Socratic dialogue (Ancient Greek: Σωκρατικὸς λόγος) is a genre of literaryprose developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC. The earliest ones are preserved in the works of Plato and Xenophon and all involve Socrates as the protagonist.
These dialogues, and subsequent ones in the genre, present a discussion
of moral and philosophical problems between two or more individuals
illustrating the application of the Socratic method.
The dialogues may be either dramatic or narrative. While Socrates is
often the main participant, his presence in the dialogue is not
essential to the genre.
Platonic dialogues
Most of the Socratic dialogues referred to today are those of Plato. Platonic dialogues
defined the literary genre subsequent philosophers used. Plato wrote
approximately 35 dialogues, in most of which Socrates is the main
character.
The protagonist of each dialogue, both in Plato's and Xenophon's work, usually is Socrates
who by means of a kind of interrogation tries to find out more about
the other person's understanding of moral issues. In the dialogues
Socrates presents himself as a simple man who confesses that he has
little knowledge. With this ironic approach he manages to confuse the
other who boasts that he is an expert in the domain they discuss. The
outcome of the dialogue is that Socrates demonstrates that the other
person's views are inconsistent. In this way Socrates tries to show the
way to real wisdom. One of his most famous statements in that regard is
"The unexamined life is not worth living." This philosophical
questioning is known as the Socratic method.
Strictly speaking, the term Socratic dialogue refers to works in which Socrates is a character. As a genre, however, other texts are included; Plato's Laws and Xenophon's Hiero are Socratic dialogues in which a wise man other than Socrates leads the discussion (the Athenian Stranger and Simonides, respectively). In some dialogues, Plato's main character is not Socrates but someone from outside of Athens. In Xenophon's Hiero a certain Simonides plays this role when Socrates is not the protagonist.
Generally, the works which are most often assigned to Plato's
early years are all considered to be Socratic dialogues (written from
399 to 387). Many of his middle dialogues (written from 387 to 361,
after the establishment of his Academy),
and later dialogues (written in the period between 361 and his death in
347) incorporate Socrates' character and are often included here as
well. However, this interpretation of the corpus is not universally accepted.
The time that Plato began to write his works and the date of
composition of his last work are not known and what adds to the
complexity is that even the ancient sources do not know the order of the
works or the dialogues.
The complete list of the thirty-five Platonic dialogues that have been traditionally identified as authentic, as given in Diogenes Laërtius,
is included below in alphabetical order. The authenticity of some of
these dialogues has been questioned by some modern scholarship.
Alexamenus of Teos – According to a fragment of Aristotle,
he was the first author of a Socratic dialogue, but we do not know
anything else about him, whether Socrates appeared in his works, or how
accurate Aristotle was in his antagonistic judgement about him.
Socratic
dialogue remained a popular format for expressing arguments and drawing
literary portraits of those who espouse them. Some of these dialogues
employ Socrates as a character, but most simply employ the philosophical
style similar to Plato while substituting a different character to lead
the discussion.
Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), a non-Socratic dialogue on species counterpoint. The conversation is between Aloysius, who represents the compositional style of Palestrina, and his student, Josephus.
Berkeley's Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous
is a Socratic dialogue between two university students named Philonous
and Hylas, where Philonous tries to convince Hylas that idealism makes
more sense than materialism.
Proofs and Refutations
is a 1976 book on the logic of discovery and progress in mathematics.
It is written as a series of Socratic dialogues between a group of
students who debate the proof of the Euler characteristic for the polyhedron.
Systems of Survival
is a dialogue about two fundamental and distinct ethical systems (or
syndromes as she calls them): that of the Guardian and that of Commerce.
She argues that these supply direction for the conduct of human life
within societies, and understanding the tension between them can help us
with public policy and personal choices.
This academic philosopher
has published a series of Socratic dialogues in which Socrates
questions famous thinkers from the distant and near past. The first of
the series was Between Heaven and Hell, a dialogue between C. S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley, and John F. Kennedy. He also authored a book of Socratic logic.
Buhler is an academic philosopher who published a Socratic dialogue in which Seraphim Rose plays the socratic questioner. He dialogues with a group of theology students on the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura.
Malone has published a series of contemporary Socratic dialogues titled Five College Dialogues. Five College Dialogues
is intended to be a comedic resource for college students with a
graduate student named "George Tecce" taking the role of Socrates.
