Chapter I: Alfonso El Sabio as King and Scholar

Alfonso X is one of those unfortunate men who have been--sometimes unconsciously but in many cases purposely--maligned in history. The _Libro de las Querellas_, (a 17th century work until recently attributed to Alfonso); the dictum of Mariana, “Dumque coelum considerat observatque astra, terram amisit”; and the popular verse from the romances “De tanto mirar al cielo se le cayó la corona” which inspired Marquina’s poem on that theme, all express the exaggerated and perverted idea which was generally prevalent concerning this monarch. Those who knew his works of science, especially of astronomy, were amazed at the wealth of knowledge displayed therein, and this, together with the fact that his last years were taken up with rebellions on the part not only of his vassals but even of his own sons, seem to have been enough to create the impression just mentioned.

Recent criticism has also brought to light the fact that the almost blasphemous quotation so long attributed to this king, “Si Dios me hubiera consultado, habría hecho el mundo de otra manera,” is not his at all, but rather was invented later in Catalonia by a certain king Pedro IV, or perhaps by his chronicler Bernat Descoll. Some have attributed it to Fernando IV.[12]

Altho these conceptions may contain some modicum of truth, they are only a part of the truth. Alfonso took an active part in the politics of his day and the surprising thing is that amid all the strife and trouble that surrounded him he found any time at all to give to literary production.

Alfonso was born on November 23, 1221, according to the findings of his biographer, the Marqués de Mondéjar[13] (whose deductions have been confirmed by documents discovered later) and was named for his grandfather Alfonso IX of Leon and his great-grandfather Alfonso VIII of Castile. Practically nothing is known of his early childhood except that he was associated with certain of the nobility, viz., García Fernández and Doña Mayor Arias of the province of Burgos. Of his early training nothing is known. He was probably reared in Toledo, his father’s capital, and as Sr. Solalinde suggests, much might be inferred from the rules for the training of princes given in the _Siete Partidas_, a collection of the laws of the time, provided the reader does not take these too literally. At the age of sixteen he began his career as a soldier under his father, Fernando III, el Santo, in the conquest of Andalucía. He himself added to his father’s crown the kingdom of Murcia and took an active part in the conquest of Sevilla in 1248. The next year he married Doña Violante of Aragón, daughter of Jaime el Conquistador, hoping in this way to effect an alliance between the two kingdoms, but it seems as tho Fate had decreed that from the very first his should be a life of disappointments and trouble. The frontier warfare between these two nations continued, growing even more sharp later when Alfonso aspired to the crown of Navarra. It was not until much later that the friendship of Alfonso and Don Jaime became firmly established.

Aside from his legal wife, whom he married by way of securing a political asset--a mode of procedure not unknown even in later times--he really loved a certain beautiful lady, Doña Mayor Guillén de Guzmán, who bore to him his daughter Doña Beatriz, later married by her father to Alfonso III of Portugal. The sepulcher and also the body of Doña Mayor in a remarkable state of preservation are still to be seen in Alcocer. One of the hands still wears the glove with which it was clothed at the time of the burial.

In May, 1252, Alfonso ascended the throne, after receiving his father’s solemn charge: “Fijo, ricas fincas et tierra et de muchos buenos vasallos más que rey que en la cristianidad sea; pugna en facer bien e ser bueno, ca bien has con qué.”

Alfonso, the king, was undoubtedly an indefatigable worker and a man of the highest intentions. He knew what ought to be done but apparently did not have the power of will or the personality to insure the execution of his purpose. When he ascended the throne the war with the Moors had been reduced to operations of minor importance and they recognized the Castillian monarch as their master. But here as elsewhere history repeats itself. Each Christian king on the peninsula was dominated by the desire to extend his territories; and, since there was no longer the necessity of standing together against the common foe, a series of petty quarrels soon arose followed by attempted conquests. As time went on, not only Alfonso’s own nobles, but his brothers and even his own son became involved against their king. It was precisely here that Alfonso was unable to hold the reins of power in as firm a hand as his father before him had done. It was because of internal troubles that he failed, at the critical moment, to bring the wars in Italy to a decisive conclusion, and to terminate successfully with the popes and others, the diplomatic controversies in which the throne of the Holy Roman Empire was at stake. To this throne he had been legally elected at the death of William of Holland in 1256, when he received four of the seven votes. He was opposed by Richard of Cornwall. The long contest which followed was in reality a political battle with the popes, from Alexander IV to Gregory X, in which Richard usually had the upper hand. At Richard’s death Rudolph of Hapsburg under the pontifical protection was elected to take his place, and it was only after nineteen years that Alfonso finally succeeded, in 1275, in obtaining an audience with Gregory in France. The unfortunate outcome of this interview was that Alfonso was persuaded to give up all pretentions to the imperial crown and to forego his custom of signing international papers with the title of “rey de romanos.” In this manner ended Alfonso’s vain attempt at external territorial expansion.

