Alejandro en el Códice de Roda

Abstract

The so-called Códice de Roda (Madrid, RAH 78), a 10th century manuscript containing material wich deals with Iberian history, also includes a short text whose main character is Alexander the Great. This text derives from the Pseudo-Methodius, a Syriac original translated into Greek by the seventh century, and again into Latin in Merovingian Gaul. However, the Spanish version is a different one. The purpose of muy work is to elucidate the role played both by Alexander in this text, and by the text itself in the section of the manuscript most concerned with Islamic polemics and doctrine. Al the same time, I try to discover the way in wich the Syriac and Grek texts worked in their original literary, political, and religious contexts, to obtain some interpretative keys which could be applied to the Spanish kingdoms and their propaganda in Early Medieval Iberia.