Las Siete Partidas (review)

Short Notices Burns, R. I., ed., Las Siete Partidas, trans. S. P. Scott, Philadelphia, Universit of Pennsylvania Press, 2001; paper; 5 vols.; R R P unknown; I S B N 0812217381 (v. 1). The great Castilian-language code of law in Seven Parts, the Siete Partida compiled under the auspices ofKing Alfonso X, el sabio (the learned) (1252-84). I t s production had been foreshadowed by his father Fernando III (1217-52) as an attempt to unify the plethora oftraditional laws and customs prevailing throughout Leon and Castile. However, nothing was accomplished until the production of a Libro delfuero, most probably in 1255. Resistance to this code led royaljurists to revise and expand the work until what is now known as the Siete Partidas was produced, probably around 1290 after Alfonso's death. However, even then the code was not officially promulgated and therefore was reworked privately by many jurists with the result that there are considerable differences between the various surviving manuscripts. Not until 1348 did Alfonso's great grandson, Alfonso XI, give the Siete Partidas official legal status equal to the customary law ofthe realm. There is still no critical edition ofthe code. S. P. Scott's tranlation was done from the edition ofI. Sanponts y Barba, et al., Las "Sietepartidas " del sabio rey don Alfonso el IX [= X], 4 vols (Barcelona, 1843-4), which was itself an edition ofthe accepted edition of 1555 by Gregorio Lopez Heavily indebted to medieval Roman and Canon law, as well as to the Lombard Librifeudorum and the customary maritime law of the Bay of Biscay, the Rolesof Oleron, the Siete Partidas was a code of law quite different to other 292 Short Notices medieval codes of law. It also utilized philosophy and theology in the works of Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Boethius, Isidore of Seville, and Thomas Aquinas, amongst others, to provide the principles lying behind the Laws. Limited in its medieval influence by the fact that it was written in Castilian rather than Latin, the Siete Partidas nevertheless had great influence on the development of law in the Iberian peninsula and then throughout the Spanish and Portuguese diaspora. The 1931 translation by Samuel Parsons Scott, the only English translation, has long been extremely difficult to obtain and this reprint in five volumes will be welcomed. The three introductory essays by Robert I. Burns, S.J., 'The Partidas Introduction', Joseph F. O.'Callaghan, 'Alfonso X and the Partidas', and Jerry R. Craddock, "The Partidas: Bibliographical notes' are also very welcome. Rather than a dry and dusty law book, the Siete Partidas was a code enlivened by application to daily life. In some ways the code was more like an encyclopedia than a law book. The laws are fun to read and medievalists of all persuasions willfindmaterial in them pertinent to their own interests. John H Pryor Centrefor Medieval Studies University ofSydney Copeland, Rita, David Lawton and Wendy Scase, eds., New Medieval Literatures, vol. 2, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998; cloth; pp. viii, 282; 2 b/w illustrations; R R P £47.50; ISBN 019818476X. Rita Copeland's elegant introduction positions NML volume 2 as 'continuin critical conversations between medieval studies and the "project of the present" begun in thefirstvolume.' This volume turns readers' attention to French, AngloNorman and Latin texts, traditions and textual cultures and consequently to the disciplinary and institutional relations between, for instance, medieval French studies in US, British and European discursive contexts. Given the predominance ofAngloAmerican dialogue within medieval literary and textual studies, Copeland's recognition ofthe constitutive conditions ofsuch exchanges is refreshing. Steven Kruger's 'The Spectral Jew' takes Jacques Derrida's Specters of Marx: The State ofDebt, the Work ofMourning, and the New International as it theoretical paradigm to argue for a reconceptualisation of 'Jews, Jewishness and Judaism' as both prior to and essential to the identity ofChristianity. In 'Unmanned M e n and Eunuchs of God: Peter Damian's Liber Gomorrhianus and the Sexual ...