablas das schachzavelbuch könig Alfons des Weisen, mit 51 miniaturen auf tafeln. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz, 1941.
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  707. Steiger’s edition is accompanied by his modern Spanish translation. All plates are in black and white. A helpful feature is the glossary the editor provides.
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