Chronicle of Alfonso X

University of Kentucky UKnowledge European History History 2002 Chronicle of Alfonso X Shelby Thacker Jose Escobar Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Thacker, Shelby and Escobar, Jose, "Chronicle of Alfonso X" (2002). European History. 28. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_european_history/28 STUDIES IN ROMANCE LANGUAGES: 47 John E. Keller, Editor <&• d v-ey fev uxp {Si. % ttc finnu tttgtt aw i U»« fct Chronicle of Alfonso &aE Translated by Shelby Thacker and Jose Escobar With an Introduction by Joseph F. O'Callaghan Publication of this volume was made possible in part by grants from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports and United States Universities, Asbury College, the College of Charleston, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 2002 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 02 03 04 05 06 5 4 3 2 1 Frontispiece: Cantiga 192. "How St. Mary saved from death by drowning one of the King's men" Endpaper map and family tree from The Learned King: The Reign of Alfonso X of Castile, courtesy of Joseph F. O'Callaghan. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cronica de Alfonso X. English Chronicle of Alfonso X / translated by Shelby Thacker and Jose Escobar ; with an introduction by Joseph F. O'Callaghan. p. cm. — (Studies in Romance languages ; 47) Often attributed to Fernan Sanchez de Valladolid. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8131-2218-X (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Castile (Spain)—History—Alfonso X, 1252-1284. 2. Alfonso X, King of Castile and Leon, 1221-1284. I. Sanchez de Valladolid, Fernan, fl. 1325-1348? II. Thacker, Shelby, 1956- III. Escobar, Jose. W. O'Callaghan, Joseph F. V. Title. VI. Studies in Romance languages (Lexington, KY.); 47. DP140.3 .C76 2002 946'.03—dc21 2001007150 Contents Preface vii Acknowledgments x Introduction 1 Chronicle of Alfonso X 23 Selected Bibliography 260 Index 265 Preface For decades scholars, students, and the general educated public have relied upon the edition of the Cronica de Alfonso X prepared by Cayetano Rosell for the Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles (hereafter BAE) published in 1875. With minor corrections it was published again in 1953. We believe that Rosell chose for his edition the manuscript we know as Biblioteca Nacional 826 (hereafter BN 826) be- cause it was penned in such a clear manuscript hand. We know that thirty-four manuscripts are extant, but Rosell could not have realized there were so many. Today various scholars consider BN 826 to be defective, and this, of course, means that they regard Rosell's edition as defective. A great many of the defects in the edition are due to the requirements of the BAE, a series designed to enable readers to understand medieval texts. Therefore, Rosell altered orthography; for example, he changed auja {avid) to habia; he inserted accent marks not in existence in the fourteenth century; he failed to correct certain chronological and factual errors; he erroneously transcribed a few geographical names, as well as the proper names of some Moorish individuals; when BN 826 abbreviated some sequences, so did Rosell; and what critics regard as his worst defect is that he did not examine other manuscripts, even though he must have known that the archives of El Escorial contained at least two he could have seen. Rosell studied the earliest printed edition (1793) and corrected some of its errors. A complete list of defects in BN 826 was made known by Paula K. Rodgers in her doctoral viii Preface dissertation, Prolegomena to a Critical Edition of the Cronica de Alfonso X (University of California at Davis, 1983). We had expected a critical edition by her, but it has not yet appeared. The occurrence of so many defects was troubling to Jose Escobar and Shelby Thacker when they planned their translation. Since they are not specialists in the transcription of medieval manuscripts, they believed that their best source for a translation was Rosell's edition. Of course, they were cognizant of the edition of BN 826 prepared by Nancy Joe Dyer for the Madison Texts transcribed in the format of that series. Since she edited BN 826, she also must have included the various defects. Thacker and Escobar saw the problem of the defects solved when Joseph F. O'Callaghan wrote his scholarly introduction to their translation, together with nearly two hundred detailed notes. Manuel Gonzalez Jimenez, in the introduction to his forthcoming edition, which I believe we may regard as definitive, parallels much of the thinking and corrections of O'Callaghan. Readers of the Chronicle of Alfonso X, with the explanations and corrections of O'Callaghan along with his copious notes, can now read in English much of what can be learned about the reign of the Learned King. The serious errors and defects of Part I have been resolved, as have the much fewer and less serious mistakes in the latter parts of the Cronica. Alfonso's last fifteen years were fraught with terrible problems: the revolt of the nobles, the incursions of the Benimerines Moors, the critical problems of the royal succession, and the attempts to take the royal power away from the maddened and dying monarch. In my opinion, the author of the Cronica—believed by most scholars to be Fernan Sanchez de Valladolid, commissioned to write the history of the reign of Alfonso X, of Alfonso's son Sancho IV, and of Fernando IV—wrote what he had found in various docu- ments and from hearsay from people whose forebears had given them information about the reign of Alfonso X. He knew that Alfonso had gone mad, that he had committed some incredible atrocities, such as having his brother Fadrique strangled without a trial and Fadrique's friend (lover?) burned at the stake, also with no trial; and he related some of Sancho's savage deeds as he removed his own enemies. If he leaned toward favoring Sancho over Alfonso, I cannot detect indications in the Cronica. Preface ix In decades of experience in transcribing and translating medieval Spanish manuscripts, I have never encountered prose as turgid or cumbersome, convoluted syntax as difficult to follow, nor sentences that run as long as those of this author. Escobar and Thacker's work was onerous, and they are to be congratulated for translating the Cronica. Perhaps Sanchez's peculiar writing was due to his professions: he was counselor of King Alfonso XI, he was a legist, an ambassador, and a diplomat. Let us regard The Chronicle of Alfonso Xas the first, and probably the only, translation of the reign of Spain's most significant monarch, who was so vigorous in the pursuit of knowledge and culture. It is proper that the distinguished historiographer Robert I. Burns, S.J., called Alfonso X the Emperor of Culture. John Esten Keller Acknowledgments The translators would like to express their gratitude to Dr. John E. Keller for his encouragement and invaluable assistance through- out their work on the Chronicle of Alfonso X. Dr. Escobar expresses his gratitude to the Division of Languages at the College of Charles- ton and to its head, Dr. Rick Rickerson, for the financial support of this publication. Dr. Thacker wishes to thank the Provost of Asbury College, Dr. Raymond Whiteman, and the Faculty Development Committee for their generous financial support of the translation of this important medieval chronicle. Introduction The Reign of Alfonso X Chronicle of Alfonso X concerns one of the great monarchs of medieval Europe, namely, Alfonso X, King of Castile-Leon (1252-1284), known to history as El Sabio, the Wise, or the Learned.1 A brief sketch of the king's reign will help the reader to understand the Chronicle. Alfonso X ascended the throne at the age of thirty-one, just a few years after his father, Fernando III (1230-1252), had conquered the great cities of Andalusia: Cordoba (1236), Jaen (1246), and Seville (1248). Islamic Spain had been reduced to the kingdoms of Granada and Murcia, whose rulers acknowledged Fernando III as their overlord and paid an annual tribute to him as a sign of their dependence.2 Alfonso X's immediate tasks after his accession were twofold. First, he had to assure the Christian hold on the kingdom of Seville by the distribution of property there to those who had collabo- rated in the conquest. Partly on that account, he quarreled with his brother Infante Enrique, who went into exile in 1255, first en- tering the service of the emir of Tunis and later involving himself in the struggle between the Hohenstaufen and Angevin families in southern Italy. For a time, Enrique's brother Infante Fadrique joined him. King Alfonso's second task was to secure control of the ports on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, which had long enabled invaders from Morocco to enter the peninsula.

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