We have therefore (at the time the early Castillian literature began to appear) a nation from which the clergy had attempted to remove everything that could not be remodeled to conform to their interpretation of Christian Scriptures—an endeavor in which they had been signally successful. At this time, so far as the vernacular was concerned, there had been little influence from the outside world (since the time of the Gothic invasion) other than that which had been imported from Rome. But this isolation was not to last long. When the Christians reconquered the cities from the Moors they made a practice of killing the men but of enslaving the women and children.[10] These women as nurses naturally told the children in their care the stories of their people. In addition to this, Paschal II, Pope from 1099-1118, issued a bull declaring sacred the war in Spain against the Moors as well as that in the Holy Land. This gradually brought into Spain Christian knights from all Europe with their traditions. Likewise, in the earlier part of the 12th century a school of clerical writers appeared in Spain who sought to win the favor of the people thru making their versions of the traditions of the Church more attractive by mixing freely sacred history and profane. They sought inspiration in the Moorish and the Classic traditions; they confused the legends of the past by transferring to them the customs of their own day.[11] It was they who sought out the mysterious legends of the East common among the Moors who lived in the South, incorporating them into their sermons and poems and mingling them with the Christian mythology. All this prepared the way for the great efflorescence of the supernatural which began with Alfonso X and continued in full sway until the 17th century.
CHAPTER I
Alfonso el Sabio as King and Scholar
Alfonso X is one of those unfortunate men who have been—sometimes unconsciously but in many cases purposely—maligned in history. The Libro de las Querellas, (a 17th century work until recently attributed to Alfonso); the dictum of Mariana, “Dumque coelum considerat observatque astra, terram amisit”; and the popular verse from the romances “De tanto mirar al cielo se le cayó la corona” which inspired Marquina’s poem on that theme, all express the exaggerated and perverted idea which was generally prevalent concerning this monarch. Those who knew his works of science, especially of astronomy, were amazed at the wealth of knowledge displayed therein, and this, together with the fact that his last years were taken up with rebellions on the part not only of his vassals but even of his own sons, seem to have been enough to create the impression just mentioned.
Recent criticism has also brought to light the fact that the almost blasphemous quotation so long attributed to this king, “Si Dios me hubiera consultado, habría hecho el mundo de otra manera,” is not his at all, but rather was invented later in Catalonia by a certain king Pedro IV, or perhaps by his chronicler Bernat Descoll. Some have attributed it to Fernando IV.[12]
Altho these conceptions may contain some modicum of truth, they are only a part of the truth. Alfonso took an active part in the politics of his day and the surprising thing is that amid all the strife and trouble that surrounded him he found any time at all to give to literary production.
Alfonso was born on November 23, 1221, according to the findings of his biographer, the Marqués de Mondéjar[13] (whose deductions have been confirmed by documents discovered later) and was named for his grandfather Alfonso IX of Leon and his great-grandfather Alfonso VIII of Castile. Practically nothing is known of his early childhood except that he was associated with certain of the nobility, viz., García Fernández and Doña Mayor Arias of the province of Burgos. Of his early training nothing is known. He was probably reared in Toledo, his father’s capital, and as Sr. Solalinde suggests, much might be inferred from the rules for the training of princes given in the Siete Partidas, a collection of the laws of the time, provided the reader does not take these too literally. At the age of sixteen he began his career as a soldier under his father, Fernando III, el Santo, in the conquest of Andalucía. He himself added to his father’s crown the kingdom of Murcia and took an active part in the conquest of Sevilla in 1248. The next year he married Doña Violante of Aragón, daughter of Jaime el Conquistador, hoping in this way to effect an alliance between the two kingdoms, but it seems as tho Fate had decreed that from the very first his should be a life of disappointments and trouble. The frontier warfare between these two nations continued, growing even more sharp later when Alfonso aspired to the crown of Navarra. It was not until much later that the friendship of Alfonso and Don Jaime became firmly established.
Aside from his legal wife, whom he married by way of securing a political asset—a mode of procedure not unknown even in later times—he really loved a certain beautiful lady, Doña Mayor Guillén de Guzmán, who bore to him his daughter Doña Beatriz, later married by her father to Alfonso III of Portugal. The sepulcher and also the body of Doña Mayor in a remarkable state of preservation are still to be seen in Alcocer. One of the hands still wears the glove with which it was clothed at the time of the burial.
In May, 1252, Alfonso ascended the throne, after receiving his father’s solemn charge: “Fijo, ricas fincas et tierra et de muchos buenos vasallos más que rey que en la cristianidad sea; pugna en facer bien e ser bueno, ca bien has con qué.”
Alfonso, the king, was undoubtedly an indefatigable worker and a man of the highest intentions. He knew what ought to be done but apparently did not have the power of will or the personality to insure the execution of his purpose. When he ascended the throne the war with the Moors had been reduced to operations of minor importance and they recognized the Castillian monarch as their master. But here as elsewhere history repeats itself. Each Christian king on the peninsula was dominated by the desire to extend his territories; and, since there was no longer the necessity of standing together against the common foe, a series of petty quarrels soon arose followed by attempted conquests. As time went on, not only Alfonso’s own nobles, but his brothers and even his own son became involved against their king. It was precisely here that Alfonso was unable to hold the reins of power in as firm a hand as his father before him had done. It was because of internal troubles that he failed, at the critical moment, to bring the wars in Italy to a decisive conclusion, and to terminate successfully with the popes and others, the diplomatic controversies in which the throne of the Holy Roman Empire was at stake. To this throne he had been legally elected at the death of William of Holland in 1256, when he received four of the seven votes. He was opposed by Richard of Cornwall. The long contest which followed was in reality a political battle with the popes, from Alexander IV to Gregory X, in which Richard usually had the upper hand. At Richard’s death Rudolph of Hapsburg under the pontifical protection was elected to take his place, and it was only after nineteen years that Alfonso finally succeeded, in 1275, in obtaining an audience with Gregory in France. The unfortunate outcome of this interview was that Alfonso was persuaded to give up all pretentions to the imperial crown and to forego his custom of signing international papers with the title of “rey de romanos.” In this manner ended Alfonso’s vain attempt at external territorial expansion.
At home, in contests with his own nobles, he had been hardly more successful. Indeed, with all the accumulated expenses of his long-continued attempts to obtain the imperial crown it would have required a man of almost superhuman force to keep his powerful vassals under control and at the same time subject them to the excessive taxation necessarily involved. This, as we have seen, Alfonso did not possess. The Infante Don Enrique was the first to rebel. His outbreak was followed by a more serious uprising of the nobles under the ostensible leadership of the king’s brother, the Infante Don Felipe, but was really fostered and maintained by Nuño de Lara, the boldest and most favored noble of the court. To restore harmony the king surrendered many of his own prescriptive rights, but even then the nobles were not satisfied and Nuño de Lara, inspired by this recently acquired power, objected to the royal decision to require no further payments of tribute from the king of Portugal. Alfonso, in anger, demanded that Nuño withdraw from the council; this he did but in open rebellion, successfully drawing with him a large number of the nobles. Many of these, apparently faithful to Alfonso, followed an intimation given them by Nuño and outwardly supported their sovereign while privately plotting with some of his powerful enemies, the king of Navarre and even the emir of Granada.