Estrela Do Mar: The Sea as a Destination of Crusade in the Cantigas de Santa María

Alfonso X spent his life consumed by his father’s deathbed imperative to gain more territory than him. The Cantigas de Santa María, a thirteenth-century collection of poems praising the Virgin Mary, serves as a literary expression of Alfonso X’s political expansionist policies of crusading and conversion. Integral to this vision was the sea. This chapter will examine the use of the sea as a destination of crusade in the Cantigas de Santa María. Beyond the text under investigation, the chapter also will address the geopolitical context in which the Cantigas was written. Alfonso X sought to translate his Marian Empire across the Mediterranean through the creation of a naval crusading order (Order of Santa Maria) and port (Puerto de Santa Maria), both of which figure within the Cantigas. Consequently, for Alfonso X, the sea serves an important role in both his Cantigas de Santa María and his political ambitions as a place necessary to control in order to bring about a successful crusade. Rather than a zone to be navigated to reach land objectives, the sea becomes an arena for political, religious, and economic conquest.