Alfonso X of Castile in the context of "Muhammad I of Granada"

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⭐ Core Definition: Alfonso X of Castile

Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, Spanish: el Sabio; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) 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 (el Astrólogo)—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 c. 600, 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.

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👉 Alfonso X of Castile in the context of Muhammad I of Granada

Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Nasr (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن يوسف بن نصر, romanizedMuḥammad ibn Yūsuf ibn Naṣr; c. 1195 – 22 January 1273), also known as Ibn al-Ahmar (ابن الأحمر, lit.'Son of the Red') and by his honorific al-Ghalib billah (الغالب بالله, lit.'The Victor by the Grace of God'), was the first ruler of the Emirate of Granada, the last independent Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula, and the founder of its ruling Nasrid dynasty. He lived during a time when Iberia's Christian kingdoms—especially Portugal, Castile and Aragon—were expanding at the expense of the Islamic territory in Iberia, called Al-Andalus. Muhammad ibn Yusuf took power in his native Arjona in 1232 when he rebelled against the de facto leader of Al-Andalus, Ibn Hud. During this rebellion, he was able to take control of Córdoba and Seville briefly, before he lost both cities to Ibn Hud. Forced to acknowledge Ibn Hud's suzerainty, Muhammad was able to retain Arjona and Jaén. In 1236, he betrayed Ibn Hud by helping Ferdinand III of Castile take Córdoba. In the years that followed, Muhammad was able to gain control over southern cities, including Granada (1237), Almería (1238), and Málaga (1239). In 1244, he lost Arjona to Castile. Two years later, in 1246, he agreed to surrender Jaén and accept Ferdinand's overlordship in exchange for a 20-year truce.

In the 18 years that followed, Muhammad consolidated his domain by maintaining relatively peaceful relations with the Crown of Castile; in 1248; he even helped the Christian kingdom take Seville from the Muslims. But in 1264, he turned against Castile and assisted in the unsuccessful rebellion of Castile's newly conquered Muslim subjects. In 1266 his allies in Málaga, the Banu Ashqilula, rebelled against the emirate. When these former allies sought assistance from Alfonso X of Castile, Muhammad was able to convince the leader of the Castilian troops, Nuño González de Lara, to turn against Alfonso. By 1272 Nuño González was actively fighting Castile. The emirate's conflict with Castile and the Banu Ashqilula was still unresolved in 1273 when Muhammad died after falling off his horse. He was succeeded by his son, Muhammad II.

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Alfonso X of Castile in the context of University of Murcia

The University of Murcia (Spanish: Universidad de Murcia) is the primary institute of higher education in Murcia, Spain. With a student population of approximately 38,000, it is the largest university in the Region of Murcia. Founded in 1272 AD, the University of Murcia is the third oldest university in Spain, following only the University of Salamanca (1218 AD) and the University of Valladolid (1241 AD), and the thirteenth oldest in the world. The University of Murcia was established by the King Alfonso X of Castile under the Crown of Castile.

The majority of the university's facilities and buildings are spread over two campuses: the older is La Merced, situated in the town center, and the larger is Espinardo, 5km to the north of Murcia.

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Alfonso X of Castile in the context of Cantigas de Santa Maria

The Cantigas de Santa Maria (Galician: [kanˈtiɣɐz ðɪ ˈsantɐ maˈɾi.ɐ], Portuguese: [kɐ̃ˈtiɣɐʒ ðɨ ˈsɐ̃tɐ mɐˈɾi.ɐ]; "Canticles of Holy Mary") are 420 poems with musical notation, written in the medieval Galician-Portuguese language during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221–1284). Traditionally, they are all attributed to Alfonso, though scholars have since established that the musicians and poets of his court were responsible for most of them, with Alfonso being credited with a few as well.

It is one of the largest collections of monophonic (solo) songs from the Middle Ages and is characterized by the mention of the Virgin Mary in every song, while every tenth song is a hymn.

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Alfonso X of Castile in the context of Treaty of Alcañices

The Treaty of Alcañices or Treaty of Alcanises was made in Alcañices between King Denis of Portugal and King Fernando IV of Castile in 1297.

Denis was the grandson of King Alfonso X of Castile and essentially an administrator and not a warrior king. He went to war with the kingdom of Castile in 1295, relinquishing the villages of Serpa and Moura, but gained Olivença and reaffirmed Portugal's possession of the Algarve and defined the modern borders between the two Iberian countries. The treaty also established an alliance of friendship and mutual defense, leading to a peace of 40 years between the two nations.

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Alfonso X of Castile in the context of Great Interregnum

There were many imperial interregna in the history of the Holy Roman Empire, when there was no emperor. Interregna in which there was no emperor-elect (king of the Romans) were rarer. Among the longest periods without an emperor were between 924 and 962 (38 years), between 1250 and 1312 (62 years), and between 1378 and 1433 (55 years). The crisis of government of the Holy Roman Empire and the German kingdom thus lasted throughout the late medieval period, and ended only with the rise of the House of Habsburg on the eve of the German Reformation and the Renaissance. The term Great Interregnum is occasionally used for the period between 1250 (death of Frederick II) and 1273 (accession of Rudolf I).

