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. 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 Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures Abbreviations Introduction: ‘the king makes a book’ 1. Alfonso X, his Literary Patronage, and the Verdict of Historians 2. Alfonso in his Texts: literary models and royal authorship 3. Reality, Politics, and Precedent in Images of Alfonso 4. Codices Laid Out for a King : the appearance and production of Alfonsine manuscripts 5. The Circulation of Alfonsine Texts: astrological works and chronicles Concluding Remarks Manuscript Sources Index This book analyses text, image and manuscript layout to deepen our understanding of the different ways in which Alfonso is presented as a learned king in the manuscripts he commissioned, and reassesses the number of manuscripts copied for him.

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