Algunos moros muy sabidores: Virtuous Muslim Kings in Examples 30 and 41 of El conde Lucanor

Abstract

[ES]I analyse the representation of Muslim kings in examples 30 (King al-Muʿtamid of Seville) and 41 (Umayyad Caliph al-Ḥakam al-Mustanṣir) of El conde Lucanor by Juan Manuel, sustaining that they offer models of positive leaders whose virtues and morals help the author construct an idealised model of kingship. I examine how Juan Manuel adapts Andalusī historical chronicles and folkloric traditions in the examples in order to offer his readers exemplary, although hyperbolic, models of how a good king should behave towards his subjects. I conclude that this exercise of cultural translatio, from al-Andalus to Castile, serves a political purpose: to criticise the inefficient politics and behaviour of a bad king, Alfonso XI of Castile.