In the 1980s and 1990s a British psychologist and the well-known comedian collaborated on two books, Families and How to Survive Them (1984) and Life and How to Survive It (1993), in which they take the Socratic dialogue approach to questions of families and life.
Philosopher David Lewis and his wife Stephanie wrote a metaphysical dialogue on the subject of holes between two interlocuters, Argle and Bargle, in 1970.
Peter III of Aragon (In Aragonese, Pedro; in Catalan, Pere; in Italian, Pietro; c. 1239 – November 1285) was King of Aragon, King of Valencia (as Peter I), and Count of Barcelona (as Peter II) from 1276 to his death. At the invitation of some rebels, he conquered the Kingdom of Sicily and became King of Sicily in 1282, pressing the claim of his wife, Constance II of Sicily, uniting the kingdom to the crown.
At the same time, a succession crisis continued in the County of Urgell. When Àlvar of Urgell died in 1268, the families of his two wives, Constance, a daughter of Pere de Montcada of Bearn, and Cecilia, a daughter of Roger-Bernard II of Foix,
began a long fight over the inheritance of his county. Meanwhile, a
good portion of the county had been repossessed by Peter's father, James
I, and was thus inherited by Peter in 1276. In 1278, Ermengol X,
Àlvar's eldest son, succeeded in recovering most of his lost patrimony
and came to an agreement with Peter whereby he recognised the latter as
his suzerain.
In 1280, Peter defeated the stewing rebellion led by Roger-Bernard III after besieging the rebels in Balaguer for a month. Most of the rebel leaders were imprisoned in Lleida until 1281, while Roger-Bernard was imprisoned until 1284.
Wars abroad
Tunisia
When Muhammad I al-Mustansir, the Hafsid Emir of Tunisia who had put himself under James I of Aragon, died in 1277, Tunisia threw off the yoke of Aragonese suzerainty. Peter first sent an expedition to Tunis in 1280 under Conrad de Llansa designed to re-establish his suzerainty. In 1281, he himself prepared to lead a fleet of 140 ships with 15,000 men to invade Tunisia on behalf of the governor of Constantine. The fleet landed at Alcoyll in 1282. It was these Aragonese troops that received a Sicilian embassy after the Vespers of 30 March asking Peter to take their throne from Charles I of Anjou.
The Italian physician John of Procida acted on behalf of Peter in Sicily. John had fled to Aragon after Charles' success at the Battle of Tagliacozzo. John travelled to Sicily to stir up the discontents in favour of Peter and thence to Constantinople to procure the support of Michael VIII Palaiologos. Michael refused to aid the Aragonese king without papal approval, and so John voyaged to Rome and there gained the consent of Pope Nicholas III, who feared the ascent of Charles in the Mezzogiorno. John then returned to Barcelona but the Pope died, to be replaced by Pope Martin IV, a Frenchman and a staunch ally of Charles and the Anjou dynasty. This set the stage for the upcoming conflict.
Constance thus claimed to her father's throne, supported by her
husband, but the claim was fruitless, as Charles was supported by the
Papacy and his power remained stronger. The election of a new Pope Nicholas III in 1277 gave the King of Aragon a glimpse of hope, but Nicholas died in 1280 and a pro-French Pope Martin IV dissipated hopes.
Peter nevertheless had begun making strategic alliances with his neighbouring monarchs. Peter made his brother James II of Majorca sign the treaty of Perpignan in 1279, in which he recognized the Kingdom of Majorca
as a feudal kingdom of Peter III (making the Crown of Aragon an
indissoluble unity). Peter pressed his advantage and by February 1283
had taken most of the Calabrian coastline. Charles, perhaps feeling
desperate, sent letters to Peter demanding they resolve the conflict by
personal combat. Peter accepted and Charles returned to France to
arrange the duel. Both kings chose six knights to settle on places and
dates, and a duel was scheduled for 1 June at Bordeaux. A hundred knights would accompany each side and Edward I of England
would adjudge the contest; the English king, heeding the pope, however,
refused to take part. Peter left John of Procida in charge of Sicily
and returned via his own kingdom to Bordeaux, which he entered in
disguise to evade a suspected French ambush. Needless to say, no combat
ever took place and Peter returned to find a very turbulent Aragon.
He also had a long-lasting friendly relationship with the Kingdom of Castile, establishing a strong alliance between realms by signing the treaties of Campillo and Ágreda in 1281 with Alfonso X of Castile and infant Sancho.
