Alfonso X the Wise becomes King of Castile

1252

The son of Ferdinand III inherited a kingdom stretching from the Bay of Biscay to the Strait of Gibraltar. He commissioned translations, law codes, and astronomical tables in Castilian rather than Latin, nurturing a new vernacular literature and the famous Alfonsine Tables. His Siete Partidas, a comprehensive legal code modeled on Roman and canon law, would influence Spanish jurisprudence for the next five centuries.