ALFONSO X’S RHETORIC OF HUMANIST EDUCATION:

I. Introduction: The Wise King and Court Scholarship

The Prologues to the various scientific works sponsored and edited by Alfonso X (from 1256 to 1278) represent exemplary rather than factual statements on the political, cultural, and ethical models that underlie the Wise King’s experiment in enlightened rule.¹ This study examines, from the point of view of cultural historicism, the prologues to the Libro de las cruzes, Ochava esfera, and Lapidario as programatic texts of royal policy:² they are not to be interpreted here as historical or biographical documents, but as discourses of authority that are encoded by a certain ideology and enunciated with a particular rhetoric. These prolegomena constitute extraliterary texts that refer to biblical, classical, clerical, and courtly codes of knowledge, wisdom, and service; they unfold as ideological and iconological expressions of the concepts of auctoritas, translatio, and utilitas, the meanings of which are mediated by the Wise King and his sage scholars with respect to their model of government.³ In effect they ask: What is the proper relation of an enlightened Christian monarch to the non-Christian world of learning of past and present? And what is the optimum role of the royal patron with respect to Jewish and Muslim experts in science? The famous, but misnamed and misrepresented “schools of translators,”that assisted the King in his cultural projects at three major locations in Toledo, Sevilla, and Murcia, offer the contextual key with which to decode the rhetoric of humanist education that characterizes the framework of the Alfonsine books.⁴ These prologues can be read collectively, not only as the preface to what in effect constitutes a national encyclopedia in the vernacular, but also as the foundation for a royal state technocracy and as the rationale for a privileged and secularized group of court professionals.⁵

When Alfonso X of Castile began his illustrious and eventful reign (1252-84), he had already earned a reputation as a wise prince through his patronage of learning at the courts of Toledo and Sevilla.⁶ His accession to power upon the death of his father, the sainted reconqueror of Andalucía Fernando III, represented, in terms of the rhetoric and ideology of cultural history, three important ways in which to interpret wisdom in royal contexts: (1) It provided an opportunity to apply the biblical ideals of sagacity and prudence to the government of a bicultural, plurilingual, and multidenominational kingdom. (2) It permitted the extension of a courtly code of discretion and service to a mixed society of crusaders and conquered. And (3) it gave rise to a grand humanist project of erudition and technocracy designed to restore to Hispania what were perceived as the ages of enlightenment of Rome and al-Andalus. The Alfonsine Court, along with that of Jaume I of Aragón (1213-76), constituted, at least on the level of official policy and royal propaganda, the most significant attempt to establish the universal rule of reason and law to be undertaken in the history of medieval Spain until the reign of the Catholic Monarchs Fernando and Isabel (1476-1516).⁷

Alfonso’s praise of wisdom in the scientific prologues embraces a variety of forms, but through them all he conveys the same message of the quest for the best and most complete knowledge to place in the service of the kingdom in order to effect the greatest good. The image of the Wise King is to be reflected in the mirror of an ordered and just state of creation by the light of revealed grace and disciplined scholarship. This is expressed in the prologue to the Libro de las Cruzes in the familiar scholastic terms of the hierarchy of rational creation:

En quanto el ángel es más alto et más noble que el homne, por su grand entendimiento et por su grand saber que Dyos li dyo, assí el ombre, en qui Dyos quiso posar seso et entendimiento, es más alto et más noble entre todos los homnes. Onde nostro sennor, el muy noble rey don Alfonso, rey d’Espanna, fyio del muy noble rey don Ferrando et de la muy noble reyna dona Beatriz, en qui Dyos puso seso, et entendimiento et saber sobre todos los príncipes de su tyempo, leyendo por diuersos libros de sabios, por alumbramyento que ouo de la gracia de Dyos de quien uienen todos los bienes, siempre se esforçó de alumbrar et de abiuar los saberes que eran perdidos al tyempo que Dyos lo mandó regnar en la tierra (LC prol: 1).⁸

For Alfonso, the humanist mission of restoring and extending book learning thus serves to contextualize two issues of kingship: in terms of scholastic theology, it posits the superiority of human beings to the rest of creation, and of monarchs to the rest of humanity, by virtue of their ratio as divine image and commission to rule the earth; in relation to political strategy, it offers the possiblity of religious legitimacy for the royal program of a national vernacular culture based on translated books of secular scientia. These books should unite all the subjects of Castile, who belong to one of the three monotheistic “religions of the book,” not through the official Latin of Church institutions as interpreted by clergy/clerks, but rather through a common language of reason, ethics, and utility as embodied in royal programs and “translated” by lay or laicized Court experts.

Respect for the King’s authority, as reader, interpreter, and transmitter of knowledge, is here linked both to moral wisdom and to secular sapience. The key phrase above is “el ombre, en qui Dyos quiso posar seso et entendimiento, es más alto et más noble entre todos los homnes.” In the given passage, this image (Solomonic and Platonic) of an intellectual aristocracy recognizes at the same time the spiritual source of reason, the privileged community of the learned, and the humanist tradition of striving for more perfect enlightenment. The translation of classical and Oriental culture thus entails a transformation of the Court. By restoring book learning and supporting secular scholars, Alfonso hopes to reform the royal administration so as to bring about a national renaissance. In this cultural program he also hopes to further his own imperial policy, as the would-be emperor of a reunited Hispania and as pretender to the title of Holy Roman Emperor.⁹ As Wise King or Emperor, he pursues the intellectual reconquest of Roman and Arab traditions so as to create a stronger kingdom, a nobler rule, a truer science, and a better nation: for him, wisdom thus signifies the proper exercise of power, virtue, knowledge, and justice by a literate and humane Court on behalf of all the people.

