The precise time when this translation was made has not been decided. Marina, whose opinion should have weight, thinks it was not till the reign of Alfonso; but, from the early authority we know it possessed, it is perhaps more probable that it is to be dated from the latter years of Saint Ferdinand. In either case, however, considering the peculiar character and position of Alfonso, there can be little doubt that he was consulted and concerned in its preparation. It is a regular code, divided into twelve books, which are subdivided into titles and laws, and is of an extent so considerable and of a character so free and discursive, that we can fairly judge from it the condition of the prose language of the time, and ascertain that it was already as far advanced as the contemporaneous poetry.[64] [64] See the Discurso prefixed to the Academy’s edition, by Don Manuel de Lardizabal y Uribe; and Marina’s Ensayo, p. 29, in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1805. Perhaps the most curious passage in the Fuero Juzgo is the law (Lib. XII. Tít. iii. Ley 15) containing the tremendous oath of abjuration prescribed to those Jews who were about to enter the Christian Church. But I prefer to give as a specimen of its language one of a more liberal spirit, viz., the eighth Law of the Primero Titolo, or Introduction, “concerning those who may become kings,” which in the Latin original dates from A. D. 643: “Quando el rey morre, nengun non deve tomar el regno, nen facerse rey, nen ningun religioso, nen otro omne, nen servo, nen otro omne estrano, se non omne de linage de los godos, et fillo dalgo, et noble et digno de costumpnes, et con el otorgamiento de los obispos, et de los godos mayores, et de todo el poblo. Asi que mientre que fórmos todos de un corazon, et de una veluntat, et de una fé, que sea entre nos paz et justicia enno regno, et que podamos ganar la companna de los angeles en el otro sieglo; et aquel que quebrantar esta nuestra lee sea escomungado por sempre.” But the wise forecast of Saint Ferdinand soon extended beyond the purpose with which he originally commanded the translation of the old Visigoth laws, and he undertook to prepare a code for the whole of Christian Spain that was under his sceptre, which, in its different cities and provinces, was distracted by different and often contradictory _fueros_ or privileges and laws given to each as it was won from the common enemy. But he did not live to execute his beneficent project, and the fragment that still remains to us of what he undertook, commonly known by the name of the “Setenario,” plainly implies that it is, in part at least, the work of his son Alfonso.[65]