Writing the past, ordering the world: Alfonso the Wise's Estorias within his political and cultural agenda

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to analize from new perspectives the chronicles produced at King Alfonso X the Wise's scriptorium. After a brief overview of their general characteristics, I frame the composition of historical works within the extensive political and cultural program whose complexity can be better captured through Foucault?s concept of dispositf. Then, I analize several aspects of the singular character of the Alfonsine historiographical enterprise in relation to other contemporary historiographical traditions; the political moment of enunciation and the king?s enunciative position as author/authority of historiographical discourse. In third place, I analyze the manuscript production as it can be appreciated on the preserved royal codices, which helps us understand the original option for a romance language writing willing to order the world in terms of discursive practice as well as in terms of what Wittgenstein called "referential magic." Finally, this work aims at analyzing formally and ideologically the elements that compose the alphonsine historiographical model, through commenting specific passages of Estoria de España, both in its Versión Primitiva and its Versión Crítica, as well as the General Estoria. This work highlights the exceptional nature of the alphonsine cultural moment, which is be confirmed through an analysis of the alphonsine vision of translation and the powes of language and writing in significant passages of blblical history.