On 30 March 1282 there was a popular uprising in the Kingdom of Sicily called the Sicilian Vespers,
against the government of Charles I of Anjou. The noble sicilian rebels
asked for Peter for help and offered him the crown as they considered
his wife Constance their rightful Queen, and after receiving an embassy
from the people of Palermo at Alcoy, Peter landed at Trapani on 30 August 1282.[7] He was proclaimed King in Palermo on 4 September.[4] Charles was forced to flee across the Straits of Messina and be content with his Kingdom of Naples. Pope Martin IV excommunicated both Peter and Michael VIII Palaiologos for providing Peter with 60,000 gold pieces to invade Sicily.[9]
Catalan ground troops were commanded by Guillem Galceran de Cartellà, and were formed by the famous and feared almogavars, crossbowmen, and lancers. Peter's powerful fleet was commanded by Roger of Lauria, and constantly repelled Angevin attacks to the island. Roger de Lauria defeated the French forces at the Battle of Malta, and at the Gulf of Naples in 1284, where Charles of Salerno, son of Charles I, was made prisoner.
The conquest of Sicily was financed by Jewish contributions and taxes charged to the aljamas. The infant Alfonso demanded them an allowance of 200,000 sous in 1282. The aljamas from the Kingdom of Valencia gave 25,000 sous, the Aragonese 75,000 and 100,000 were charged to the Catalanaljamas. The Kingdom of Sicily was to be a tenaciously pursued inheritance for the Aragonese royal house and its heirs for the next five centuries.
Later domestic unrest
Peter was dealing with domestic unrest at the time when the French were preparing an invasion of Aragon. He took Albarracín from the rebellious noble Juan Núñez de Lara, he renewed the alliance with Sancho IV of Castile, and he attacked Tudela in an attempt to prevent Philip I of Navarre from invading on that front. Peter held meetings of the cortes at Tarragona and Zaragoza in 1283. He was forced to grant the Privilegio General to the newly formed Union of Aragon.[8]
Also in 1283, Peter's brother James II of Majorca joined the French and recognised their suzerainty over Montpellier. This gave the French free passage into Catalonia through Roussillon as well as access to the Balearic Islands. In October, Peter began preparing the defences of Catalonia. In 1284, Pope Martin IV granted the Kingdom of Aragon to Charles, Count of Valois,
another son of the French king and great-nephew of Charles I of Anjou.
Papal sanction was given to a war to conquer Aragon on behalf of Charles
of Valois.
Peter III the Great at Col de Panissars, painting by Mariano Barbasán (1891), Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza, Zaragoza
In 1284, the first French armies under Philip and Charles
entered Roussillon. They included 16,000 cavalry, 17,000 crossbowmen,
and 100,000 infantry, along with 100 ships in south French ports. Though the French had James's support, the local populace rose against them. The city of Elne was valiantly defended by the so-called "bastard of Roussillon", the illegitimate son of Nuño Sánchez, late count of Roussillon. Eventually he was overcome and the cathedral was burnt; the royal forces progressed.
In 1285, Philip entrenched himself before Girona
in an attempt to besiege it. The resistance was strong, but the city
was taken. Charles was crowned there, but without an actual crown. The
French soon experienced a reversal, however, at the hands of Roger de Lauria, back from the Italian theatre of the drawn-out conflict. The French fleet was defeated and destroyed at the Battle of Les Formigues on 4 September 1285. In addition, the French camp was hit hard by an epidemic of dysentery.
The King of France himself was afflicted. The King of Navarre,
the heir apparent to the French throne, opened negotiations with Peter
for free passage for the royal family through the Pyrenees. But the
troops were not offered such passage and were decimated at the Battle of the Col de Panissars. Philip III of France died in October at Perpignan, the capital of James II of Majorca (who had fled in fear after being confronted by Peter), and was buried in Narbonne. James was declared a vassal of Peter.
Troubadour works
Peter
matched his father in patronage of the arts and literature, but unlike
him he was a lover of verse, not prose. He favoured the troubadours, having himself created two sirventesos. The first is in the form of an exchange between himself and Peironet, a troubadour. The second is part of a compilation of five compositions from Peter himself, Bernat d'Auriac, Pere Salvatge, Roger-Bernard III of Foix, and an anonymous contributor.
As well the wars with Philip III of France and James II of Majorca furnished material for new sirventesos and during this period the sirventes
was converted into a convenient tool of political propaganda in which
each side could, directly or allegorically, present its case and procure
sympathy propitious to its cause.