II. The Alfonsine Translators: Courtly Service vs. Clerical Mission

The scholars at the Alfonsine court, known to modern historians as the school of translators of Toledo, represent a cultural phenomenon that is both representative of the thirteenth-century European renaissance in the vernacular languages and characteristic of the Iberian tradition of coexistence with Oriental civilization.¹⁰ Royal centers of translation from Arabic and Hebrew flourished in Toledo and Palermo since the eleventh century, but it is in the thirteenth century that they spread and grow in importance under the enlightened rule of the kings of Castile (at Toledo, Sevilla, and Murcia), Aragón (at Barcelona and Montpellier), and Sicily (at Palermo).¹¹ This renewed scholarly activity responds to five historical factors that in the case of Castile and Aragón are closely related: the extension of the Reconquest, growth of the royal state, reform of the Church, rise of the universities, and promotion of the missions.¹² The educational consequences of these factors embrace various models of learning, codes of authority, and contexts of culture, but they all combine the mediation between a state of knowledge to be restored and a condition of society to be reformed in the process.

For Church and Court alike, education is to serve as an instrument of conversion and restoration, whether from one faith or from one culture to another, in a dynamic process of discovery, interaction, understanding, imitation, and perfection that unfolds as a hermeneutics of providential history. In the clerical renewal of education, the pope (Innocent III and his successors), ecumenical councils (Lateran IV to Vienne), new orders of missionary preachers (Franciscans and Dominicans), and pious lay groups (beghards and beguines) all attempt to return to the faith of the Gospels, imitate the zeal of the Apostles, and continue the learning of the Fathers. In the courtly advancement of scholarship, the king (Fernando III, Alfonso X, and Sancho IV of Castile, Jaume I of Aragón, and Frederick II of Sicily), royal counselors and scholars, new professional estates, and urban intellectual centers (mentioned above) all undertake to restore the knowledge of classical sages, assimilate the science of Arab specialists, and create a synthesis of the medieval traditions from East and West. Although the two groups of reformers and programs of education often overlap, given the fluid condition of the literate classes of clergy and clerks in Christian society, the objectives of ecclesiastic and courtly scholars do differ, at least on the level of rhetoric and ideology, in three fundamental ways: the spiritual ideal is transformed into an aristocratic order, the social apostolate is replaced by a political pragmatism, and the didactic mission to unconverted peoples is developed as a cultural crusade to as yet unassimilated groups in the nation.

What is striking about those passages in the prologues that refer to the collaboration of individual Christian, Muslim, and Jewish scholars at the Alfonsine court is the way in which these intellectuals have been assimilated: they identify their professional standing with the royal administration and link the cause of learning to a secular humanist tradition. In the prologues to the Ochava esfera and Libro de las cruzes, the figures of the clérigo and alfaquín (Islamic jurist) stand on an equal footing as scholars who are experts in their field and officials at the Court:

Este es el libro . . . que mandó trasladar de caldeo e de arábigo en lenguage castellano el rey D. Alfonso, . . . ; et trasladólo por su mandado Yhuda el Coheneso, su alfaquín [here a Jewish expert in Arab law], et Guillén Aremón d’Aspa, so clérigo (OE prol: I, 7).

Mandólo trasladar de aráuigo en lenguage castellano, et trasladólo Hyuhda fy de Mossé al Choen Mosca, su alfaquim et su merçed; et . . . mandólo capitular. . . . et esto fízolo maestre Johan a su seruitio (LC prol: 1).

These scholars emerge as distinct personalities that collaborate in a common enterprise in which each skill and practice is appreciated on its merits. That the cultural policy of the Wise King is thus shown to be accepted and executed with enthusiasm by specialists of different disciplines, languages, and faiths, underscores what should be its appropriateness to the diverse traditions of learning and conditions of patronage then in existence in Castilian-controlled areas of the Peninsula. Instead of employing scholars who are converts to Christianity (such as Ramón Martí) to engage in theological disputations with Jews or Muslims, as did occur at the courts of Louis IX of France and Jaume I of Aragón,¹³ Alfonso represents himself as a wise ruler who incorporates all those proven to be experts, regardless of their beliefs, into his important series of scientific projects. The official “reality” (as courtly ideal and imperial model) of this situation of royal tolerance and cultural collaboration can be seen in the special role played by Jewish scholars as mediators between Arabic and Latin knowledge: as the laws of the Siete partidas (Pt 7: Tít 24) indicate, the Jews of Castile were subject, as in the rest of Christian Europe, to religious proselytizing and social discrimination; all the more reason, then, to take note that for Alfonso X any Jew who is learned in languages or sciences can become a privileged member of his intellectual Court.¹⁴ For the Wise King of the prologues, scholarly merit in the service of the Court should depend on rational, professional, and utilitarian considerations that transcend issues of religious or cultural identity.

