Alfonso, the name of several kings of Spain and Portugal, also written Alonso, Alonzo, Alphonso, and in Portuguese Affonso. There were five in Aragon, six in Portugal, and twelve in Leon and Castile. The kingdom of Leon is generally considered to have commenc-ed with Alfonso I., the Catholic, who was elected about 789 king of Asturia, subsequently called the kingdom of Leon and Oviedo, and died in 757. He carried on a war of extermination with the Moors. - Alfonso II., the Chaste, grandson of the preceding, elected king in 791, died in 842. He is famous in the national annals for having abolished the annual tribute of 100 Christian maidens to the Moors. In his reign lived the great Bernardo del Carpio, the hero of Spanish romance. - Alfonso III., the Great, son of Ordono L, born in 848, king in 866, died in 912. He extended the limits of the Christian rule to the Guadiana. put down a rebellion fomented by discontented nobles in favor of his son Garcia, but afterward abdicated, and won a victory over the infidels as general of his son's troops. - Alfonso VI., the Valiant, son of Ferdinand L, born in 10:30, succeeded to the throne of Leon in 1065, and died in 1109. Under the preceding reign the kingdoms of Leon and Old Castile had been united, and after much internal warfare with his brothers, among whom the father had parcelled out the kingdom, Alfonso made himself master of Leon, Old Castile, the Asturias, and Galicia. His successes against the Moors led to the invasion of the peninsula by the Almoravides from Africa, against whom Alfonso furnished assistance to his old enemy the king of Seville, but ineffectually.

Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, the celebrated Cid, lived in this reign. Alfonso VI. died without heirs male, and the united crowns fell to his daughter Urraca. She married Alfonso I. of Aragon, who in her right claimed the crown of Castile and Leon. The marriage was, however, dissolved on account of Queen Urraca's misconduct. - Alfonso VII. or VIII. (see Alfonso I. of Aragon), Raimondez, son of Queen Urraca and her first husband, Count Raymond of Burgundy, born in 1105, died in 1157. He was proclaimed king of Galicia in 1109, was for some time at war with his mother, and succeeded her in Leon and Castile in 1126. In 1185 he was crowned emperor of Spain, though he hardly possessed a third of it, and did not transmit the title. - Alfonso X., the Wise, king of Leon and Castile, born in 1226, succeeded his father Ferdinand III. in 1252, and died in 1284. He compelled the king of Granca a to do homage to the crown of Castile, and to pay a considerable sum of money. In 1256 Alfonso was chosen by some of the electors emperor of Germany, while Richard of Cornwall was sup-ported by others; but his power in Germany remained a mere shadow, and in 1273 Rudolph | of Hapsburg put an end to the interregnum. | His reign was disturbed by the revolt of his brother Philip and Alhamar, king of Granada, an invasion by the king of Morocco, and a civil war caused by the claim of his second son San-cho to be recognized as heir to the throne.

Sancho was excommunicated by the pope and the kingdom placed under an interdict. Alfonso was one of the most learned men of his age. He laid the foundation of Spanish prose by causing a translation of the Bible to be made into that language, by ordering all legal proceedings to be conducted in it, and by the excellent specimens which he himself gave of it in his writings. He is also distinguished as a poet and as a man of science. He is best remembered, however, for his celebrated body of laws, known usually as Las siete Partidas ("The seven Parts "), but named by its author the Setenario, from a code begun by his father. The materials for this work were drawn from the code of Justinian, the Visigothic laws, the local institutions of different parts of the kingdom, and other sources. Its enforcement was long resisted by the great cities, but it was at last in 1348 established on a firm footing, and has been ever since the basis of Spanish common law, and has even, by the admission of Florida and Louisiana into the United States, been introduced into the legal system of our own country.

Another important work of which Alfonso is the author is the Cronica general de Espana (" General Chronicle of Spain "). He established on a firm basis the university of Seville, and was eminent for his astronomical and mathematical attainments, and for his researches in alchemy. The as-tronomical tables which bear his name, and were probably constructed by Moorish astronomers invited to his court for that purpose, were celebrated for a long time. His astronomical works have been published in several volumes, by order of the Spanish government, edited by Manuel Rico y Sinobas (1864 et seq.).

Alfonso I., king of Aragon and Navarre, surnamed el Batallador (the battler), son of Sancho V., succeeded his brother Pedro I. in 1104, died in 1134. He married Urraca, daughter of Alfonso VI. of Leon and Castile, and in her right claimed the sovereignty of those states also, and is sometimes counted as Alfonso VII. of that line. The first years of his reign were distracted by violent quarrels and Avars with his wife, whom he finally divorced in 1114. The Moors under Ali ben Yusuf invaded the province of Toledo, and carried terror to the gates of the capital of Christian Spain; a second army appeared in Portugal; and a third laid siege to Barcelona. Alfonso fought an indecisive battle with these last in 1111, after which they abandoned Catalonia. Subsequently he directed his arms against the invaders in other quarters, and rescued almost all the territory S. of the Ebro from Mohammedan domination. He took Saragossa (1118) after a four years' series of operations, and made it his capital. In 1125 he invaded Andalusia at the invitation of the Mozarabes, or Christian inhabitants of that country; and though he failed in the siege of Granada, he performed the remarkable feat of leading an army through hostile territory from Saragossa to the Mediterranean, somewhere between Malaga and Al-meria, and back again, without serious loss.

On the death of his divorced queen he made preparations to enforce his claims in Castile, but was persuaded by the church to agree to a truce and renounce the title of emperor of Spain, which he had assumed. He finally undertook to secure the free navigation of the Ebro by reducing the Moorish city of Tortosa near its mouth. As a preliminary to this enterprise he besieged Fraga, on the Ciuga, an affluent of the Ebro, and was there slain in battle - the only engagement, it is said, in which he was ever vanquished.