Petrus Alphonsi (died after 1116) was a Spanish physician, writer, astronomer and polemicist who was born and raised as a Jew and later in life converted to Christianity in 1106. He is also known just as Alphonsi, and as Peter Alfonsi or Peter Alphonso, and was born Moses Sephardi. Born in Islamic Spain, he mostly lived in England and France after his conversion.
Life Petrus Alphonsi was born at an unknown date and place in the 11th century in Spain, and educated in al-Andalus, or Islamic Spain. As he described himself, he was baptised at Huesca, capital of the Kingdom of Aragon, on St. Peter's Day, 29 June 1106, when he was probably approaching middle age; this is the first clear date we have in his biography. he took the name of Petrus Alfonsi (Alfonso's Peter). By 1116 at the latest he had emigrated to England, where he seems to have remained some years, before moving to northern France. The date of his death is as unclear as that of his birth. He was famous as a writer during his lifetime, and remained so for the rest of the Middle Ages, with over 160 surviving medieval manuscripts containing works of his. The most common are his Dialogi contra Iudaeos (Dialogue Against the Jews), an imaginary conversation between a Jew and a Christian, and Disciplina Clericalis (A Training-school for the Clergy), in fact a collection of Eastern fables. Petrus was born a Jew while living in al-Andalus, and after he rose to prominence, he converted to Christianity. This environment gave him an advantageous knowledge of Christianity, Judaism and Islam that would later prove useful in his polemics. John Tolan mentioned in his book Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers that "Alfonsi's texts were received enthusiastically—he became an auctor, an authority to be quoted. His success was due in large part to his ability to bridge several cultures: a Jew from the [Muslim] world of al-Andalus." His knowledge of these different religions is what makes Alfonsi unique and why he is essential to be studied when looking at anti-Judaic polemics. Petrus' upbringing placed him in an atmosphere that provided a significant impetus to launch him as one of the most important figures in anti-Judaic polemics. According to Tolan, Petrus Alfonsi was reared in a society in turmoil: a place of chaos and political instability, where Islam and Christianity were becoming a larger influence. His background was conveniently placed in the centre of contention between religions and circumstances that surrounded his upbringing, and provided the framework for polemics that would shape Medieval Judaic perception. In the Dialogus Alphonsi relates that he traveled to England as magister in liberal arts. He spent several years there as court physician of Henry I of England (reigned 1100–1135). The presence of Alfonsi in the West Country in the years before that date may have contributed to the flowering of Arabic science in that region from the 1120s onwards. He discussed astronomy with Walcher of Malvern. Petrus passed on the Arabic system of astronomical graduation. They may have collaborated on a work on eclipses.
Works
Disciplina Clericalis
Alfonsi's fame rests chiefly on a collection of 33 tales, composed in Latin at the beginning of the 12th century. This work is a collection of oriental tales of moralizing character, translated from Arabic. Some of the tales he drew on were from tales later incorporated into Arabian Nights, including the "Sindibad the Wise" story cycle (not to be confused with Sindbad the Sailor) and "The Tale of Attaf". It established some didactic models that would be followed by other medieval authors. The collection enjoyed remarkable popularity, and is an interesting study in comparative literature. It is entitled Disciplina Clericalis (A Training-school for the Clergy), and was often used by clergymen in their discourses, notwithstanding the questionable moral tone of some of the stories. The work is important as throwing light on the migration of fables, and is almost indispensable to the student of medieval folk-lore. Translations of it into French, Spanish, German, and English are extant. At the beginning of the 13th century an anonymous versifier rendered some sentences and tales from the Disciplina Clericalis by Petrus Alphonsi (1110 circa) into the elegiac metre. This was the origin of the Alphunsus de Arabicis eventibus. Joseph Jacobs discovered some of the stories at the end of Caxton's translation of the fables of Æsop, where thirteen apologues of "Alfonce" are taken in fact from the Disciplina Clericalis. An outline of the tales, by Douce, is prefixed to Ellis' "Early English Metrical Romances." Nearly all the stories are adopted in the Gesta Romanorum. Chapters ii and iii were done into Hebrew and issued under the title, Book of Enoch,. An early French translation of this Hebrew language extract was made prior to 1698 by Piques, and August Pichard published another version in Paris, 1838. Friedrich Wilhelm Valentin Schmidt produced a scholarly edition in 1827.
Dialogi contra Iudaeos
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