Las mujeres y los dados en la poesía de Alfonso X

Resumo

Betting on dice and all the social and moral disorders that this execrable vice entails must have been a cause of concern for Alfonso X at the end of his life, when, ill and abandoned by his family, he took refuge in the Sevillian court to finish the great collection of the Cantigas de Santa María and to write the Libro de axedrez, dados e tablas (Book of Chess, Dice and Tables). The present paper focuses on the treatment of the game of dice in Alfonso X’s works. For these purposes I examine the two legal codes where the intention was to regularise its practice (the Par tid a s and the Ordenamiento de las tafurerías), the book describing how dice should be played and for which purpose (Libro de los juegos) and, above all, the Cantigas de Santa María, where several examples are given of players who are exemplarily punished for sinning during the games. It seems that the Wise King wanted to take advantage of the concept of sin highlighted in the Marian texts to punish gambling, which was already punished as a crime, but whose sanction was not as effective as when transformed into a moral penalty.