Alfonso X of Castile-León: Royal Patronage, Self-Promotion and Manuscripts in Thirteenth-century Spain (Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West)

Alfonso X 'the Learned' of Castile (1252-1284) was praised in his lifetime as a king who devoted himself to discovering all worldly and divine knowledge. He commissioned chronicles and law codes and composed poems to the Virgin Mary, he gathered together Jewish scholars to translate works of Arab astrology and astronomy, and he founded a university of Latin and Arabic studies at Seville. Moreover, according to his nephew Juan Manuel, Alfonso was careful to ensure that 'he had leisure to look into things he wanted for himself'. The level of his personal involvement in this literary activity marks him out as an exceptional patron in any period. However, Alfonso's relationship with the arts also had much in common with that of other thirteenth-century European royal patrons, among them his first cousin, Louis IX of France. Like his contemporaries, he relentlessly used literary works as a vehicle to promote his royal status and advance his claim to the imperial crown. His motivation for the foundation of the university at Seville was arguably political rather than educational, and instead of promoting institutional learning during his reign, Alfonso preferred to direct the messages about his kingship in the lavish manuscripts he patronized to a restricted, courtly audience. Yet such was the interest of the works he commissioned, that those who could obtain copies did so, even if these were still incomplete drafts. Three codices traditionally held to have been copied for Alfonso in fact show how this learning reserved for the few began to filter out beyond the Learned King's immediate circle. Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 10 List of Figures 12 Abbreviations 14 Introduction: ‘the king makes a book’ 16 1. Alfonso X, his Literary Patronage, and the Verdict of Historians 46 2. Alfonso in his Texts: literary models and royal authorship 90 3. Reality, Politics, and Precedent in Images of Alfonso 112 4. Codices Laid Out for a King: the appearance and production of Alfonsine manuscripts 154 5. The Circulation of Alfonsine Texts: astrological works and chronicles 186 Concluding Remarks 216 Manuscript Sources 222 Index 226 List of Figures 12 Figure 1: Alfonso, wearing the livery of the royal Order of Santa María de la Estrella, with scribes, singers, and musicians. Cantigas, códice rico, Escorial MS T.I.1, fol. 5r. © Patrimonio Nacional 122 Figure 2: Type and anti-type: the early years of Nebuchadnezzar (below), whose life prefigures that of Alfonso (above). General estoria IV, BAV Urb. Lat. 539, fol. 2v. Reproduced by permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserve 128 Figure 3: A scribe writes out a treatise on games played with dice on the orders of Alfonso and supervised by his agent. Libro de los juegos (Libro de los dados), Escorial T.I.6, fol. 65r. © Patrimonio Nacional 133 Figure 4: Book rubric framed by a roundel and square at the start of the General estoria IV, BAV Urb. Lat. 539, fol. 1r. Reproduced by permission of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, with all rights reserved. ©2018 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana 155 Figure 5: Imperfect circles and untidy layout in the Libro delas cruzes, Madrid MS 9294, fol. 136v. ©Biblioteca Nacional de España 190 Figure 6: Marginal note citing the opinion of ‘the translators and the emendator’, with underdotting in the main text. Libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas, Madrid, MS 3065, fol. 142v. ©Biblioteca Nacional de España 200 Figure 7: Marginal note in a reader’s hand that refers to ‘the translators’. Libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas, Madrid, 3065, fol. 46r. ©Biblioteca Nacional de España 208 Figure 8: Rubric announcing book number and contents, framed in a roundel. General estoria I, Madrid MS 816, fol. 231v. ©Biblioteca Nacional de España 214 Today, the literary patronage of Alfonso X 'the Learned' of Castile (1252-1284) seems extraordinary for its time in the context of Europe. His cultural programme, which promoted his royal status and imperial ambitions, was hugely ambitious, and the paucity of information about the intellectual circumstances in which it took place magnifies the scope of Alfonso's achievements still further. This book argues that rather than providing a new cultural template for his kingdoms, Alfonso did little to promote institutional learning and preferred instead to direct the literary works he commissioned to a restricted, courtly audience who would understand the complex layers of symbolism in the representations of him that accompanied the texts. Despite this careful control, this book cites codicological and paleographical evidence to show that some codices traditionally ascribed to the royal scriptorium were copied at the behest of readers beyond the king's immediate circle