Alfonso de Cartagena: Defining a Moral System

The vision of the best form of government which Alfonso de Cartagena (1384–1456) defends in his writings is shaped by the character of the kingdom of Castile. He is keenly aware of the need to articulate a moral programme adapted to the circumstances of his time. From his position as a learned court cleric, Cartagena contributes to the development of a moral conceptual framework that, while rooted in scholastic models and the medieval moral tradition, is semantically and rhetorically adjusted to new cultural conditions that redefine social and political behaviour and the ways in which it is shaped. To disseminate his moral and educational project, Cartagena—drawing on his legal training, moral outlook, sensitivity to linguistic nuance, and rhetorical versatility—seeks a performative effect in both his spoken and written discourses addressed to kings and nobles at the fifteenth-century court of Castile.