Death and legacy
Peter died from unknown causes at Vilafranca del Penedès in November 1285, just one month after Philip III of France, and was buried in the Monastery of Santes Creus.
His deathbed absolution occurred after he declared that his conquests
had been in the name of his familial claims and never against the claims
of the church. His remains are entombed in a porphyry sarcophagus at the monastery.
Peter made his final testament on 2 November 1285. In it he
instructed his successor to return the kingdom of Sicily to the pope and
to release all Angevin prisoners of war. Although the will was copied
into the royal register, it was ignored by his successors. Peter's
eldest son, Alfonso III, inherited Aragon while Sicily went to his second son, James II. His third son, Frederick, later succeeded James as king of Sicily.
Peter did not provide for his illegitimate youngest son and namesake,
Peter. This Peter left Spain for Portugal with his half-sister
Elizabeth.
In the Divine Comedy, (Purgatory, Canto VII) Dante Alighieri sees Peter "singing in accord" with his former rival, Charles I of Anjou, outside the gates of Purgatory.
The history of Spain is marked by waves of conquerors who brought
their distinct cultures to the peninsula. After the migration of the Vandals and Alans down the Mediterranean coast of Hispania from 408, the history of medieval Spain begins with the Iberian kingdom of the ArianistVisigoths (507–711), who were converted to Catholicism along with their king Reccared in 587. Visigothic culture in Spain can be seen as a phenomenon of Late Antiquity as much as part of the Age of Migrations.
From Northern Africa in 711, the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate crossed into Spain, at the invitation of a Visigothic clan to assist it in rising against King Roderic.
Over the period 711–788, the Umayyads conquered most of the lands of
the Visigothic kingdom of Hispania and established the territory known
as Al-Andalus. A revolt during the conquest established the Christian Kingdom of Asturias in the north of Spain.
Much of the period is marked by conflict between the Muslim and Christian states of Spain, referred to as the Reconquista,
or the Reconquest (i.e., The Christians "reconquering" their lands as a
religious crusade). The border between Muslim and Christian lands
wavered southward through 700 years of war, which marked the peninsula
as a militarily contested space. The medieval centuries also witnessed
episodes of warfare between Spain's Christian states and between the
Muslim taifas, successor states of the Caliphate of Cordoba. Wars between the Crown of Aragon and the Crown of Castile were sparked by dynastic rivalries or disagreements over tracts of land conquered or to be conquered from the Muslim south.
When the Germanic tribes invaded the provinces of the Roman Empire, the hordes, urged forward by the pressure of the Huns in their rear, hurled themselves for the first time upon the Pyrenean Peninsula – the Alani, a people of Scythian, or Tatar, race; the Vandals and Suebians,
Germanic races. The Alani were, for the most part, quickly brought into
subjection. The Vandals, after establishing themselves in Baetica, to which they gave the name of Vandalusia (Andalusia), passed on into Africa, while the Visigoths
hemmed in the Suebi in Galicia until the latter were completely brought
under control. These Visigoths, or Western Goths, after sacking Rome under the leadership of Alaric (410), turned towards the Iberian Peninsula, with Athaulf for their leader, and occupied the northeastern portion. Wallia extended his rule over most of the peninsula, keeping the Suebians shut up in Galicia. Theodoric I took part, with the Romans and Franks, in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, where Attila was routed.
Euric
(466), who put an end to the last remnants of Roman power in the
peninsula, may be considered the first monarch of Spain, though the
Suebians still maintained their independence in Galicia. Euric was also
the first king to give written laws to the Visigoths. In the following
reigns the Catholic kings of France assumed the role of protectors of
the Hispano-Roman Catholics against the Arianism of the Visigoths, and in the wars which ensued Alaric II and Amalaric lost their lives.
Visigothic church of Santa Comba de Bande, Ourense. Galicia, Spain.
Athanagild, having risen against King Agila,
called in the Byzantine Greeks and, in payment for the succour they
gave him, ceded to them the maritime places of the southeast (554). Liuvigild
restored the political unity of the peninsula, subduing the Suebians,
but the religious divisions of the country, reaching even the royal
family, brought on a civil war. St. Hermengild,
the king's son, putting himself at the head of the Catholics, was
defeated and taken prisoner, and suffered martyrdom for rejecting
communion with the Arians. Reccared,
son of Liuvigild and brother of St. Hermengild, added religious unity
to the political unity achieved by his father, accepting the Catholic
faith in the Third Council of Toledo (589).
