Alfonso X ‘el Sabio’ (‘The Wise’) and his Siete partidas
Alfonso X, King of Castile and León from 1252 to 1284) was one of the most European
monarchs of the thirteenth century. Called ‘The Wise’ because of his patronage of learning
(including many translations from Arabic to Castilian, often using Jewish translators), he
attempted to centralise monarchical power by reforming the legal system. To do this, he tried to
replace local laws (fueros) with a national legal code based on Roman law. One of his major
legal texts was called the Siete Partidas (it has ‘seven parts’: seven is not only a magical number,
but also the number of letters in the name ALFONSO, since the King ‘embodied’ the law).
Alfonso, like his predecessors, called himself ‘King of the three religions’ and he devotes space
in his legal code to legislation concerning both his Muslim and Jewish subjects. Each ‘Partida’
(part) is divided into various ‘titulos’ (titles), which in turn are subdivided into ‘leyes’ (laws).
The section ‘De los judíos’ corresponds to partida VII, ‘título’ 24, ‘leyes’ 1-11 (our edition
comes from Alfonso X and the Jews by Dwayne Carpenter (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press,
1986).
It is important to remember that Siete partidas were not promulgated during the King’s
lifetime. They were ratified only in 1348. In spite of their enormous theoretical importance, it is
not easy to determine the extent to which they were put into practice. However, they do reflect
the major trends in Christian attitudes towards Judaism and social, political and economic
relations between Christians and Jews at a turning point in European history.
Questions: Read through each of the eleven laws, and try to determine the extent to which
Alfonso tries to protect and limit the practice of Judaism within Christian territories. As you do
so, consider, where appropriate, the following questions:
(a) do these laws depend upon or generate stereotypes that transcend purely religious
identity and acquire racial connotations (Aizenberg’s article on the poem of the Cid has some
interesting ideas about stereotyping)
(b) do you think these laws create the ideological conditions for the eventual expulsion of
the Jews from the Christian ‘body politic’? (We will read the 1492 Edict of Expulsion later in the
course).
(c) Dwayne Carpenter concludes that the Siete partidas display ‘restrained tolerance’
towards the Jews. Do you agree (bear in mind the conceptual problems raised by Novikoff’s
article)