Alfonso the Wise occupies a prominent place in Spanish history as a legislator. He gave uniformity to the laws of his united kingdom, which were, on his coming to the throne, a con fused mass of privileges and local observances, often at variance with one another, and fre quently subversive of the order of the nation. Out of this confused mass of privileges and local lavis he succeeded in creating a certain uniformity of legal observances whose influ ences were felt in Spain for centuries. He wrote the (Septenario,' a work wonderful in its day and for the political conditions under which it appeared. This is a sort of political, moral and religious compilation which has served as the basis of numerous legal works which have developed the law of Spain. in this and other works of a like nature Alfonso shows an intuition of the spirit of law and a knowledge far ahead of his time. His
form a wonderfully interesting and useful
sition of the laws, morality and religious uses,
observances and practices of the age in which
they were written. The ability, industry,
powers of assimilation and excellent judgment
of the king are evidently shown in his writings
which called for a mastery of three great fields
of knowledge, common and royal law, canonical
law and theology. In his work he had, no
doubt, helpers and investigators, but he was
himself the heart and soul of it all; and his
was the master mind that brought order out of
confusion and conceived plans whose
ness were a century ahead of their time.
fonso was a great lover, not only of everything
relating to law, but also of literature and sci-
ence; and the extent of his knowledge is often
surprising. He was a poet of no mean talent
and he encouraged the troubadours of Provence
and Catalonia. His knowledge of history was
very broad and exact ; and he had mastered the
extensive mathematical knowledge of the
Arabs, so that, even among the Moors, he had
acquired a reputation as a mathematician. It is
not strange, therefore, that he should have done
much, by his example and his influence, to
vance the general culture of his kingdom. Of
the many debts that Spain owes to him, one of
the greatest and of most far-reaching
quence, is the fact that, for years, he labored
to make the tongue of Castile the language of
the whole country. This tended to create the
national unity for which he strove. Though he
was disappointed in the result of his work in
his lifetime, it bore abundant fruit in after
days. He encouraged education and
lished schools of higher learning in Toledo,
C6rdoba and Sevilla, and he welcomed to his
court the troubadours. He ordered the Bible
and various other works translated into
ish, among them books on scientific subjects
written in Hebrew or Arabic. In addition to
his (Cantigas) numerous other works of a
legal nature have been attributed to him, in
some, cases apparently with considerable
son, among these being (Estoria de Espanna 6
Cr6nica General' and