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Rex scholaribus impendebant: The King's Image as Patron of Learning in Thirteenth Century French and Spanish Chronicles: A Comparative Approach

Department of History, Universidad San Pablo-CEU, Madrid, and Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, U.K.

Philip Augustus and St Louis' role in transforming Paris as the civitas scholarum of Western Christendom was praised by some French royal chroniclers as a conscious act for the sake of wisdom. In reality, the Capetian act to develop the University was a result of a difficult com promise between opposite interests. Other chroniclers were saying the same thing at the same time in the Spanish kingdom of Leon-Castile. We find this topos of the king as rex institutor scholarum in two of the most significant Spanish chronicles of this age, even as the implaus ibility of the rex litteratus' image forAlfonso VIII in these chronicles is patent. This picture of idealised wise kings concerned about education provides a good point of comparison between the images of kingship in French and Spanish chronicles written during the thirteenth century.

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