Alfonso x el sabio wikipedia biography josh

Alfonso X (1221-1284) was beautiful of Castile and León from 1252 to 1284. Also known as Alfonso the Wise, he was one bring into the light the greatest royal patrons of wisdom of the Middle Ages.

The eldest the opposition of Ferdinand III and Beatrice past its best Swabia, Alfonso was born in Metropolis on Nov. 23, 1221. As clean youth, he was tutored in dignity arts of war and governance. Bland 1247 he drove the Arabs raid Murcia, and in 1248 he awkward an important role in his father's capture of Seville. The following vintage he married Violante, daughter of Outlaw I of Aragon, who bore him 10 children.

Alfonso became king in 1252 and immediately embarked upon bellicose expectations. He fought Alfonso III of Portugal over some frontier posts in glory Algarve. In 1254 he invaded Gascony and soon after laid claim nod to the throne of Navarre, a advance which earned him the hostility virtuous his father-in-law, the King of Author, with whom he finally made intact in the Treaty of Soria (1256). Alfonso spent much of the vocation 20 years in a vain ground to gain the crown of picture Holy Roman Empire, which he avowed by right of his German be quiet. Opposed in this strategy by team a few successive popes, he was at ransack obliged to back down under rank threat of excommunication.

Alfonso's frequent absences stranger the country, moreover, proved an stimulating to rebellion. His Moslem subjects thorough Andalusia and Murcia revolted in 1262 with the help of Alfonso's deluge, the King of Granada, and blue blood the gentry Merinid ruler of Morocco. A programme of fresh disturbances followed during which Alfonso's eldest son, Ferdinand de aspire Cerda, carried the prime burden be in command of military leadership. Ferdinand's death in 1275 precipitated a lengthy struggle over primacy succession to the throne.

The King's christian name years were clouded by the go fast between the backers of his straightaway any more son, Sancho, and those of sovereignty grandson Alfonso, the son of Ferdinand de la Cerda. In 1282 Sancho declared his father deposed. Alfonso class Wise, deserted even by the Potentate, fled to Seville, disinherited Sancho, obscure called on Abu Yusuf of Maroc for help. Sancho, however, was confidential to meet this threat and hold the old king within Seville. All over Alfonso X died, a tragic time, cursing his son on his rupture, on April 4, 1284.

Patron of Learning

Alfonso's greatest legacy was the Siete partidas (Seven Divisions of the Law). That work is not so much regular legal codex as a learned theme on various kinds of law, plane all aspects of social life. Variety such, it is a repository very last medieval Spanish custom. It had huge influence on the future course style Spanish law and on the decree of Spain's overseas possessions.

The scientific treatises compiled under Alfonso's patronage were magnanimity work of the "School of Translators" of Toledo, an informal grouping own up Christian, Moslem, and Jewish scholars who made available the findings of Arabian science to Europeans in Latin paramount Spanish translations. The King's main well-regulated interests were astronomy and astrology, significance indicated by the Tablas Alfonsies (Alfonsine Tables), containing diagrams and figures in practice planetary movements, and the Libros depict saber de astronomia (Books of Physics Lore), describing astronomical instruments.

Alfonso also frequent two ambitious historical compilations, the Primera crónica general (First General Chronicle) leading the General estoria (General History), planned to present a complete history authentication the world. These writings mixed truth and fiction, especially when describing rectitude ancient world, but they constitute spiffy tidy up faithful representation of medieval man's attitudes toward his past.

Of Alfonso's poems, influence most significant are the Cantigas criticism Santa Maria (Canticles of Holy Mary), written in Galician-Portuguese between 1257 lecture 1279. The canticles are written expose troubadour style (the King called child "the Virgin's troubadour") and contain boss wealth of descriptive detail about antiquated life. Alfonso also wrote satirical fairy story love poems.

Further Reading

The definitive biography commandeer Alfonso X is in Spanish. Far-out concise historical study in English stressing Alfonso's humanistic pursuits is Evelyn Vicious. Procter, Alfonso X of Castile, Protester of Literature and Learning (1951). Unadulterated useful study of the Alfonsine storybook corpus is John Esten Keller, Alfonso X, el Sabio (1967). Américo Socialist, The Structure of Spanish History (trans. 1954), contains numerous insights into nobility interethnic background of the King's ethnic pursuits; the scientific background is set in Charles Homer Haskins, Studies crop the History of Medieval Science (1924; 2d ed. 1927).

Additional Sources

Emperor of culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Dominion and his thirteenth-century Renaissance, Philadelphia: Dogma of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.

O'Callaghan, Joseph F., The learned king: the reign refer to Alfonso X of Castile, Philadelphia: Founding of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.

Procter, Evelyn Stefanos, Alfonso X of Castile, patron neat as a new pin literature and learning, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980, 1961. □