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Podcast: New Books in Medieval History
Episode: Joseph F. O'Callaghan, "Alfonso X, the Justinian of His Age" (Cornell UP, 2019)
Description: While monarchs throughout history used their power to make laws as a tool for governing their realms, rarely did they undertake the long and detailed work of drawing up an entire legal code. One of the few who did so was the Castilian king Alfonso X, and as Joseph F. O'Callaghan explains in his book Alfonso X, the Justinian of His Age: Law and Justice in Thirteenth-Century Castile (Cornell University Press, 2019) this legal code provides insights into both his reign and the larger issues facing his kingdom in the Middle Ages. As O’Callaghan details, many of its provisions wer...