9 - Alfonso XI of Castile

Summary

The ninth chapter focuses on the practice of self-coronation among medieval Castilian kings and its religious, political and ideological implications. It takes Alfonso XI of Castile’s self-knighting self-coronation (1332) as a central event, establishing its conceptual genealogy, significance and relevance, deploying Visigothic, Asturian, Leonese and Castilian chronicles as the main sources. The case of Alfonso XI deserves particular attention, as it throws some light on the debate on the allegedly secular kingship of Castilian kings. This chapter explores Alfonso XI’s motivations for designing these rituals, whether there were any precedents for this particular gesture in Castile and to what extent he was aware of the different rates at which the anointing and coronation ceremonies were introduced into his own kingdoms. It is actually possible to establish a ritual genealogy from Visigothic, Asturian and Leonese kingdoms to the kingdom of Castile, and from Wamba’s anointing in 672 to Alfonso XI’s self-coronation in 1332, in order to reflect on the precedents for this gesture.