III. The Alfonsine Books: Cultural Translation and Professional Literacy

As son of the Conqueror of Andalucía, pretender to the title of Holy Roman Emperor, and aspirant to domination of the Iberian peninsula as the reunited and restored Roman Hispania,¹⁵ Alfonso X identifies his imperial policy with the renewal of classical book learning and the assimilation of Oriental science.¹⁶ Each book found, translated, and incorporated into his program of national culture can thus be said to represent an instrument of royalist power and a means of technocratic government. The traslatio imperii thus requires a triple translation of specialized knowledge: a linguistic equivalence to furnish basic information, a cultural interpretation to provide useful contexts, and a political application to further the ideology of court reform and empire-building. It is significant that Alfonso directs the forging of a vernacular, secularized literacy towards legislative, scientific, and historical programs that reinforce his chosen self-image of enlightened ruler of all the peoples of Hispania. His contemporaries, King Jaume I of Aragón and the Mallorcan Ramón Llull (who also writes in Arabic and Latin), each helps to create the Catalan language for the sake of presenting exemplary autobiographies as epic history (Llibre dels fets) and mystical confession (Llibre de contemplació and Blanquerna) respectively; Llull further undertakes, in the spirit of the Franciscans, to systematize and popularize theological preaching in the vernacular (as in Fèlix and Arbre de sciència).¹⁷ But neither attempts, as Alfonso and his scholars strive to do in Castilian, to develop a new secular synthesis that will embrace every branch of learning, draw together each cultural tradition, and serve to govern the whole population of a diverse realm.

The importance for the Alfonsine scholars of secular knowledge, vernacular language, and national culture as part of the royal image and of imperial policy explains the insistence on Alfonso’s own intervention as patron, editor, and arbiter. The assertion of cultural authority in questions of literacy, although proper to the courtly code of enlightened rulers in East and West, here seems tantamount to that of the pope in matters of doctrine; for it extends the concept of empire to the province of human language itself, in terms of official discourse as a normative form of thought and interpretation:

Después lo endreçó, et lo mandó componer este rey sobredicho, et tolló las razones que entendió eran sobejanas, et dobladas et que non eran en castellano drecho, et puso las otras que entendió que complían; et cuanto en el lenguage endreçoló él por sise (OE prol: I, 7).

The practical concerns of editing a manuscript for correct style (en castellano drecho) already contain the possibility of making decisions of content (tolló las razones que entendió eran sobejanas et dobladas), inasmuch as the rhetoric of knowledge as power and the phenomenon of translation as interpretation can and do determine the political order, social models, and cultural values mediated in scholarly or scientific works. Thus, for Alfonso, the technical and ideological implications of linguistic, literary, and cultural hermeneutics in the Court projects are in effect intertwined.

Professional standards and royal policy both underlie the central issue of literacy. The intelligent reading and writing of encyclopedic books, themselves based on traditions and translations from other cultures and periods, is explicitly advocated by Alfonso and his scholars. This cultural literacy involves the development of three types of scholarly capacities: specialized skills as both translator and practitioner of a given art or science; humanist ethics with which to evaluate and apply ancient knowledge for the benefit of contemporary society; and a critical historicism to distinguish the changing contexts of classical “authorities” as they are handed on to future scholars.

All three capacities are outlined in the prologue to the Lapidario. With regards to expertise, it lists all the disciplines required to understand and exploit the contents:

Este libro es muy noble et preciado. Et qui dél se quisiere aprouechar conuiene . . . que sea sabidor de astronomía . . . [e] que sepa connosçer las piedras . . . [e] que sea sabidor dela arte de física [medicina] . . . . Et que sea de bon seso por que se sepa ayudar delas cosas que fazen pro, et se guarde de las que tienen danno (Lap prol: 19).

This prologue also indicates a contextualization of the book’s knowledge in terms of human and divine “virtue,” which here implies both moral and physical power to be derived from the proper use of creation:

Et obrando desta guisa llegara a lo que quisier fazer por ellas, et uerá cosas marauillosas dela su uertut, que recibe de Dios, porque aurá a loar et bendezir el su nombre que sea benido por siempre iamás . . . (Lap prol: 19).

These references to the divine order are limited to a general theodocy, with equal appeal to any one of the three monotheistic religions. As is usual with the Alfonsine works, theological discussion as such is discreetly avoided (except where it affects social legislation) in favor of a theistic and humanist ethical discourse. Finally, with respect to historical traditions, the prologue refers to the various discoveries and utilizations of the book now in the reader’s hands; these have been made at different times and places by scholars able to read, interpret, and implement the original text or one of its translations in a critical relation to their contemporary science:

Quando Abolays falló este libro, fue con el muy liedo, ca touo que fallara en él lo que cobdiciara fallar deste saber delas piedras. Et desque ouo por él mucho leydo, et entendió lo que en él era, trasladólo de lenguaie caldeo en aráuigo. Et en su uida punnó de prouar aquellas cosas que en él iazíen, et fallólas ciertas et uerdaderas, ca él era sabidor dela arte de astronomía et dela natura de connoscer las piedras.

Et después que él murió ficó como perdudo este libro muy grand tiempo de guisa que los quel auíen nol entendíen bien, nin sabíen obrar dél assí commo conuiníe. Fasta que quiso Dios que uiniesse a manos del noble rey don Alfonso . . . (OE prol: 18).

