Perhaps he was not the first king to show an immense interest in and support for culture, the arts, music, astrology and history. But he certainly did so more than his predecessors in the Iberian Peninsula. After all, one is not remembered, without good reason, by the epithets “the Wise” – and – “the Astrologer”.

This king stands at the origin of a great many works of science, art and literature, while taking part in them as a dedicated participant. Alfonso X did not only commission translations, or give scholars the task of writing these works, but also took part himself in the creation of many manuscripts, as was the case with the Cantigas de Santa Maria. And among the almost 430 cantigas, some are not only attributed to him, but are also written in the first person, from the king’s own point of view, recalling moments from his life and turning this collection of cantigas partly, as some have called it, into a “poetic autobiography”.

Besides these first-hand stories, los libros de los cantares de loor de Sancta Maria bring us the way of life of medieval people through the miracles of a powerful woman, and how people lived around them. The protagonists of the cantigas come from every background. Rich and poor, kings and common people, musicians and bakers, young and old, Santa Maria granted them all a miracle. And Alfonso X left no one out, because the miracles even gave lessons to the clergy.

Therefore, Alfonso X, the Wise, and his scholars, jongleurs and segréis, whom the king makes a point of recognising in practically every manuscript of the Cantigas through their depictions in richly detailed illuminations, collected and retold around 400 stories attributed in this book to Santa Maria.

These miracles happened throughout Iberia, some even across Europe, following a poetic form developed both at the same time in the regions of Al-Andalus and Occitania, and collectively in places spread throughout Iberia during the era of Convivencia. They were written in Galician-Portuguese, a language that had kept its poetic tradition intact for hundreds of years before the king, and set to melodies that sometimes sound Gaelic, sometimes Sephardic, and sometimes simply Iberian, to share his devotion to a woman who was called Virgin, or Maiden, who was Mother, who was seen as a woman who helps, a Handmaiden, and Queen: Dona das donas, Sennor das sennores.

Who would not want to know more about that?