Alfonso X enlarged the University of Salamanca by the establishment of new professorships and by increasing its privileges, so that it could vie with the institutions of Paris and Bologna; he established observatories and caused a band of fifty astronomers, some of whom he sent for from a great distance to prepare the “Alfonsine Tables,” a solid foundation for the astronomy of a future day, even though he himself diverted astronomical observations to astrological superstition. Under his supervision learned historians drew up the _Universal Chronicle_,[e] compiled from ancient sources and dealing with the period from the most ancient times to the date of his accession. He also encouraged the cultivation of the national language by introducing the Castilian mother-tongue into the administration of justice and the state, instead of the Latin which had hitherto been used, and he had the Bible translated into the language of the people; and that he might do away with the vast crowd of special _fueros_ (privileges), laws and judicial usages, he drew up a scientific code of law (_Las Siete Partidas_), grounded on the principles of Roman jurisprudence, which was to apply to the whole kingdom, and superseded not only local laws, but also the free Old Gothic law. Only three Castilian towns preserved their ancient _fueros_. But however distinguished King Alfonso might be as teacher and poet, as historical and astronomical author, his reign was nevertheless full of calamity and disorder. The revenues of his kingdom were not sufficient for the vast expenditure required for the generous support of learned men and scientific institutions, as well as for the maintenance of a brilliant court. And when he allowed his pride and vanity to lure him, as son of the Hohenstaufen princess Beatrice, into assuming the crown of the Holy Roman Empire and purchasing the votes of the covetous princes at a heavy price, he found himself in want of money. He contracted debts at high interest, he laid new taxes on the people, and when all this did not suffice, he debased the coinage and thus brought about a dislocation of trade and commerce which placed the nation at the mercy of money-lenders and Jews; and when, after having made use of the latter as his instruments, he persecuted and had them tortured until they ransomed themselves by new sacrifices, still no improvement was effected in the situation. But the greatest misfortune to the kingdom came from a dispute about the right to the succession. [Sidenote: [1275-1295 A.D.]]