The fugitive Goths found a retreat in those mountains where the
Romans had never been able to effectively establish their authority;
only a few years after the Battle of Guadalete (711), they gained a victory over Alqama in the Battle of Covadonga (718 or 722). Don Pelayo, or Pelagius, the Gothic chieftain who was victor at Covadonga, was acclaimed king, and took up his residence at Cangas de Onís. His son Favila was killed while hunting, torn to pieces by a bear, and was succeeded by Alfonso I, son-in-law of Don Pelayo, who expanded his kingdom as far as Galicia and Tierra de Campos (the "Gothic Fields" or Campos Góticos).
Fruela I (757- came to power) founded Oviedo. He was assassinated, and was succeeded by several kings (Aurelius, Silo, Mauregato, and Bermudo I, the Deacon) and at last Alfonso II, the Chaste, who set up his court at Oviedo, recommenced the great expeditions against the Muslims, and seems to have invited Charlemagne to come to Asturias, thus occasioning the Frankish monarch's expedition which ended in the disaster of Roncevaux. The Vikings invaded Galicia in 844 but were expelled by Ramiro I from A Coruña; 70 Viking ships were captured and burned. Vikings returned to Galicia in 859, during the reign of Ordoño I. They were faced with an army led by Don Pedro who dispersed them and destroyed 38 of their ships. Alfonso III, the Great,
continued the forays as far as the Sierra Morena, and founded Burgos,
the future capital of Castile. His sons rebelled against him, and he
abdicated the crown, dividing his dominions among them. With him ended
the Kingdom of Asturias, the territory of which soon became subject to
León.
Another rallying-point of the Reconquest was Aragón; the other
two, Navarre and Catalonia, were placed by the circumstances of their
origin in peculiar relations with France. The Basques on either side of
the Western Pyrenees dissatisfied with Frankish rule, rebelled on
several occasions. At Roncevaux they annihilated the forces of
Charlemagne, and in 824 another victory secured the independence of the
Basques of Pamplona. The names and dates of their kings, or chieftains,
are very uncertain until we come to Sancho II, Abarca. He abdicated in favour of his son, García II, the Trembler, in whose time the Leónese and Navarrese together were routed at Valdejunquera. Sancho III, the Great,
was one of the monarchs who most influenced Spanish history; he was
eventually King of Navarre, Castile, Aragón, and Sobrarbe. At his death
(1035) he divided his kingdoms, giving Navarre to his eldest son García,
Castile, with the title of King, to Fernando, Aragón to Ramiro, and
Sobrarbe to Gonzálo.
Unification of Spain
Several
difficulties stood in the way to the union of the various states formed
in Spain by the Reconquest. Navarre and Catalonia were in particularly
close contact with France, and the marriage of Ramón Berenguer the Great
with Dulcia, heiress of Provence, made the relations between the
peoples of the langue d'oc so close that the subsequent
development of Catalonia was connected rather with that of the South of
France. In Navarre, when the dynasty of Sancho the Elder became extinct,
the Crown passed in succession to the houses of Blois (1234) of France, and of Évreux
(1349–1441), with the result that Navarre, until the 15th century,
lived in much closer relations with the French monarchy than with the
Spanish states. On the other hand, the feudal system introduced in the
western kingdoms by the House of Navarre brought about repeated
partitions of states. Ferdinand I divided his kingdom into five parts, Castile, León, Galicia, Zamora, and Toro, though his son Sancho the Strong despoiled his brothers and restored the kingdom to unity. But Alfonso VII separated Castile and León, leaving the former to his son Sancho, and the latter to Ferdinand I.
Another result of feudal customs being introduced by the Burgundian princes was the separation of Portugal. For Alfonso VI gave his daughters Urraca and Teresa in marriage to Raymond of Burgundy and Henry of Burgundy respectively who founded two dynasties: that of Portugal, and that of Castile and León, which began with Alfonso VII. The Kingdoms of Asturias, Galicia, León, and Castile were united under Ferdinand III, heir of León through his father Alfonso IX, and of Castile through his mother Berengaria. In the same way Catalonia and Aragón were united by the marriage of Ramón Berenguer with Doña Petronila, daughter of Ramiro the Monk, of Aragón.
