[217] General background and bibliographical orientation are in Joseph O'Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca, N.Y. 1975), and in J. N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250-1516, 2 vols. (Oxford 1976-78). Studies on King James have just culminated in the elaborate bibliographical and thematic surveys, as well as the numerous critical studies, of the X Congreso de historia de la Corona de Aragón, with its alternate title Jaime I y su época, 3 vols. to date (Zaragoza 1979-82). See especially the surveys there by Luis Suárez Fernández and Federico Udina Martorell on the historiography of James's reign (vol. 1, chap. 9), by Odilo Engels on international politics (chap. 5), and by Juan Vernet and Martí de Riquer on culture (chaps. 7-8). The first Congreso in this series, similarly dedicated to James, is a mine of older bibliographical data and studies (2 vols. paginated as one, Barcelona 1909-13).

There is no up-to-date extensive scholarly biography of King James in any language. In English we must make do with the essay by C. R. Beazley, James the First of Aragon (Oxford 1890), and E. D. Swift, The Life and Times of James the First, the Conqueror (Oxford 1894). Better than these is Charles de Tourtoulon, Jacme le Conquérant, roi d'Aragon (Montpellier 1867), revised in translation by Teodoro Llorente, Don Jaime I el Conquistador, 2 vols. (Valencia 1874). The best life is a popularization by the eminent scholar Ferran Soldevila, Jaume I el Conqueridor, 2d ed. (Barcelona 1969). For James's youth see Soldevila, Els primers temps de Jaume I (Barcelona 1968). For his women see Abelard Tona i Nadalmai, Minyonia de bon rei Jaume el Conqueridor, la dona i la llegenda (Barcelona 1973); F. O. Brachfeld, Doña Violante de Hungría, reina de Aragón (Madrid 1942); and Antoni Pladevall i Font, Sibilla de Saga (Barcelona 1973). See also now the remarkable survey of patterns and approaches by historians of James in Ernest Belenguer Cebrià, Jaume I a través de la història, 2 vols. (Valencia 1984).

The king's autobiography has been edited with extensive critical introduction by Soldevila in his Les quatre grans cròniques (Barcelona 1971); a beautiful color-facsimile of the codex, introduced by Martí de Riquer, was published by the University of Barcelona in 1972; and a very poor English translation by John Forster, The Chronicle of James I, King of Aragon, 2 vols. (London 1883), will be supplanted by [218] the new translation in progress. Two essential resources are Joaquim Miret i Sans, Itinerari de Jaume I "el Conqueridor" (Barcelona 1918), a document-by-document chronology; and Ambrosio Huici Miranda's collection, now amplified and reprinted by M. D. Cabanes Pecourt, Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón, 4 vols. to date (Valencia 1976ff.). The king's Valencian conquest and settlement can be followed in R. I. Burns, The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass. 1967), Islam under the Crusaders (Princeton 1973), Medieval Colonialism (Princeton 1975), Moors and Crusaders in Mediterranean Spain (London 1978), Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Crusader Kingdom of Valencia (Cambridge 1984), and Society and Documentation in Crusader Valencia (Princeton 1985).

Representative histories of Catalonia include Joaquim Nadal Farreras and Philippe Wolff, Histoire de Catalogne (Toulouse 1982); Antoni Rovira i Virgili, Història de Catalunya, 8 vols. (Bilbao [1922-34] 1972-79); J. M. Salrach et al., Història dels països catalans, 3 vols. (Barcelona 1980-82); J. Lee Shneidman, The Rise of the Aragonese-Catalan Empire, 1200-1350, 2 vols. (New York 1970); Ferran Soldevila, Història de Catalunya (Barcelona 1963); and the very brief H. J. Chaytor, A History of Aragon and Catalonia (London 1933). T.N. Bisson, The Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History is forthcoming (Berkeley).

The flood of studies on Alfonso the Learned focuses mostly on his cultural or literary-creative achievements. Three bibliographies are particularly useful. José Sánchez Pérez appended an impressive list to his Alfonso X el Sabio (Madrid 1944), pp. 347-425; Gardiner London supplemented this with later items as "Bibliografía de estudios sobre la vida y la obra de Alfonso X el Sabio," Boletín de filología española 2 (1960), pp. 18-31; and D. J. Billicks gleaned some eighty unpublished graduate theses in the United States alone, especially from the period 1960-79, in his "Bibliography of Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations," La corónica 8 (1979), pp. 67-72, and 9 (1980), p. 55. Stray items also appear in the annual thematic bibliographies of the Modern Language Association's La corónica. A new bilingual journal, Noticiero alfonsí (Wichita State University, 1 = 1982) carries information on all Alfonsine books, articles, editions, facsimiles, checklists, bibliographies, symposia, addresses, concerts, recordings, conferences, and works-in-progress. Its editor, A. J. Cárdenas, has a Bibliography of Alfonsine Science in preparation; Jerry Craddock has a Bibliography of Legislative Works of Alfonso X el Sabio forthcoming (London: Grant and Cutler); Joseph Snow has published The Poetry of Alfonso el Sabio: A Critical Bibliography (London [219] 1977); and Roger Tinnell has an ongoing report on Alfonsine records and tapes in La corónica from 1976 through 1981.