At home, in contests with his own nobles, he had been hardly more successful. Indeed, with all the accumulated expenses of his long-continued attempts to obtain the imperial crown it would have required a man of almost superhuman force to keep his powerful vassals under control and at the same time subject them to the excessive taxation necessarily involved. This, as we have seen, Alfonso did not possess. The Infante Don Enrique was the first to rebel. His outbreak was followed by a more serious uprising of the nobles under the ostensible leadership of the king’s brother, the Infante Don Felipe, but was really fostered and maintained by Nuño de Lara, the boldest and most favored noble of the court. To restore harmony the king surrendered many of his own prescriptive rights, but even then the nobles were not satisfied and Nuño de Lara, inspired by this recently acquired power, objected to the royal decision to require no further payments of tribute from the king of Portugal. Alfonso, in anger, demanded that Nuño withdraw from the council; this he did but in open rebellion, successfully drawing with him a large number of the nobles. Many of these, apparently faithful to Alfonso, followed an intimation given them by Nuño and outwardly supported their sovereign while privately plotting with some of his powerful enemies, the king of Navarre and even the emir of Granada.

In an endeavor to adjust matters Alfonso summoned a general convocation, which the aggrieved nobles, in an attitude of open affront, attended fully armed while their sovereign wore only civilian dress. At this meeting the monarch ceded still further privileges; but, pursuing their advantage, they finally came out in open rebellion and, gathering their army, marched away from Castile to the kingdom of Granada, burning and plundering as they went. Meanwhile Alfonso, by means of his eldest son and heir, Fernando de la Cerda, still endeavored to negotiate with them.

In spite of all these internal troubles the crown of the Holy Roman Empire still held the uppermost place in the mind of the monarch and it was just at this juncture that he succeeded in arranging for his above mentioned visit to France and left his oldest son, Fernando de la Cerda, to govern in his stead. The latter altho only a boy of twenty years was already showing great ability as his father’s representative, when suddenly he died. Fate seemed determined that not one bright lingering hope should be permitted to relieve Alfonso’s long, unhappy reign.

This unfortunate death was the cause of additional troubles. Don Sancho, Alfonso’s second son, immediately took up the reins of government where his brother had let them fall. War having been declared on the Moors, no time was to be lost. Alfonso returned to find his son and heir dead, his father-in-law, Don Jaime,--that valiant warrior who had now become his devoted friend--just killed by the unbelievers, and his second son, Sancho, self-established as heir-apparent. Altho this was contrary to what the king himself had ordered in _Las Siete Partidas_,[14] he confirmed Sancho as his successor, whereas the crown should have gone to Fernando’s eldest son. This brought more trouble. Queen Violante left him and sought refuge with her brother, Pedro III of Aragon, in order to defend the rights of her grandsons. The wife of the deceased prince hastened to her father, king of France, and war was about to be declared between the two kingdoms, when Rome interfered. Violante returned to her lord upon receiving his promise to cede the kingdom of Jaén to his grandson; but this angered Don Sancho, who rebelled against his father. Alfonso publicly disinherited his son, and incontinently set out to crush him. The other Infantes who had previously supported their brother now forsook him and came to the aid of their father. Sancho himself, with a kind of religious respect for his royal father, avoided battle and finally implored pardon. Such was the condition of affairs when, after an exceedingly turbulent reign of thirty-two years, Alfonso X died in Seville on the 4th of April, 1284.

During all these years Alfonso had cherished the fond hope of carrying on an ever broadening war against the Moors and finally of extending it into Africa and there dealing a death blow to the power of the Crescent. This purpose of his, like a will-o’-the-wisp, fluttered constantly just beyond his power of execution. He did succeed in carrying out minor conquests, but the ruler of Granada was always quick to take advantage of the civil strife in the kingdom to the north of him to recover his lost territory. The final net result was that Alfonso succeeded in adding to his crown the cities of Jerez de la Frontera, Medina-Sidonia, Lebrija, Niebla, Cádiz, and a few other towns of little importance.

From the foregoing it is easy to see that Alfonso was not a mere theorizing star-gazer. It is surprising that a man with his hands so full of terrestrial affairs could ever have found time to turn his eyes heavenward or could ever find the leisure and the quiet necessary for the careful editing of the lengthy works produced at his command.