The validity of the hermeneutics of cultural value is clearly seen to depend on a combination of expertise, critique, and utility. As long as the meaning of the text and contextualization of its knowledge is being questioned and tested, the book’s traditional authority as living subject can mediate power for its reader. Once it loses its dialectic function for intelligent readers and becomes the mere possession of illiterate or uncritical collectors, it is transformed into a dead object as a totem or curiosity for antiquarians. But here, as a fitting climax to the book’s long history, the manuscript is finally found, retranslated into a vernacular tongue (as Arabic, into which Greek works of learning were translated, once was for all of Spain), restored to the scholarly world, and reapplied to new contexts by the enlightened Alfonsine court, which thereby represents itself as a humanist institution and legitimizes its claims to a secular (millennial and lay) cultural authority with real, actualized power.

Of great concern to Alfonso X and his scholars when they discuss cultural literacy in the prologues is the issue of civilizations that act as receivers and transmitters of knowledge. What is at issue is the concept of collaboration, not only within the court, but also with the very process of evolution in scholarship through the history of culture. In microcritical terms, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Diego Catalán, and Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal have already studied at length the question of authorship and the methods of collaboration on texts in the Wise King’s circles of translators/scholars.¹⁸ Their conclusions point to the models of classical Hispano-Arabic or Renaissance humanist scientific circles, in which specialists come together to work on a project supervised and funded by the court or government; independent scholarship and state bureaucracy interact in a way that characterizes centers of national research in pre-or post-clerical ages. What remains to be done, in macrocritical terms, is to examine the manner in which Alfonso X and his scholars approach the Greco-Romano-Arabic intellectual continuum in Hispania and al-Andalus: for what still needs to be evaluated is the context of their program of translating, interpreting, and thereby collaborating with the classical authors as cultural authorities. What merits further discussion, then, is the very process of incorporating the Castilian component into the dynamic tradition of multicultural hermeneutics that constitutes the core of humanist discourse. Francisco Rico has made a significant contribution to the analysis, in terms of intellectual and cultural history, of Alfonso’s astrological/astronomical works as receivers of classical and Oriental models of microcosms and of the General Estoria as mediator of ancient and modern codes of historiography.¹⁹ Likewise, Francisco Márquez Villanueva has investigated the problematic identity of the mudéjar (culturally Arabized) intellectual life of Fernando III, Alfonso X, and Sancho IV’s expanded Crown of Castile during the major phase of the Reconquest of Iberia.²⁰ But a detailed study of what constitutes the humanist rhetoric and hermeneutics of the prologues and editorial interventions in the Alfonsine histories (Estoria de Espanna and General Estoria), laws (Espéculo, Siete partidas, and Setenario), and scientific works (Lapidario and the various Libros del saber de astronomía), which I have already begun on a modest scale,²¹ is still urgently required. Such a study should aim to interpret the national program of cultural restoration and reeducation as a totality, or vernacular summa, that evolves within the contexts of the royal reforms and imperial projects of Alfonso X’s multicultural and plurilingual Court of Castile.

IV. Conclusion: Alfonso’s Court Reform and the Thirteenth-Century Renaissance

The prologues to the scientific works of the Alfonsine “translators” or scholars represent an attempt to translate the humanist rhetoric of education, inherited from the classical and Oriental past, into the courtly discourse of wise government in relation to the present reforms of the Castilian kingdom and its subject territories. According to a hermeneutics of power and service, they interpret knowledge as authority that ratifies royal action. Alfonso X’s auctoritas as Wise King depends upon his reading of cultural history, mediation of court scholarship, and writing of a vernacular encyclopedia. His aim is to extend a common secular literacy to all professionals, as well as throughout a diverse population in which the real, comprehensive power of the Book (whether the Torah, Bible, or Qur‘an) is venerated.

As translator of the great tradition of knowledge, Alfonso engages in a complex process of reception, through which he collaborates with present and past scholars in order to collect, restore, interpret, apply, and transmit the wisdom of all peoples, lands, ages, and tongues. For him, wisdom is both an exercise in understanding (intellectual and cultural) and a program of action (political and ethical). The essential books of human science, whether “authored” by others or by his own court, demand critical, responsible, and utilitarian treatment, within a hierarchical model of rational order and of enlightened government, on the part of professional élites (in effect, an intellectual aristocracy), who serve at the same time as specialists in their fields of knowledge and as popular educators in the vernacular to the literate ruling classes of nobles, clergy, officials, and burghers.

This humanist concern becomes clear in a reference, contained in the prologue to the Lapidario, to the dynamic role Alfonso X played in reintroducing supposedly lost works into the cultural mainstream of his kingdom:

Ouo [el libro el rey Alfonso] en Toledo, de un iudío quel teníe ascondido, que se non queríe aprouechar dél, nin que a otro touiesse pro. Et de que este libro touo en su poder, fízolo leer a otro su judío, que era su físico e dezíenle Yhuda Mosca el Menor, que era mucho entendudo en la arte de astronomía et sabíe et entendíe bien el aráuigo et el latín.

Et de que por este judío, su físico, ouo entendido el bien et la grand pro que en él iazíe, mandógelo trasladar [el rey Alfonso] de aráuigo en lenguaie castellano por que los omnes lo entendiessen meior et se sopiessen dél más aprouechar.

Et ayudól en este trasladamiento Garci Pérez, un su clérigo que era otrossí mucho entendudo en este saber de astronomía (Lap prol: 19).

