The Cantigas of Alfonso the Wise

[home]
[places]
[email me]
[links]
[tour]

The Cantiga de Santa Maria of Alfonso the Wise

[winchester]
[lady chapel]
[my translations]
[list of stories]

%quot;Alfonso the Wise" was Alfonso X (1221–84), the Spanish king of Castile. He really wanted to be the next Holy Roman Emperor and in 1262 he captured Cadiz from the Moors, although they rose against him again in 1264 and he needed help to suppress the rebellion.

He stimulated the cultural life of his time, encouraging the schools of Seville, Murcia, and Salamanca. He brought Jewish and Muslim intellectuals to his court, as well as Arab translators and French troubadours. He was responsible for a compilation of the legal and historical knowledge of his time, not in Latin but in the local language. He commissioned translations of the Bible, the Koran, the Cabala, the Talmud and Hindustani tales.

He also encouraged the calculation of astronomical tables and for the production of the first book on chess (and a few other games), but here I am concerned primarily with the “Cantigas de Santa Maria” (Songs in Praise of Holy Mary). Several copies of the manuscript are extant, but only one is complete. This contains 427 songs (actually a few less, since some are almost duplicates) together with hundreds of beautiful illustrations. Historically, the illustrations have been studied for what they reveal about everyday life of the period, but with the resurgence of interest in “early music” people have started to study the beautiful texts and music. I first really found out about the Cantigas whilst researching the wall paintings in the Lady Chapel of Winchester Cathedral. I set to work identifying the stories and translating (if what I do can truly be called translation – there's a note here) those that matched the paintings.

In the course of doing so, I found Cantiga XV, which I intended to make into a folk-play, like the mummers play we perform regularly. Translating it for this purpose has proved to be a thorny problem, but I found a lovely set of illustrations that go with Cantiga X, and I have at least (October 2000) got that one to the doggerel stage. By the time of the death of Alfonso the Wise in 1284, Spain saw itself as a truly multi-cultural society- Christian, Jewish and Muslim. He was buried in a mantle of Muslim design with the Arab word "balaka" (blessing) embroidered on it. Reflecting this eclecticism, the tales of the Cantigas are drawn from all of these cultures, so, welcome to the world of the Cantigas.

A saint is eating hay? A monastery sinks beneath the waves for a year and a day? Demons and angels walk the earth in various guises. Mary and the devil are playing a complex game of forfeits using human souls as playing pieces. The devil gets the souls of people who dishonour Mary, but if he takes one he's not entitled to, She gets it back. Mary is particularly fond of silk, wine and minstrels (of course, since it was the minstrels who composed the Cantigas). The devil is entitled to the souls of those who throw stones at statues, but not people who die when bits of churches fall on them. And of course, Mary wins extra points by protecting unbelievers like Jews and Syrian philosophers.

Now read on... (items without titles are blank links)