El Lucidario: Doctrina cristiana y heterodoxia en la corte de Sancho IV.

Abstract

Traditionally medieval Spain is categorized as an area of intellectual activity---due to the large amount of works translated in the School of Translators of Toledo and other areas---but not of scholarly accomplishment during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This view is partially challenged in the following dissertation. The evidence is presented in the <italic> Lucidario</italic> of Sancho IV, a dialogue in the vernacular which models how Christian theology and natural philosophy could interact at the end of the thirteenth century in Castile. Thus, the <italic>Lucidario</italic> provides an insight into notions of heterodox and orthodox thinking, Christian doctrine, natural science and metaphysics, which are all related to the courts of Alfonso X the Learned and Sancho IV. Our starting point is the prologue of the <italic>Lucidario</italic> written by Sancho IV. The king denounces the pursuit of knowledge which has led men to wrong conclusions; Sancho also refers to a controversy between theologians and natural philosophers, which seems to echo the condemnation of 219 theses in Paris in 1277. Our goal was to reconstruct the meaning of these statements and thus, the following conclusions were obtained. Sancho objected to the intellectual labor of Alfonso X and his collaborators while endorsing a more conventional formulation of the Christian doctrine in his own works (<italic>Lucidario</italic> and <italic>Castigos</italic>). The issues of contention with the Alfonsine period were the overriding role of astrology/astronomy, the conception of God as an Aristotelian motor and consequently, the belief in an eternal world. All these notions are contested in the <italic> Lucidario</italic> where God as an omnipotent creator and purgatory become central topics. Moreover, textual correspondences prove that the <italic> Lucidario</italic> is a counterreaction to the Alfonsine catechism, <italic> Setenario</italic>, where Alfonso had tried to achieve a synthesis of the three monotheist religions and Greek philosophy. Finally, the importance of all these specific issues defies the current assumption that the <italic>Lucidario</italic> is simply the partial translation and amplification of a previous Latin catechism, the <italic>Elucidarium</italic> of Honorius Augustodunensis. Through textual comparison it is shown that the <italic> Lucidario</italic> must be credited for his originality and independence from the <italic>Elucidarium</italic>.