An appreciation for the scholarship of Arabs and Jews, as well as a practical grasp of the importance to contemporary science of the book in question, thus characterizes Alfonso’s enlightened patronage of learning. At the same time, he is sensitive to the moral issue of the open community of wisdom and communality of science to be maintained for the greater good of present and future generations of scholars, rulers, and subjects.

As Wise King, Alfonso X sees himself as a new Solomon who is answerable to God for the welfare of the whole of his diverse realm. He is in effect the guardian of all the revelations of divine reason to be found expressed in earthly tongues. This is communicated in the prologue to the Ochava esfera in a language reminiscent of biblical wisdom:

Nós, el rey Alfonso sobredicho, cobdiciando que las grandes vertudes et maravillosas que Dios puso en las cosas que El fizo, que fuesen conoscidas et sabudas de los homes entendudos de manera que se podiesen ayudar dellas, porque Dios fuese dellos loado, amado et temido. Et catando todas estas razones mandamos trasladar et componer este libro . . . (OE prol: I, 8).

Alfonso’s official image of royal and imperial enlightenment can be seen ultimately to rest on a humanist rhetoric based on the Greco-Romano-Arabic cultural tradition, as understood in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim hermeneutics of the written Word of God as providential revelation and transaction. The Alfonsine scholars thus emerge as mediators, interpreters, and executors of the legacy of humane knowledge held in common by all the “peoples of the book” in the culturally heterogeneous territories ruled by the thirteenth-century kingdom of Castile.

¹On the importance of the Alfonsine prologues see Anthony J. Cárdenas, “Alfonso’s Scriptorium and Chancery: The Role of the Prologue in Binding the Translatio Studii to the Translatio Potestatis,” Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and his Thirteenth-Century Renaissance, ed. R. I. Burns (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1990): 90-108, and “The Literary Prologue of Alfonso X: A Nexus between Chancery and Scriptorium,” Thought, 60, 239 (1985): 456-67.

²The hermeneutics of discourses of authority in Alfonso X can benefit from the critical methods offered by the new cultural historicism, as represented by the scholars included in Lynn Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural History (Berkeley: U of California P, 1989); it is to be distinguished from traditional cultural or intellectual history. The distinction can be appreciated in two works by Francisco Rico: one, Alfonso el Sabio y la “General estoria” (Barcelona: Ariel, 1984), approaches cultural historicism in its analysis of historiography as ideology; the other, El pequeño mundo del hombre: Varia fortuna de una idea en las letras españolas (Madrid: Castalia, 1986; 2nd rev. ed.) [59-80 and 308-12 on Alfonso X] traces the history of an idea in literary culture.

Unfortunately, new cultural historians have not as yet contributed many critical studies on medieval Castilian texts. Recent publications in comparative history and literature related to this field offer general (and sometimes direct) applications useful to Hispanic medievalists. See, for example, Kevin Brownlee and Stephen G. Nichols (eds.), Images of Power: Medieval History/Discourse/Literature, Yale French Studies 70 (1986); Kevin Brownlee and Walter Stephens (eds.), Discourses of Authority in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College/UP of New England, 1989): 203-15 by James F. Burke on Ruiz and Juan Manuel; Patrick J. Gallacher and Helen Damico (eds.), Hermeneutics and Medieval Culture (Albany: SUNY Press, 1986): 71-84 by Jean Leclercq on the Cid; and Alexander Murray, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978).

On general questions of medieval authorship, literacy, and tradition, see Alastair J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1988); and James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from St. Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley: U of California P, 1974).

³On the realtion of politics to culture in the Alfonsine works, see Carlos Alvar, “Poesía y política en la corte alfonsí” Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 410 (agosto 1984): 5-20; Gregory Peter Andrachuk, “Alfonso el Sabio, Courtier and Legislator,” Revista Candiense de Estudios Hispánicos 9, 3 (primavera 1985): 439-50; Leonard Bloom, The Emergence of an Intellectual and Social Ideal as Expressed in Selected Writings of Alfonso X and Don Juan Manuel (Ph.D. diss. Univ. of Pittsburgh 1967); Donald Lester Brehm, Monarchy in the Political Thought of Alfonso X, el Sabio of Castile, 1252-1284 (Ph.D diss. St. Louis Univ. 1968); Robert I. Burns, “Castle of Intellect, Castle of Force,” in his ed. of The Worlds of Alfonso the Learned and James the Conqueror: Intellect and Force in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1985): 3-22, and “Stupor Mundi, Alfonso X of Castile, the Learned,” Emperor of Culture, 1-13; Francesco C. Cesareo, “The Centrality of the King in the Thought of Alfonso X of León-Castile,” in J. T. Rosenthal (ed.), Kings and Kingship [ACTA 11] (Binghamton: SUNY: Center for Medieval and Early-Renaissance Studies, 1986): 121-31; Robert Alan MacDonald, Kingship in Medieval Spain: Alfonso X of Castile (PhD diss. Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison 1958); and Joseph F. O’Callaghan, “Image and Reality: The King Creates His Kingdom,” Emperor of Culture, 14-32. Cf. Donald C. Buck, “Alfonso X as Role Model for the Eighteenth-Century Ilustrados,” Thought 33, 3 (Aug. 1986): 263-68. For the general contexts of cultural politics in the Middle Ages, see Alexander Murray, “Reason and Power,” Reason and Society, 110-37.

