Note 519 — Chapter XVI

Alfonso was born in 1221 and died in 1284, and Jayme I., whose name, it should be noted, is also spelt Jaume, Jaime, and Jacme, was born in 1208 and died in 1276. It is probable, as I have already said, that Alfonso’s Chronicle was written a little before 1260; but that period was twenty-one years after the date of all the facts recorded in Jayme’s account of the conquest of Valencia. In connection with the question of the precedence of these two Chronicles may be taken the circumstance, that it has been believed by some persons that Jayme attempted to make Catalan the language of the law and of all public records, thirty years before the similar attempt already noticed was made by Alfonso X. in relation to the Castilian. Villanueva, Viage Literario á las Iglesias de España, Valencia, 1821, Tom. VII. p. 195.

Another work of the king remains in manuscript. It is a moral and philosophical treatise, called “Lo Libre de la Saviesa,” or The Book of Wisdom, of which an account may be found in Castro, Biblioteca Española, Tom. II. p. 605.