Alfonso X

Alphonse, who became king of Castile and Leon in 1252, was unable to complete the crusade begun by his father Ferdinand III against the Moors in southern Spain.

On April 1, 1257, Alfonso the Wise became king of Germany, but was never in his new kingdom. He spent almost 20 years to become the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation , opposing the English challenger Richard, Earl of Cornwall , until he died in 1272 and Pope Gregory X persuaded Alphonse to abandon his claims.

In 1270, Alphonse X founded the Knight's Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Spain with the aim of strengthening the protection of the sea borders of Castile and Leon.

In 1275, the king’s eldest son, infante Fernando, died. According to the new code, the heir to the throne was to be the eldest grandson Alphonse, while according to old Castilian customs he was to become the second son of the king, Sancho . Yielding to the requirements of the nobles, Alfons recognized Sancho as heir, but the widow of Fernando, Blanca, did not agree with this. She turned for help to her brother, the king of France, Philip III the Bold , and he sent an army to Spain, which ravaged the areas of Castile bordering Navarre for several years. Alphonse had to make concessions and separate his grandson from the separate kingdom of Jaen, which was in vassal submission to Castile. However, Sancho opposed such a section. He quarreled with his father, and in 1281 an open war broke out between them. Most nobles sided with the infant.

The Cortes, gathered in Valladolid in 1282, declared Alfons deposed and transferred the throne to Sancho. In response, the king cursed his son, deprived him of the right to inherit, and turned for help to the Moors, who began to devastate Castile on a par with the French. In the midst of this war, Alphonse fell ill and died. By his will, he confused the situation even more. He declared the second grandson, Fernando, the heir to the throne of Castile, and gave the youngest sons separate kingdoms, Seville, Badajoz and Murcia.

Under Alphonse X, a collection of laws was published and astronomical tables were compiled, called the Alfons . He initiated the compilation of the code of laws - “The Seven Sections of Law”, as well as the history of Spain, the first such works written in Spanish (Castellano), and besides them - translations of scientific texts from Arabic to Spanish.

The king also went down in history as a poet; Portuguese literary scholars call him “medieval troubadour” ^[1] , his grandson, King of Portugal Dinis I , became famous as the “troubadour king”. In the reign of Alfonso X, compilations of were compiled. US Spaniard Joseph F. O'Callaghan quoted a portion of the prologue Alfonso X in Galician-Portuguese , in which the king himself proclaimed himself a troubadour of the Virgin Mary: “ quero seer oy mais seu trobador ” ( Prólogo ) ^{[ 2]} . The authorship of these codes is still debated by experts. Modern scholars suggest that the king himself composed eight to ten cantiges of these anthologies. The German philologist-medievalist Walter Mettmann , publisher of the modern critical publication Kantig about the Virgin Mary, believed that from three to six poets took part in the creation of codes, songs of which are indicated by the Latin letters CSM , but most of the texts came from a pen of one author - Galician troubadour and priest Airas Nunes ^{[3] [4]} . According to Mettemann, in reality, the Castilian king wrote only about 10 cantig texts, which, when compared with others, differ in style and theme. Others may have been created by his leadership ^[4] . According to O'Callaghan's notes, in all likelihood Alfonso X authored nine cantigas in which he himself spoke in the first person (CSM 169, 180, 200, 209, 279, 300, 360, 401, 406) ^[5] .

In addition to those listed, the king is credited with secular cantiges in the Galician-Portuguese language. In the medieval collections “ Songbook of the National Library ” and “Songbook of the Vatican” ( Cancioneiro da Vaticana ), 44 songs of Alfonso X the Wise were preserved: 3 cantigs of love, 34 cantigas of ridicule and slander, 2 songs of praise, 4 tensons , 1 lilac , and authorship of 1 cantiga about a friend is being questioned ^[1] .

