Introduction

Abstract

This is a book on astronomy as it was practiced in the Middle Ages. At its core is an edition of a Castilian text, the canons to the Alf onsine Tables, composed in about 1272 under the patronage of Alfonso X, king of Castile and León (1221 [Toledo] — 1284 [Seville]; reigned: 1252–1284) by two scholars, Isaac ben Sid and Judah ben Moses ha-Cohen. This text, presented in chapter 2, survives in a unique manuscript and has been edited only once, almost a century and a half ago, by Rico Sinobas. As we shall demonstrate in chapter 2, this 19th-century edition does not meet the standards of modern scholarship in a number of ways and a new transcription is clearly required. The Castilian canons to the Alfonsine Tables belong to a long astronomical tradition that began in antiquity and flourished in the Islamic world, and it certainly reflects the intellectual context of Alfonso’s time as well. We will clarify the terminology in it in chapter 3, and indicate its relationship with the antecedent tradition in chapter 4 which contains an astronomical commentary. In chapter 5 we provide information on the intellectual context at Alfonso’s court, and in chapter 6 we describe the impact of the Castilian Alfonsine Tables on European astronomy, restricting our attention for the most part to the time up to the middle of the 14th century.