Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1 June 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germany on 1 April. He renounced his claim to Germany in 1275, and in creating an alliance with the Kingdom of England in 1254, his claim on the Duchy of Gascony as well.
Alfonso's scientific interests—he is sometimes nicknamed the Astrologer —led him to sponsor the creation of the Alfonsine tables, and the Alphonsus crater on the Moon is named after him. He also sponsored the work of historians who, for the first time since Isidore of Seville in, placed Spain in the context of world history. As a lawmaker he introduced the first vernacular law code in Castile, the Siete Partidas. He created the Mesta, an association of sheep farmers in the central plain, but debased the coinage to finance his claim to the German crown. He fought a successful war with Portugal, but a less successful one with Granada. The end of his reign was marred by a civil war with his eldest surviving son, the future Sancho IV, which continued after his death.
Life
Early life
Alfonso was born on 23 November 1221 in Toledo, Kingdom of Castile. He was the eldest son of Ferdinand III and Elizabeth of Swabia. His mother was the paternal cousin of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, to whom Alfonso is often compared. His maternal grandparents were Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina. Little is known about his upbringing, but he was most likely raised in Toledo. For the first nine years of his life Alfonso was only heir to Castile until his paternal grandfather king Alfonso IX of León died and his father united the kingdoms of Castile and León. He began his career as a soldier, under the command of his father, when he was sixteen years old.After the accession of King Theobald I of Navarre, Ferdinand tried to arrange a marriage for Alfonso with Theobald's daughter, Blanche, but the move was unsuccessful. At the same time, he had a romantic relationship with Mayor Guillén de Guzmán, who bore him a daughter, Beatrice. In 1240, he married Mayor Guillén de Guzmán, but the marriage was later annulled and their issue declared illegitimate. During the 1240s, alongside his father, he conquered several Muslim strongholds in Al-Andalus, including Murcia, Alicante and Cádiz.
In 1249, Alfonso married Violant, the daughter of King James I of Aragon and Violant of Hungary, although betrothed already in 1246.
Reign
Alfonso succeeded his father as King of Castile and León in 1252. The following year he invaded Portugal, capturing the region of the Algarve. King Afonso III of Portugal had to surrender. Despite this Afonso III reached an agreement with Alfonso X that in consenting to marry Alfonso X's daughter, Beatrice of Castile, the captured land would be returned to their heirs. In 1261 Alfonso X captured Jerez. In 1263 he returned Algarve to the King of Portugal and signed the Treaty of Badajoz.In 1254 Alfonso X signed a treaty of alliance with King Henry III of England, supporting him in the war against King Louis IX of France. In the same year Alfonso's half-sister, Eleanor, married Henry's son Edward: with this act Alfonso renounced forever all claim to the Duchy of Gascony, to which Castile had been a pretender since the marriage of Alfonso VIII of Castile to Eleanor of England.
Imperial election
In 1256, on the death of William II of Holland, Alfonso's descent from the Hohenstaufen through his mother, a daughter of Philip of Swabia, gave him a claim to the German crown through the Hohenstaufen line. Alfonso's election as German king by the prince-electors encouraged him to enter into complicated schemes that involved excessive expenses but never to success. Alfonso never travelled to Germany, and his alliance with the Italian Ghibelline Lord Ezzelino IV da Romano deprived him of the support of Pope Alexander IV. His rival, Richard of Cornwall, went to Germany and was crowned in 1257 at Aachen.To obtain money, Alfonso debased the coinage and then endeavoured to prevent a rise in prices by an arbitrary tariff. The little trade that took place in his dominions was ruined, and the burghers and peasants were deeply offended. His nobles, whom he tried to cow by sporadic acts of violence, rebelled against him in 1272. Reconciliation with the nobles was brought about by Alfonso's son Ferdinand in 1273.
After Richard of Cornwell's death, the German princes elected Rudolph of Habsburg, Alfonso being declared deposed by Pope Gregory X. In 1275 Alfonso tried to meet with his imperial vicar in Italy, William VII of Montferrat, and his Ghibelline allies in Piedmont and Lombardy to celebrate the victory against the Guelph Charles I of Anjou and be crowned in Lombardy. However, he was halted in his imperial ambitions in Provence by the Pope who, after a long negotiation, obtained Alfonso's oral renunciation of any claims to the Holy Roman Empire.
Civil war
Throughout his reign, Alfonso contended with his nobles, particularly the families of Nuño González de Lara, Diego López de Haro and Esteban Fernández de Castro, all of whom were formidable soldiers and instrumental in maintaining Castile's military strength in its frontier territories. According to some scholars Alfonso lacked the singleness of purpose required by a ruler who would devote himself to organization and also the combination of firmness with temper needed for dealing with his nobles although this is not a view taken by all. Others have argued that his efforts were too singularly focused on the diplomatic and financial arrangements surrounding his bid to become Holy Roman Emperor.File:Castillia.jpg|thumb|right|Castillian ambassadors meeting Almohad caliph Abu Hafs Umar al-Murtada, from the Cantigas de Santa María
Alfonso's eldest son, Ferdinand, died in 1275 at the Battle of Écija against the Moroccan and Granadan invasion armies, leaving two infant sons. Alfonso's second son, Sancho, claimed to be the new heir, in preference to the children of Ferdinand de la Cerda, basing his claim on an old Castilian custom, that of proximity of blood and agnatic seniority. Alfonso preferred to leave the throne to his grandsons, but Sancho had the support of the nobility. A bitter civil war broke out resulting in Alfonso's being forced in 1282 to accept Sancho as his heir instead of his young grandsons; only the cities of Seville, Murcia and Badajoz remained faithful to him. Son and nobles alike supported the Moors when he tried to unite the nation in a crusade; and when he allied himself with Abu Yusuf Yakub, the ruling Marinid sultan of Morocco, they denounced him as an enemy of the faith. A reaction in his favour was beginning in his latter days, but he died defeated and deserted at Seville in 1284, leaving a will, by which he endeavoured to exclude Sancho, and a heritage of civil war.
Economic policy
In 1273, he created the Mesta, an association of some 3,000 petty and great sheep holders in Castile, in reaction to less wool being exported from the traditional sites in England. This organization later became exceedingly powerful in the country, and eventually its privileges were to prove a deadly wound in the Castilian economy. One side effect of the quickly expanding sheep herds was the decimation to the Castilian farmland through which the sheep grazed.The original function of the Mesta was to separate the fields from the sheep-ways linking grazing areas.