An electronic research environment and edition of the Estoria de Espanna of Alfonso X, King of Castile and Leon

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The Estoria de Espanna is an extensive thirteenth-century history of Spain composed under the direction of Alfonso X of Castile and Leon (reigned 1252-1284). It runs from the origins of Spain to the death of Alfonso's father Fernando III in 1252. It is the history of the people who ruled the empire and therefore deals with Roman history, the history of the Goths and the history of the Christian kingdoms of the Peninsula after the Arab invasion of 711 which Alfonso regarded as the inheritors of Rome. It exists in three major versions, two compiled during the lifetime of the king (1272 and 1282) and another during the reign of his son Sancho IV, in 1289. The three major versions written in close succession to each other reveal a host of anxieties about contemporary events and so an examination of the differences between them can help to demonstrate the value of control of the past in present difficulty. This aspect research on medieval chronicles, epitomised by Gabrielle Spiegel's study of thirteenth-century French chronicles (Romancing the Past: the rise of vernacular prose historiography in thirteenth-century France, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), has led to much fruitful work in recent years. Such comparative and constrative contextual analysis is only possible through access to manuscript versions. One important function of the proposed edition is therefore to present to scholars the text of the different versions of the chronicle, thereby allowing a contextual study of their composition and their consequent meaning in context. The Estoria de Espanna is the centerpiece of the medieval Castilian historiographical tradition, the first and greatest medieval history of Spain written in romance, and was originally conceived as part of an all-encompassing politico-cultural project by the king. As is frequently the case with Iberian material, it is not well known outside the peninsula, and yet its status as comprehensive history of Spain makes it one of the finest examples of late medieval chronicle writing available to us. The breadth of learning and sophisticated narrative construction of the Estoria make it prime material for the study of medieval narrative history generally and the project therefore has the aim of bringing both the Estoria and the enormous politico-cultural enterprise of which it formed a part to a wider audience.The project aims to provide an electronic edition of the chronicle which, by means of a search engine and collation tool, will allow comparison of the three major versions and provide full searching ability for any of the transcriptions. The project will therefore permit access to an important and foundational series of medieval chronicles to a wide readership, both specialist and non-specialist. It will serve as a resource for future philological and historical enquiry, for example, the presentation of three almost contemporaneous major versions in a manner which permits the scholar to compare them, will allow significant advances in our understanding of the political context of their composition in the thirteenth century. The electronic edition will also facilitate access to the Estoria to a wider audience. The online research environment will encourage the addition of transcriptions of other manuscripts and also images of the codices in the future, which will guarantee the on-going viability of the project.