After the deposition of Frederick II by Pope Innocent IV in 1245, Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia was set up as anti-king to Frederick's son Conrad IV (d. 1254). Frederick’s "deposition" was widely regarded as illegitimate, and no monarch in Europe offered any meaningful support for Innocent in his crusade against the emperor—whose immense status and legendary reputation as perhaps the greatest monarch of his day continued undiminished, especially in the vast Hohenstaufen core holdings. In Germany, particularly in Swabia, most of Franconia and the south, Hohenstaufen power remained formidable and the papal cause could only rely on the support of the major ecclesiastical princes. The secular princes of Germany were variably loyal to the Hohenstaufen or took a neutral stance. Henry Raspe was killed in 1247 and succeeded as anti-king by William of Holland (died 1256). Throughout 1249-1250 Conrad IV had steadily defeated William, whose power never extended beyond a tenuous hold north of the Rhine, and extracted a truce from the major ecclesiastical princes. Everywhere, papal crusade against the Hohenstaufen appeared to be disintegrating. By Frederick II’s death in late 1250, the emperor controlled most of Italy and his son enjoyed a relatively solid base across southern and central Germany. The Hohenstaufen remained the most prestigious, powerful and preeminent dynasty in Europe. However, buoyed by Frederick’s death, the papacy remained intransigent and Conrad IV was unable to secure the imperial mantle and died of malaria near Rome in 1254 while consolidating his Sicilian inheritance in southern Italy. Conrad’s death and the extreme youth of his son, Conradin, signaled an implosion in the Hohenstaufen dynastic power and after the 1257 imperial election, the crown was contested between Richard of Cornwall, who was supported by the Guelph party, and Alfonso X of Castile, who was recognized by the Hohenstaufen party but never set foot on German soil. After Richard's death in 1273, Rudolf I of Germany, a minor pro-Staufen count, was elected. He was the first of the Habsburgs to hold a royal title, but he was never crowned emperor. Alfonso hold on to his claim to the throne until 1275. After Rudolf's death in 1291, Adolf and Albert were two further weak kings who were never crowned emperor starting a line of so-called count-kings which lasted to the establishment of a de facto hereditary monarchy by the Habsburgs in the 15th century.

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Alfonso X of Castile in the context of Grant Acedrex

Grant Acedrex is a medieval chess variant dating back to the time of King Alfonso X of Castile. It appears in the Libro de los Juegos of 1283.

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Alfonso X of Castile in the context of Muhammad II al-Faqih

Muhammad II (Arabic: محمد الثاني) (also known by the epithet al-Faqih, "the canon-lawyer", c. 1235 – 8 April 1302; reigned from 1273 until his death) was the second Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula, succeeding his father, Muhammad I. Already experienced in matters of state when he ascended the throne, he continued his father's policy of maintaining independence in the face of Granada's larger neighbours, the Christian kingdom of Castile and the Muslim Marinid state of Morocco, as well as an internal rebellion by his family's former allies, the Banu Ashqilula.

After he took the throne, he negotiated a treaty with Alfonso X of Castile, in which Castile agreed to end support for the Banu Ashqilula in exchange for payments. When Castile took the money but maintained its support for the Banu Ashqilula, Muhammad turned towards Abu Yusuf of the Marinids. The Marinids sent a successful expedition against Castile, but relations soured when the Marinids treated the Banu Ashqilula as Muhammad's equals. In 1279, through diplomatic manoeuvring, Muhammad regained Málaga, formerly the centre of Banu Ashqilula power. In 1280, his diplomacy backfired when Granada faced simultaneous attacks from Castile, the Marinids and the Banu Ashqilula. Attacked by his more powerful neighbours, Muhammad exploited the rift between Alfonso and his son Sancho, as well as receiving help from Volunteers of the Faith, soldiers recruited from North Africa. The threat subsided when Alfonso died in 1284 and Abu Yusuf in 1286; their successors (Sancho and Abu Yaqub, respectively) were preoccupied with domestic matters. In 1288 the Banu Ashqilula emigrated to North Africa at Abu Yaqub's invitation, removing Muhammad's biggest domestic concern. In 1292, Granada helped Castile take Tarifa from the Marinids on the understanding that the town would be traded to Granada, but Sancho reneged on the promise. Muhammad II then switched to the Marinid side, but a Granadan–Marinid attempt to retake Tarifa in 1294 failed. In 1295, Sancho died and was succeeded by Ferdinand IV, a minor. Granada took advantage by conducting a successful campaign against Castile, taking Quesada and Alcaudete. Muhammad also planned a joint offensive with Aragon against Castile, but he died in 1302 before the operation took place.

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