Alfonso has not yet found his biographer, though Antonio Ballesteros Beretta's immense and undisciplined Alfonso X el Sabio (Madrid 1963; reprint with indexes added, Barcelona 1984) magisterially sums a lifetime's work (including his Itinerario of 1936) and is definitive within its narrow category of political history. A brief introduction in English is John Keller's cultural Alfonso X, el Sabio (New York 1967). E. S. Procter's works are especially useful: Alfonso X of Castile, Patron of Literature and Learning (Oxford 1951); Curia and Cortes in León and Castile, 1072-1295 (Cambridge 1980); "The Castilian Chancery during the Reign of Alfonso X," in Oxford Essays in Medieval History (Oxford 1934), pp. 103-21; "Materials for the Reign of Alfonso X of Castile," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, 14 (1931), pp. 39-63; and "The Scientific Works of the Court of Alfonso X of Castile: The King and His Collaborators," Modern Language Review 40 (1945), pp. 12-29. Besides the articles cited in Keller's bibliography, the English-speaking reader will find much information and delight in the excellent translation by S. P. Scott of Las Siete partidas for the American Bar Association (New York 1931). Hillgarth presents an extended comparison between Alfonso and Ramon Llull in his Spanish Kingdoms (vol. 1, pp. 215-25). Cayetano Socarras concentrates on Alfonso X, of Castile: A Study on Imperialistic Frustration (Barcelona 1976). See also R. A. MacDonald, "Alfonso the Learned and the Succession," Speculum 40 (1965), pp. 647-53; and J. F. O'Callaghan, "The Cortes and Royal Taxation during the Reign of Alfonso X," Traditio 27 (1971), pp. 379-98.

The editions of Alfonso's creative works, from history to science, are listed in Hillgarth, Keller, and similar introductory studies. A sampler is Antonio García Solalinde, Antología de Alfonso X el Sabio (Madrid 1960). Juan Torres Fontes is editing the Murcian Documentor de Alfonso X el Sabio (Murcia 1963ff.). Rogelio Pérez Bustamante has traced the administrative achievements of the king, within the wider trajectory 1230-1474, in El gobierno y la administración territorial de Castilla, 2 vols. (Madrid 1976). And Ferran Valls Taberner has an essay on "Relacions familiars i polítiques entre Jaume el Conqueridor i Anfós el Savi," Bulletin hispanique 21 (1919), pp. 9-52. Finally, the Hispanic Seminary at the University of Wisconsin has long been processing the language of Alfonso's works by computer; its Concordances and Texts of the Royal Scriptorium Manuscripts of Alfonso X el Sabio [220] (Madison 1978) in 112 microfiches would fill 67 volumes if in book form.

Various congresses and programs both here and abroad, honoring Alfonso's centennial year, will produce a surge of books and articles. The multi-city congress presented by Spain's Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, just described in chapter 8, promises to have the greatest impact on Alfonsine studies; its acta are already in press. A previous but related VII Centenario del Infante Don Fernando de la Cerda: jornadas de estudio held in 1975 (Madrid 1976) has two studies pertinent to our own theme: M. A. Ladero Quesada, "Los estados peninsulares a la muerte de Alfonso X el Sabio," pp. 311-38, and Julio Valdeón Baruque, "Alfonso el Sabio, el rey y el hombre," pp. 297-309. The second is not biographical or psychological but a reflection on Alfonso's reactions to the general problems of his reign, adumbrated through four themes of success (international court, culmination of expansion, centralization, cultural contribution) and four of limitation and failure (demographic, economic, anticentralizing resistance, and succession problems). Similar broad reflection marks Joaquín Gimeno Casalduero's opening chapter on Alfonso's contribution to Castilian monarchy, in his La imagen del monarca en la Castillo del siglo XIV (Madrid 1972), pp. 15-69.

This sample merely introduces the kings themselves. It could be indefinitely expanded either by drawing from the bibliographies listed above or by turning to the kings' respective societies and eminent figures. As the chapters of the present book illustrate, other facets of the two reigns have their own bibliography. As interest in each king grows, the bibliographical flood is rising year by year.