In 1283, a richly decorated manuscript , known as the “Book of Games” ( Spanish Libro de los juegos and containing about a hundred chess tasks and a description of the rules of the game, testifying to the gradual evolution of the Arab shatrange into chess itself, was compiled at the court of the king ^[6] .

In his honor was named Alfons Crater on the Moon .

In honor of Alphonse are named:

• Asteroid (925) Alfonsina
• Barcelona Metro Station Alfons X

Wife: from January 19, 1249, Violanta of Aragon (c. 1236–1301), daughter of King of Aragon Jaime I of the Conqueror and Yolanda of Hungary . Due to the young age of the spouse, the consummation was delayed, but then the spouses gave birth to 12 children.

• Fernando (? - died in infancy)
• Berengela (October 10 / November 25, 1253-1,300)
• Beatrice (November 5 / December 6, 1254 - c. 1286); husband: from August 1271 Guglielmo VII (d. February 8, 1292), Marquis of Monferrato
• Fernando de la Cerda (October 23, 1255 - July 25, 1275), the founder of the house de la Cerda
• Sancho IV the Bold (May 12, 1258 - April 25, 1295), king of Castile and Leon from 1284
• Constanta (February / October 1259 - July 23, 1280), nun in Las Huelgas
• Pedro (May 15 / July 25, 1260 - October 20, 1283), Senior de Ledesma, Alba de Tormes, Salviera, Galisto and Miranda
• Juan (May 15 / July 25, 1260 - June 25, 1319), Senior de Valencia de Campos
• Isabel (January 1263 / December 1264 - in infancy)
• Violanta (1265 - March 12, 1287/30 January 1308); husband: from 1282 Diego Lopez de Aro (c. 1250-1310), seigneur de Bizkaia
• Jaime (c. 1266 - August 9, 1284), seigneur de los Cameros
• Leonora (d. After 1274/1275)

In addition, Alphonse X had several illegitimate children.

From contact with Maria Alfonso de Leon :

• Berenela Alfonso : husband: Pedro Nunez de Guzmán (d. After 1264)

From contact with Elvira Rodriguez de Villada :

• Alfonso Fernandez (c. 1243-1281)

From contact with Maria Gillen de Guzmán :

• Beatrice Alfonso (1242 - October 27, 1303); husband: from 1253 Afonso III (May 5, 1210 - February 16, 1279), king of Portugal

From unknown lovers:

• Urraca Alfonso ; husband: Alvaro Perez de Guzmán (d. after 1280)
• Martin Alfonso , abbot of Valladolid

• Altamira i Crevea, Raphael . History of Medieval Spain / Translation from Spanish by E. A. Vadkovskaya and O. M. Garmsen. - SPb. : “Eurasia”, 2003. - 608 p. - 1,500 copies. - ISBN 5-8071-0128-6 .
• Korsunsky A.R. History of Spain IX - XIII centuries (Socio-economic relations and political system of the Asturo-Leon and Leon-Castile kingdoms). Tutorial. - M .: Higher school, 1976. - 139 p.
• O'Callaghan, Joseph F. Alfonso X and the Cantigas de Santa Maria: A Poetic Biography . - Leiden • Boston • Köln: Brill, 1998 .-- ISBN 9789004110236 . (eng.)

• "Toledo" / Toledo - dir. Juan Manuel Rodriguez Pachon, Spain, 2012

• Alphonse X // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Anonymous authors . Spanish Medieval Chronicles: The Chronicle of Cardeny I. The Chronicle of Cardeny II. Annals of Toledo I. Annals of Toledo II. Annals of Toledo III. (unspecified) . www.kuprienko.info (A. Skromnitsky) (August 24, 2011). Date of treatment November 17, 2012. Archived December 4, 2012.
• KINGS of CASTILE & LEÓN 1217-1369 (English) . Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. Date of treatment October 2, 2010.
• Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. Afonso X (port.) . Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas . Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH / NOVA. Date of treatment February 4, 2018.