⁴On the exact nature and function of the Alfonsine translators and scholars, see Georg Bossong, “Las traducciones alfonsíes y el desarrollo de la prosa científica castellana,” Actas del Coloquio hispano-alemán Ramón Menéndez Pidal [Madrid, 31 de marzo a 2 de abril de 1978], eds. W. Hempel and D. Briesemeiste (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1982): 1-14; Mariano Brasa Díez, “Alfonso X el Sabio y los traductores españoles,” Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos 410 (agosto 1984): 21-33; Diego Catalán, “El taller histórico alfonsí: métodos y problemas en el trabajo compilatorio,” in Romania, 84 (1963): 354-75; Gonzalo Menéndez Pidal, “Cómo trabajaron las escuelas alfonsíes,” Revista de Filología Hispánica, 5 (1951): 363-80; Ramón Menéndez Pidal, “Estudio sobre la Primera crónica general,” the introduction to his ed. of the Primera crónica general (Madrid: Gredos, 1955; rev. ed.), I: xv-lvi; Luis Moux, “Alfonso X el Sabio y la Escuela de Traductores de Toledo,” Prismal/Cabral 6 (Spring 1981): 45-48; Evelyn S. Procter, “The Scientific Works of the Court of Alfonso X of Castile: The King and his Collaborators,” Modern Language Review, 40 (1945): 12-29; and David Romano, “Le opere scientifiche di Alfonso X e l’intervento degli ebrei,” Oriente e Occidente nel Medioevo: Filosofia e Scienze (Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Linzei, 1971): 677-711.

⁵On the emergence of a professional class of clerks and scholars in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see Mariateresa Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri, “The Intellectual,” Medieval Callings, ed. J. Le Goff, tr. L. G. Cochrane (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990): 181-209; Jacques Le Goff, Les intellectuels au Moyen Age (Paris: Seuil, 1985); José Antonio Maravall, “La concepción del saber en una sociedad tradicional,” and “Los ‘hombres de saber’ o letrados y la formación de su conciencia estamental,” Estudios de historia del pensamiento español, vol. 1: Edad Media (Madrid: Cultura Hispánica, 1983; 3rd ed.): 203-54 and 333-62; and Alexander Murray, Reason and Society, 213-314 (which includes “The University Ladder,” “The Intellectual Elite,” “The Assault on the Citadel: Theory,” and “. . . Practice”).

⁶On Alfonso X as a patron of learning, see Burns (ed.), Emperor of Culture; Javier Faci, Miguel A. Castillo, Julio Samsó, and Juan José Rey, Alfonso X el Sabio [four monographic essays on history, art, science, and music to accompany slides] (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1984); John E. Keller, Alfonso X, El Sabio (New York: Twayne, 1967); Francisco Márquez Villanueva, “The Alfonsine Cultural Concept,” Alfonso X of Castile the Learned King [Harvard Univ. Symposium, 17 November 1984], eds. F. Márquez Villanueva and C. Vega (Cambridge: Harvard Studies in Romance Languages, 1990): 76-109; Ramón Menéndez Pidal, “De Alfonso a los dos Juanes: Auge y culminación del didacticismo (1252-1370),” Studia hispanica in honorem R. Lapesa (Madrid: Gredos/Seminario Menéndez Pidal, 1972), I: 63-83; and Evelyn S. Procter, Alfonso X of Castile, Patron of Literature and Learning (Oxford: Clarendon, 1951).

⁷For the Iberian and European contexts of Alfonso X’s reign, see Burns (ed.), The Worlds of Alfonso the Learned and James the Conqueror; Jerry R. Craddock, “Dynasty in Dispute: Alfonso X el Sabio and the Succession to the Throne of Castile and León in History and Legend,” Viator, 17 (1986): 197-219; Jocelyn N. Hillgarth, “Ramon Lull and Alfonso X of Castile,” The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250-1516, vol. I: 1250-1410 Precarious Balance (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976): 215-21; Eugenio Montes, “Federico II de Sicilia y Alfonso X de Castilla,” Anejo a Revista de Estudios Políticos 10 (julio-agosto 1943): 1-31; Roberto Sabatino López, “Entre el Medioevo y el Renacimieno: Alfonso X y Federico II,” Revista de Occidente 43 [extraordinario 11] (diciembre 1984): 7-14; Cayetano J. Socarrás, Alfonso X of Castile: A Study on Imperialistic Frustration (Barcelona: Hispam, 1976); Julio Valdeón, “Alfonso el Sabio: Semblanza de su reinado,” Revista de Occidente 43 [extraordinario 11] (diciembre 1984): 15-28; and Wilhelm Freiherr von Schoen, Alfons X. von Kastilien: Ein ungekrönter deutscher König (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1957).

⁸Quotations from Alfonso X’s prologues are taken from these critical eds.: Lap=Lapidario, ed. S. Rodríguez M. Montalvo (Madrid: Gredos, 1981): LC=Libro de las cruzes, eds. L. A. Kasten and L. B. Kiddle (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1961); and OE=Ochava esfera, in Libros del saber de astronomía, vol. 1, ed. M. Rico Sinobás (Madrid: Eusebio Aguado, 1863-67; 5 vols.).

