Images of Royal Power in the Works of Alfonso X (III): ‘Rex Sapiens’

Abstract

In thirteenth-century Castile the concept of royal wisdom can be understood in two different but complementary ways: the first relates to the virtue of prudence and defines the ability of the king to exercise its function of government and justice (rex prudens); the second concerns the knowledge itself, which distinguishes the monarch from other rulers (rex litteratus). This article will focus on the image of rex litteratus, whose intellectual skills go far beyond the ability to read and write, and specifically in the case of Alfonso X culminated in his poetry (rey trovador). Similarly, the double nature of the Alfonsine works, both political and didactic, shall not be overseen, in the sense that it reveals the image of a king who cares about the transmission and the wide dissemination of knowledge (rex magister) while also highlighting the close relationship between Alfonso X’s political and cultural projects.