The
kingdom formed by the union of Aragón and Catalonia was the first to
complete the Reconquest in their regional area, they then directed their
strength eastward. Peter II the Catholic, sovereign of Aragón and Catalonia, went to Rome to seek the annulment of his marriage with Maria of Montpellier
and to have himself crowned by the pope. The former purpose he failed
to accomplish; the latter occasioned him a great deal of trouble, as the
Aragónese nobles refused to recognize the position of vassalage to the Holy See
in which Peter had placed his kingdom. These nobles then forced for the
first time the union, which was the cause of such serious disturbances
until Peter IV with his dagger cut in pieces the document which recorded it. Peter II the Catholic, fell in the Battle of Muret (1213), defending his Albigensian kinsmen against Simon de Montfort, whom Innocent III had sent against them. His son, James I, the Conqueror, completed the Catalan-Aragónese Reconquest, winning Majorca (1228) and Valencia (1238) besides helping his son-in-law, Alfonso X, to complete the conquest of Murcia. His son and successor gave new direction to Catalan-Aragónese policy by enforcing the rights of his wife, Constance, to the kingdoms of Sicily and Naples. Profiting by the rising of the Sicilian Vespers against the Angevins (1282), he gained Sicily and attacked Naples.
This conquest, however, placed the kings of Aragón in a position
of antagonism with the popes, who defended the rights of the House of
Anjou. Martin IV, having excommunicated Peter III,
led the Aragónese nobles to take advantage in extending their
privileges at the expense of royal power. The demands of the nobles
increased in the reign of Alfonso III, who was forced to confirm to them the famous Privilegio de la Union. James II
became reconciled with the Holy See, accepting Corsica and Sardinia in
lieu of Sicily. Peter IV, the Ceremonious, defeated the nobles at Epila
(1348) and used his dagger to cut in pieces the charter they had
extorted from his predecessors. In the meantime, the Catalans and
Aragónese who were left in Sicily offered themselves to Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos to fight the Turks.
Having conquered them, they turned their arms against the Greeks, who
treacherously slew their leaders; but for this treachery the Spaniards,
under Bernard of Rocafort and Berenguer of Entenca, exacted the terrible
penalty which is celebrated in history as "The Catalan Vengeance" and
moreover seized the Duchies of Athens and Neopatras (1313). The royal line of Aragón became extinct with Martin the Humane, and the Compromise of Caspe gave the Crown to the dynasty of Castile, thus preparing the final union. Alfonso V, the Magnanimous,
once more turned Aragonese policy to the direction of Italy, where he
possessed the Kingdom of Sicily and acquired that of Naples by having
himself made adoptive son of Queen Joanna. With these events began the Italian wars which were not to end until the 18th century.
The Spanish kingdoms in 1360
Meanwhile, the Reconquest languished in Castile; at first, because of the candidacy of Alfonso X for the crown of the Holy Roman Empire,
in which candidacy he had secured a majority of the electoral princes.
This was followed by a disputed succession to the throne, the rival
claimants being the Cerda heirs (sons of Fernando, the eldest son of Alfonso X) and the second son of Sancho IV. Later, Ferdinand IV succeeded to the throne at the age of nine, being under the tutelage of his mother María de Molina.
Alfonso XI was little more than one year old when his father died
(1312); and though his reign was in many respects glorious, and he
overcame the Marinids in the Battle of Río Salado (1340), still his relationship with Eleanor de Guzmán,
by whom he had several children, resulted in the wars of the following
reign, that of Pedro the Cruel, who was at last slain by his bastard
brother, Henry of Trastámara, and succeeded on the throne as Henry II. John I, who married Beatrice of Portugal (1383), sought to unite the two kingdoms on the death of Ferdinand, the last King of Portugal of the Burgundian line. The Portuguese, however, defeated John of Castile at the Battle of Aljubarrota (1385), and the Portuguese Crown went to the Master of Aviz, who became John I of Portugal. Henry III, who married Catherine of Lancaster, was the first to take the title of Prince of Asturias as heir to the Crown, which he inherited during his minority, as did his son, John II.
Alfonso X commissioned a translation of an Arabic work on chess, dice and tables games called the Libro de los Juegos in 1283. The work contains information on the playing of chess, with over 100 chess problems and chess variants. The king also co-authored several works of music such as the Cantigas d'escarnio e maldicer and the Cantigas de Santa Maria in Galician-Portuguese.
The former contains more than 400 poems alongside musical notation, and
currently forms one of the largest collections of songs to have
survived from the Middle Ages.
