While Seville, deep in the south, offered Alfonso a site to promote
his role as patron of science and ruler of Muslims and Jews, and
Burgos, far to the north, offered him the legitimation of his ancestry,
Toledo, at the very heart of the peninsula, offered him its symbolic
value as the ancient seat of Visigothic kings who had claimed as
their inheritance Roman imperial authority and who had ruled all
of Iberia as well as parts of northern Africa. In the thirteenth
century people called Toledo the caput hispaniae, the imperial city.
Toledo was also important for Iberia's Christians, since they considered
it the principal city as well of Visigothic Christianity. In the
thirteenth century, the archbishops of Toledo claimed authority
over all the other bishops of the peninsula. Alfonso was well aware
of Toledo's symbolic value and repeatedly made good use of it. Even
though he had himself acclaimed king by those gathered for his father's
funeral in Seville, he waited until he could call a great court
(cortes) in Toledo before he crowned himself. Alfonso worked hard
throughout his reign to remind everyone that he claimed the authority
of the ancient kings of Toledo and hegemony over all the peninsula.
With an eye
to creating a future of a peninsular empire Alfonso turned to the
discipline of history to order its past. Already his grandmother,
Queen Berenguela (d.1249), had encouraged Bishop Lucas of Túy
to compile a history of the world (his Chronicon mundi). And his
father supported Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada of Toledo
to write a history of the peninsula (De rebus hispaniae) from the
beginning to 1237 (the fall of Córdoba). Following in the
tradition set by his grandmother and father, Alfonso ordered scholars
to compose new histories of the world and Spain. These collaborators
set new standards for historiography with their creations. They
used as many sources as possible, including poetic ones such as
the cantares de gesta and Arabic sources. They used both the histories
just mentioned and works by Suetonius, Eusebius, Orosius, Isidore
of Seville, Vincent of Beauvais and Sigebert of Gembloux. The king,
however, eschewed the international scholarly language of Latin
for these works in order to make them especially comprehensible
by a large local audience. He ordered that the new histories be
written in Castilian so that whenever anyone who could read would
read them aloud all Castilian speakers could understand. The first
work was the Estoria de Espanna, a great two volume work setting
out like the earlier one of Archbishop Jiménez de Rada to
tell the entire tale of the peninsula. The first volume covered
the first Greek settlers to the Arab-led Berber invasions of the
eighth century. Tellingly, the second volume took up the tale with
Alfonso's ancestor, Pelayo first king of Asturias. Even in this
brief summary we can see part of the work's interpretation. Alfonso's
historians had a message for their Castilian-speaking confreres:
the Visigoths were the heirs of Roman imperial rule, and Pelayo
was their heir, now Alfonso was his. Perhaps King Alfonso ought
to be emperor of all Spain. The other work the king and his collaborators
undertook was much less political in that it was a history of the
world. Alfonso's historians never finished their General historia,
they complete only six volumes, each of which was as long as the
entire Estoria de Espanna, and all of which only covered history
up until the time of Jesus of Nazareth.
One of the
principal duties of a king was to render justice for people, a duty
which Alfonso took very seriously indeed. At the great court of
1254 in Toledo, he promulgated a uniform code of law, the Espéculo,
the prologue of which expressed the legal opinion that although
emperors and kings were not above the law, they (and only they)
had the right to make new laws if they based them on reason, history
and the law itself. The Espéculo itself was based upon ancient
Roman law. Most likely that same year from Toledo, Alfonso promulgated
a uniform municipal code to the cities of Castile and Extremadura,
the Fuero real. After his contested election as king of the Romans,
he ordered his legists to work on a fuller exposition of the law,
the Siete partidas or the Libro del fuero de las leyes which they
completed in 1265. Alfonso never succeeded in defending his election
and becoming Holy Roman Emperor, and the Siete partidas never became
the law of any land during his lifetime.
Another important
role for a king was the defense and promulgation of Christianity.
Alfonso took this aspect of his position every bit as seriously
as the others. The first section of the Partidas, for example, is
full of legislation covering priests and other ministers of the
church. Alfonso saw his regulation of sacerdotal life as part of
his duty as king. He also believed that it was his duty to punish
anyone who deviated from the basic doctrines of the Christian Church.
At the opening of the Espéculo (1,2,3) he enumerated the
essential doctrines to which all of his Christian subjects must
adhere. He also included doctrinal sections in the Fuero real (1,1)
and the Siete partidas (1,3-24). Anyone who deviated from these
legal definitions of correct Christianity would be punished by the
king's justice as a heretic. Anyone who converted from Christianity
to either Judaism or Islam would be similarly branded. Such zealous
defense of Christianity, though, could get kings like Alfonso in
trouble with other Christian leaders, particularly the bishops and
most particularly the bishop of Rome. Normally heresy and anything
to do with the clergy were problems tried in episcopal courts. Many
bishops did not appreciate what they saw as royal usurpation of
their rights and responsibilities. Royal justice was normally much
harsher than ecclesiastical. For example, ecclesiastical courts
could never condemn anyone to death. The royal punishment for heresy
was death by burning.
Alfonso was
tireless in promoting Christian devotions, doctrines, and practices
of which he approved, especially the veneration of the Virgin Mary.
From the earliest days of the movement, Christians venerated spiritual
heroes. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Latin Christians
developed a particularly powerful devotion to Mary the mother of
Jesus. As befitted his understanding of kingship, Alfonso was conspicuous
in his devotion to the Virgin Mother. In contrast, he appears to
have had little interest in St. James, another member of Jesus'
family and the traditional patron of Asturias and its royal family.
One of the greatest cultural achievements of Alfonso's court was
the creation of a sumptuously illustrated book of songs praising
the Virgin Mary and recounting the many miracles she had performed
throughout the realm: The Cantigas
de Santa María. In compiling these songs, Alfonso did
not entirely forget the cultural heritage of Asturias. Unlike with
his laws which he promulgated in Castilian, or his scientific texts
which were in Castilian or Latin, Alfonso chose Galician, the language
of the northwest, for these exquisite songs.
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