⁹On the political, cultural, and literary importance of the Empire (whether Hispano-Roman or Holy Roman) for Alfonso X and his Court, see Burns, “Castle of Intellect” and “Stupor Mundi;” Diego Catalán, “España en su historiografía: De objeto a sujeto de la historia,” introduction to Ramón Menéndez Pidal, Los españoles en la historia (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1982): 9-67; Carlos Estepa, “Alfonso X y el ‘fecho del Imperio’,” Revista de Occidente 43 [extraordinario 11] (diciembre 1984): 43-54; Charles F. Fraker, “Alfonso X, the Empire, and the Primera crónica,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 55 (1978): 95-102, and “The Fet des Romains and the Primera Crónica General,”Hispanic Review 46 (1978): 192-220; and Cayetano J. Socarrás, Alfonso X . . . Imperialistic Frustration and Alfonso X of Castile and the Idea of Empire (PhD diss. New York Univ. 1969). Cf. the title and theme of Angus Mackay’s historical survey, Spain in the Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire (London: Macmillan, 1977).

¹⁰For cultural histories that cover the medieval renaissance of the thirteenth century, see Frederick B. Artz, The Mind of the Middle Ages (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980; 2nd ed.); Le Goff, Les intellectuels au Moyen Age; Murray, Reason and Society; and Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform, 1250-1550 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1980).

On cultural relations between Christians, Jews, and Arabs in the Iberian peninsula, see Vicente Cantarino, Entre monjes y musulmanes: El conflicto que fue España (Madrid: Alhambra, 1978); Américo Castro, España en su historia: Cristianos, moros y judíos (Barcelona: Crítica, 1984); Anwar G. Chejne, Muslim Spain: Its History and Culture (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1974), and “The Role of al-Andalus in the Movement of Ideas Between Islam and the West,” Islam and the Medieval West, ed. K. Semaan (Albany: SUNY Press, 1980): 110-33; Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms; S. M. Imamuddin, Muslim Spain 711-1492: A Sociological Study (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981); Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975); and W. Montgomery Watt and Pierre Cachia, A History of Islamic Spain (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1965).

For the European contexts of these relations, see Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response (Berkeley: U of California P, 1989); Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Antisemitism (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1982); Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1966); Benjamin Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission: European Approaches toward the Muslims (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1982); María Rosa Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1987); R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1962); and W. Montgomery Watt, The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1972).

¹¹On the role and importance of translations from Arabic, see the studies by Castro, Chejne, N. Daniel, Kedar, Menocal, Procter, Southern, and Watt cited above. On cultural “translation” in medieval humanist scholarship, see Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. W. R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton UP/Bollingen, 1973); Le Goff, Les intellectuels; and L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974).

¹²On the thirteenth-century Reconquest, as well as on royal politics and administration in Castile and Aragón, see the general histories of medieval Spain by Hillgarth, Mackay, and O’Callaghan cited above.

On thirteenth-century Church reforms, see Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, vol. 3: From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1985); Ozment, The Age of Reform; and R. W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages [Pelican History of the Church 2] (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1970).

On the rise and development of universities, see Alan B. Cobban, Medieval Universities: Their Development and Organization (London: Methuen, 1975); Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1936; 3 vols); and David L. Wagner (ed.), The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1983).

On the missions in the thirteenth century, see Cohen, The Friars and the Jews; E. Randolph Daniel, The Franciscan Concept of Mission in the High Middle Ages (Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1975); Kedar, Crusade and Mission; and Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions [Pelican History of the Church 6] (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1984).

¹³On the disputations of Paris (1240) and Barcelona (1263), see Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, 62-74 and 108-27.

¹⁴See Dwayne E. Carpenter, Alfonso X and the Jews: An Edition of and Commentary on Siete Partidas 7.24, “De los judíos” [Univ. of California Publications in Modern Philology 115] (Berkeley: U of California P, 1986); “Jewish-Christian Social Relations in Alphonsine Spain: A Commentary on Book VII, Title xxiv, Law 8 of the Siete Partidas,” Florilegium Hispanicum: Medieval and Golden Age Studies Presented to Dorothy Clotelle Clarke, eds. J. S. Geary, C. B. Faulhaber, and D. Carpenter (Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1983): 61-70; “Minorities in Medieval Spain: The Legal Status of Jews and Muslims in the Siete partidas,” Romance Quarterly 33, 3 (Aug. 1986): 275-287, and “Tolerance and Intolerance: Alfonso X’s Attitude Towards the Synagogue as Reflected in the Siete Partidas,” Kentucky Romance Quarterly 31, 1 (1984): 31-39; Américo Castro, “Alfonso el Sabio y los judíos,” España en su historia, 454-64; Marjorie Ratcliffe, “Judíos y musulmanes en la jurisprudencia medieval española,” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 9, 3 (primavera 1985): 423-38; David Romano, “Los judíos y Alfonso X,” Revista de Occidente 43 [extraordinario 11] (diciembre 1984): 203-17, and “Le opere scientifiche di Alfonso X e l’intervento degli ebrei,” Oriente e Occidente nel Medioevo: Filosofia e Scienze (Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Linzei, 1971): 677-711; Norman Roth, “Jewish Collaborators in Alfonso’s Scientific Work,” Emperor of Culture, 59-71, and “Jewish Translators at the Court of Alfonso X,” Thought 60, 239 (Dec. 1985): 439-55; Larry J. Simon, “Jews in the Legal Corpus of Alfonso el Sabio,” Comitatus 18 (1987): 80-97; and Julio Valdeón Baruque, “Alfonso X y la convivencia cristiano-judío-islámica,” Estudios alfonsíes: Lexicografía, lírica, estética y política de Alfonso el Sabio, eds. J. Mondéjar and J. Montoya (Granada: Univ. de Granada/Facultad de Filosofía y Letras/Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación, 1985): 167-77.