In speaking of these works and discussing their chronological order Sr. Ramón Menendez Pidal says:

“La actividad literaria de la corte de Alfonso X--que se había
iniciado con las _Tablas Alfonsíes y el Septenario_--había
producido ya las obras legales, coronadas por las _Partidas_; había
dado a luz la primera edición de las Cantigas y gran parte de los
_Libros Astronómicos_. Posteriormente a esa actividad desarrollada
en las materias astronómicas, jurídicas y poéticas, sólo a partir
del año 1270, debemos colocar el comienzo de la actividad histórica
antes no representada. Primero se trabaja en la _Crónica General_,
y, después, se interrumpe la obra para impulsar la _Grande
Estoria_; los redactores de esta, como luego indicaremos,
conocieron noticias referentes a la historia de España que la
_Crónica General_ no aprovechó. En fin, después de la iniciación
de las obras históricas se siguió trabajando en los _Libros
Astronómicos_ y en las _Cantigas_, y se empezaron las últimas obras
del reinado, como el _Lapidario_ y el _Ajedrez_.”[15]

Of the above I have been able to consult only those printed or reproduced in facsimile, which are the following:

_Las Siete Partidas_, (the best edition of which is the large three volume work published in 1807 by the Real Academia) is the result of Alfonso’s successful attempt to complete the work begun by his father in collecting, codifying and standardizing the various laws of the numerous regions of the kingdom, and it has been used as the basis of Spanish jurisprudence ever since. This work has proved of very great value because of the ample comments (made, it seems, either by the compilers or by Alfonso himself) on the laws contained and the customs referred to.

_Las Cantigas_ is a collection of 422 lyric or narrative poems in the Gallego-portugués dialect, many of which were probably written by the monarch. Of these 353 are narrations of miracles attributed to the Blessed Virgin. The edition used in this study is that of the Real Academia, 1889, 2 Vols., 33 cm. edited with a critical introduction by Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto, Marqués de Valmar. A third volume of this work by J. Ribera treating of the music of _Las Cantigas_ has just appeared.

_Los Libros del Saber de Astronomía_, contain a large number of drawings of the heavens, various astronomical instruments, etc., as well as a compendium of what was then known relating to this science. In the introduction to the edition which consists of five 45 × 33 cm. volumes by Manuel Rico y Sinobas, Madrid, 1868, the editor states that among the compilers were 8 Christians and 6 Jews; while the works of more than 17 Arabs were consulted (p. XCII).

_La Primera Crónica General_ (edition of Ramón Menéndez Pidal in Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, vol. 5, 1906) is an account of the history of Spain from the time of Moses to the death of Fernando III, el Santo. This, says Sr. Pidal in his _Estudios Literarios_ (p. 208 ff.), is the first chronicle written in Spain which considers the Spaniards as a Roman instead of a Gothic people. Being guided by the results of his research, the latest and most authoritative on the subject, I have included in this study only the first part of the _Crónica_, i. e., chapters 1-566, as the remaining part is probably the work of Alfonso’s successor.

_La General Estoria_ is still unedited. It is a work of five parts, each of which is in size equal to the _Primera Crónica General_. It purports to be a history of the world from the creation to the time of Alfonso and is based primarily on the Bible, altho other authorities, both sacred and profane, are freely drawn upon. For this study I have been able to consult only those extracts that appear in the _Antología_ of Sr. Antonio G. Solalinde.

_El Lapidario_ treats of 360 stones, dividing them into twelve groups describes their appearance and the country or locality in which they are found, bringing in in this way interesting comments on manners and customs, scraps of folk-lore, etc., as well as discussing the medicinal and supernatural properties of the various stones introduced. The edition used was that of José T. Montaña, Antonio Selfa, and Hippólito Rodrigáñez, Madrid, 1881.

_El Libro de Ajedrez._ A two volume photographic edition of this work was brought out in Leipzig in 1913 by J. G. White under the title of _A Spanish Treatise of Chess written by the order of King Alfonso, the Sage, in 1283_. It is a careful discussion of the game and description of the various moves. As well as chess, the games of dice and backgammon are included.

In this study have been included only those works which may, without reasonable doubt, be considered to be the productions of Alfonso el Sabio or works in whose composition he took part in the manner indicated below. Those which may have been more or less plausibly attributed to him but whose authorship still remains in doubt, have been purposely omitted. Of these latter the most important is _Calila y Dimna_, which many still maintain was translated by the order of Alfonso.[16] But even if this be correct the book is a purely allegorical one, entirely foreign to the spirit and manner of Spain, and can in no way aid us in understanding the superstitions and religious beliefs of the Spanish nation.

While it is true that Alfonso did not with his own hands write out the works included in our study, nevertheless the compilers themselves bear witness to the fact that he did carefully edit them, scrutinizing the contents, eliminating the non-essential and perfecting the language. In the _General Estoria_ is found this significant statement:

“Assi como dixiemos nos muchas uezes: el rey face un libro, non por
quel el escriua con sus manos, mas porque compone las razones del,
e las enmienda et yegua e enderesça, e muestra la manera de cómo se
deuen fazer, e desi escriue las qui él manda, pero dezimos por esta
razon que el rey faze el libro”.[17]

Small wonder then that the king realized the value of quietude and specified as one of the essentials for the making of good laws that

“Otrosi deben guardar que quando las fecieren no haya ni ruido nin
otra cosa que les estorbe, et que lo fagan con consejo de homes
entendidos et sabidores, et leales et sin codicia.”[18]