The Symbolical Construction of the Enemy in the Alphonsine Chronicles and Niketas Choniates' Chronicle
Abstract
The Kingdom of Castile as well as The Byzantine Empire passed through an import moment during the 13th century, when their strength either increased or decreased, facing several conflicts with enemies who did not belong to their religion and ethnic groups. As part of the response, their intellectuals (in this case the Alfonso X of Castile and Niketas Choniates) constructed a symbolic discourse to legitimize themselves and to shape the symbolically their enemy.
This paper aims to identify who was the other, the enemy, in those Castilian and Byzantine realities, to describe what kind of representations were constructed, and to analyze how and why they constructed those representations, especially the representations that were embedded in the other's bodies. This will be interpreted through the works of two important intellectuals and politicians of that century in each space, King Alfonso X and Niketas Koniates.