Translation, Adaptation, Propaganda: Alfonso X of Castile and Historia Regum Britanniae
Translation, Adaptation, Propaganda: Alfonso X of Castile and Historia Regum Britanniae

Summary/Abstract: Thanks to the Toledo School Europe rediscovered some long-lost classical texts whichform the basis of Western culture. In its cultural enterprise, the School went beyond the mere act oftranslating: its scholars produced new texts based on those translations and medieval chronologiesand King Alfonso’s General Estoria (GE) is an example of this. One of the medieval texts thatAlfonso used for the composition of his GE was Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae,a pseudo-historical account of the creation and development of the British Isles. This article analysesthree short paragraphs of the original work (the original text had some propagandistic features) andhow they were translated and adapted into emerging Castilian and to what extent these Alfonsineadaptations also contain some propaganda features.

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