page_title: Siete Partidas
section_title: Purpose
hierarchical_section_title: Siete Partidas / Background / Purpose
context_page_description: The Siete Partidas or simply Partidas was a Castilian statutory code first compiled during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile, with the intent of establishing a uniform body of normative rules for the kingdom. The codified and compiled text was originally called the Libro de las Leyes. It was not until the 14th century that it was given its present name, referring to the number of sections into which it is divided.
  The Partidas had great significance in Latin America as well, where it was followed for centuries, up to the 19th century. Although the code concentrates on legislative issues, it has also been described as a "humanist encyclopedia," as it addresses philosophical, moral and theological topics as well, including the Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian and Islamic viewpoints.
context_section_description: Despite its lengthy treatment of philosophical issues, some have maintained that the Partidas is intended as a legislative text rather than a work of legal theory—a view explicitly supported by the prologue, which indicates that it was created only so that it could be used to render legal judgments.
  Yet, García-Gallo has contended that, the prologue notwithstanding, the Siete Partidas was rarely put into practice until over a century after it was written. Resistance to the Partidas, especially among the Castilian nobility, led the Cortes (legislature) to enact the Ordinances of Zamora in 1274. These laws set qualifications for judges serving on the royal tribunal and restricted the application of the Partidas to the pleitos del rey, that is, legal cases under the exclusive jurisdiction of the king. All other matters (pleitos foreros) were governed by local laws or fueros. It was not until the “late enactment” by Alfonso XI in 1348 that the Partidas became widely applied. Furthermore, opposition to the Partidas can explain the differences among the similar texts listed above.
  In any case, if the Partidas was written as a legal code, its ultimate objective has been a matter of dispute. Alfonso X, in what was called the fecho del imperio ("affair of the empire"), had aggressively pursued the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. His purpose for creating the Siete Partidas may have been to create a universally valid legal text for the entire Empire. In support of this argument, Aquilino Iglesias claimed in 1996 that the Partidas contained no references to Castilian territorial organization.
  Others, among them García-Gallo, argued by way of rebuttal that even though sometimes the role of the emperor appears higher than that of the monarchy, in other places the role of the monarchy appears higher than that of the emperor, and that furthermore the text was written in Spanish, rather than in Latin. (But an edition printed in Madrid in 1843, and available in facsimile from Google Books, appears to show that the Spanish is a translation of a Latin original) 
  What is certain is that the Partidas, including the prologue, makes no reference whatsoever to any intention to acquire the imperial crown. Moreover, some authors, such as Juan Escudero (a disciple of García-Gallo), have found references in the text to Castile's specific territorial organization, for example, villas.
  Therefore, it is generally believed that with the creation of the Partidas, Alfonso X was trying to unify the kingdom's legal system, not by using the 'local' approach of his father Ferdinand III (that is, by granting the same fuero to various regions), but rather through a general code that applied to the entire country.
  In this regard it has been argued that Alfonso X was moved by nascent national pride and a desire to establish Castilian as the common language of his kingdom when he commissioned and supported the work of the Castilian jurists and scholars in writing the "Siete Partidas".
caption: Alfonso X and his court
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