¹⁵See José Antonio Maravall, “Del régimen feudal al régimen corporativo en el pensamiento de Alfonso X,” Estudios de historia del pensamiento español, 1: 97-145, especially 102-13 (“rey y emperador: la fórmula del rex imperator in regno suo”); and Socarrás, Alfonso X . . . Imperial Frustration.

¹⁶On Alfonso X’s interest in Greco-Arabic science, see Marcelino V. Amasuno, “En torno a las fuentes de la literatura científica del siglo XIII: Presencia del Lapidario de Aristóteles en el alfonsí,” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 9, 3 (Spring 1985): 301-28; Anthony J. Cárdenas, “A Survey of Scholarship on the Scientific Treatises of Alfonso X, el Sabio,” La Corónica 11, 2 (Spring 1983): 231-47; José Fradejas Lebrero, “Alfonso X, humanista,” La lengua y la literatura en tiempos de Alfonso X el Sabio (Murcia: Univ. de Murcia, 1984): 211-18; Ramón Menéndez Pidal, “De Alfonso a los dos Juanes;” Rafael Muñoz, “Los orígenes del Libro de las cruces, de Alfonso X el Sabio,” Revista de Filología [Univ. de La Laguna] 1 (1982): 153-174; and Juan Vernet Ginés, “Alfonso X y la astronomía árabe,” Estudios alfonsíes, 17-31. See also Daniel Eisenberg, “Alfonsine Prose: Ten Years of Research,” La Corónica 11, 2 (Spring 1983): 220-30; Colbert I. Nepaulsingh, “The Concept ‘Book’ and Early Spanish Literature,” Towards a History of Literary Composition in Medieval Spain (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1986): 201-17; and Dennis P. Seniff, “Introduction to Natural Law in Didactic, Scientific, and Legal Treatises in Medieval Iberia,” The Medieval Tradition of Natural Law, ed. H. J. Johnson (Kalamazoo: W. Michigan Univ./Medieval Inst. Pubs., 1987): 161-178.

¹⁷On Llull’s and Jaume I’s role in the development of the Catalan language and literature, see Martí de Riquer, Història de la literatura catalana (Barcelona: Ariel, 1964), 1: 197-352 and 394-429; Arthur Terry and Joaquim Rafael, Introducción a la lengua y la literatura catalanas (Barcelona: Ariel, 1977): 95-107 and 109-12; and David Viera, Medieval Catalan Literature: Prose and Drama (New York: Twayne, 1988): 4-24 and 33-40. For studies on vernacular preaching in relation to Llull’s narrative, see Wolfgang Schleicher, Ramon Lulls Libre de Evast e Blanquerna: Eine Untersuchung über den Einfluss der Franziskanisch-Dominikanischen Predigt auf die Prosawerke des Katalanischen Dichters (Genève: Librairie E. Droz, 1958); and my own Ph.D. dissertation, Predicación y narrativa en Ramón Llull: De imagen a semejanza en Blanquerna (Harvard Univ. 1990).

¹⁸R. Menéndez Pidal, “Estudio sobre la Primera crónica general;” Catalán, “El taller histórico alfonsí;” and G. Menéndez Pidal, “Cómo trabajaron las escuelas alfonsíes.”

¹⁹Rico, Alfonso el Sabio y la “General estoria.”

²⁰Márquez Villanueva, “The Alfonsine Cultural Concept.”

²¹As preliminary studies of the humanist cultural hermeneutics of Alfonso X’s works, I have developed the following unpublished essays: “Cultural Translation in Alfonso X’s Prologues: Wisdom as a Discourse of Power,” to be read at the AATSP Meeting, Chicago, in August 1991; “Alfonso X’s Ethics of Culture: Humanist Rhetoric of Legislation,” read at the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy seminar on “Democracy, Culture, and Values,” at the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 23 November 1990; “Alfonso X’s Model for Castilian Universities: Communities of Scholars in the Medieval Renaissance,” read at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Ohio State Univ., 24 February 1990; “Alfonso X’s Scientific Prologues as Didactic Codes: Contexts of National Education,” read at the Southeastern Medieval Association Conference at Meredith College, North Carolina, 28 September 1990; “Courtly Rhetoric as Political and Social Code in Alfonso X: The Prologues to the Espéculo and Siete Partidas,” read before the International Courtly Literature Society at the Medieval Institute, West Michigan Univ., 11 May 1990; “Heroic Vision in Thirteenth-Century Historiography: Courtly Code, Vernacular Medium, and National Reception [in Alfonso X, Jaume I, Joinville, and Compagni],” to be read at the International Comparative Literature Association Congress, Tokyo, 24-28 August 1991; and “Natural Law and Social Utopia in Alfonso X’s Siete partidas,” read at the Medieval Association of the Pacific Conference, Univ. of California at Davis, 2 March 1991. I hope to elaborate these studies into a book.