Note 27 — Chapter II · THE TIME OF MOSLEM DOMINATION

[Burkeg explains the inconsistent enumerations of the kings of this period as follows:

The curious confusion arising from a twofold or threefold system of numeration of the Alfonsos of Castile and Leon in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries seems to call for some special notice. Dunhamh, Romeys and other foreign historians and chronologists, among whom the count de Mas-Latriet must ever be spoken of with the greatest respect, call Alfonso el Batallador, of Aragon, Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile, as in right of his wife Urraca; and thus call Alfonso el Imperador number VIII; and keep Alfonso III of Castile out of the Leonese or Junto numeration altogether. Thus and in other ways confusion has been introduced, and by imperfect explanation still worse confounded.

The following, it is to be hoped, is plain:

Alfonso VI of Leon was the first of the name to reign in Castile; and, as in the course of the next hundred and fifty years the two kingdoms were sometimes under the same king, though not formally united, and sometimes each with a king of its own, the plan has been generally adopted by modern Spanish writers of numbering the Alfonsos of Leon and of Castile consecutively, without regard to the kingdoms over which they reigned, taking no account of the Alfonsos of Aragon. Thus Alfonso el Sabio was Alfonso IV of Castile, and Alfonso IX of Leon, but Alfonso X of the consecutive Alfonsos, by which title he is always known. And it is by this numeration that the late king of Spain was Alfonso XII, and his present majesty is Alfonso XIII.]