The Meseta, and El Hostal Guzmán el Bueno and Medieval Galician Poetry…What???

The Camino is a wonderful experience, one which can be enriched with just a slight bit of reading and knowledge - history, art, or architecture never hurt anyone. Many pilgrims, especially inattentive pilgrims not reading their guidebooks or following closely their App have been surprised by the sudden steep climb after Castrojerez up to the Meseta. The Meseta is often loved but others are less than impressed by its loneliness and seemingly desolation. The Meseta has a grand history. Before 1273 the Meseta was indeed a wasteland. Alfonso X (The Learned) ruled Castile, fought against the import of cheap wool from England, and opened the Meseta for some 3000 sheep holders to graze their animals preserving valuable farmland for crops. King Alfonso XThe Wise) developed a court culture that encouraged cosmopolitan learning welcoming and supporting all scholars regardless of religious beliefs, a widespread phenomenon in much of Spain until Ferdinand Isabella in 1492. He embraced knowledge and science, astronomy, history, and created a system of law still in use in parts of the Southwest USA. Alfonso was a prolific sponsor of Galician poetry, such as the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which are equally notable for their musical content as for their literary merit. An amazing man. Wait wait Scruffy, what does all this have to do with El Hostal Guzmán el Bueno in Leon? Before marriage, Alfonso had a romantic relationship with Mayor Guillén de Guzmán, who bore him a daughter, Beatrice.

jungleboy said:

Alfonso X The Wise was also the patron of the ‘Estonia de Espanna’, a landmark history of Spain written in the Spanish of his time, rather than Latin. I was lucky once upon a time to be involved in a digitisation project of this text. I wrote a bit about what I did as part of this project here for anyone interested:

Estoria de Espanna - Spirit of the Camino

My experience being involved in digitising the 'Estoria de Espanna' for the University of Birmingham's Estoria Digital project.

spiritofthecamino.com

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History does not repeat itself, idiotic humans do. Periods of tolerance, understanding, embracing knowledge, and education, as well as an infatuation with science as exemplified by the court of Alfonso, are quickly followed by periods of ethnic 'purity', intolerance, embracing ignorance, infatuation with fabricated reality and conspiracies, and violence. Not politics, we could learn much from Alfonso as far too many people today experience narrow-minded prejudices, the oppressive policies approaching the ideology of the Inquisition concerning their beliefs, their sexual orientation, and their politics as under the rule of Ferdinand and Isabela.