(b Toledo, 23 Nov 1221; d Seville, 4 April 1284). Spanish monarch, patron, poet and composer. The son of Ferdinand the Saint, he became King of Castile and León in 1252. ‘El Sabio’ may be taken as both ‘the Wise’ and ‘the Learned’, for Alfonso’s works show his conviction that learning begets wisdom. He was a remarkable patron of the arts, sciences and culture; he recognized the importance of Spain’s Islamic as well as its Roman and Visigothic heritage, and his court became celebrated as a meeting-place for Christian, Islamic and Jewish scholars and artists. He has long stood accused of sacrificing his family relations and political stability to impractical schemes for liberal reform but, though out of favour with those close to him in his latter years, he fostered notable social, educational and judiciary reforms, encouraged the use of the vernacular in learning and art, and made Spain respected in Europe. In 1254 he founded a chair of music at the University of Salamanca, stipulating ‘that there should be a teacher of composition [órgano]’. The songs in his Cantigas de Santa María probably occupied more of his time than any other of his cultural projects (which include books on history, law, astronomy and games, and poetry); they amply vindicate his statement in the first cantiga that ‘composition entails understanding’. A selection of his works appeared in 1922, edited by A. García Solalinde, who, with others, issued a further edition (Madrid, 1930–94).
See also Cantiga and Sources, MS, §III, 6.
H. Anglès: La música de las Cantigas de Santa María del Rey Alfonso el Sabio (Barcelona, 1943–64)
J.E. Keller: Alfonso X, El Sabio (New York, 1967)
Alfonso X el Sabio y la música: Madrid 1984 [RdMc, x (1987); incl. articles by I. Fernandez de la Cuesta, D.M. Randel, M. Lütolf, R. Alvarez, M. Jullian, G. Le Vot]
Estudios alfonsíes: Granada 1984, ed. J. Mondéjar and J. Montoya (Granada, 1985)
R.I. Burns, ed.: Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X the Learned of Castile and his Thirteenth-Century Renaissance (Philadelphia, 1990) [incl. articles by R.I. Burns, J.E. Keller, J.T. Snow, I.J. Katz and others]
M.G. Cunningham: Alfonso X el Sabio, Cantigas de loor (Dublin, 2000)
JACK SAGE