PIERS2 ALFONCE. Pedro Alphonso, b. 1062 in Aragon, known also as Petrus Alfonsi in Italian, was named Moshe Sephardi. He became a Christian on June 29, 1106, and took the name of his godfather, Alfonso VII of Castile, to whom he was physician. He is the author of Contra Judaeos, a polemical treatise against Judaism and Islam, and of Dialogus Petri Cognomento Alphonsi, ex Judaeo Christiani et Moysi Judaei, which influenced the polemics of Peter of Cornwall (1197-1221). An adaptation of his astronomical tables for October 19, 1116, based on the tables of al-Khwarizmi, appears in a version generally attributed to Adelard of Bath in the twelfth-century manuscript, Corpus Christi 283. Leaving Spain soon after his conversion, he later became physician to Henry I of England about 1110. His Disciplina clericalis (A Discipline for Scholars), a collection in Latin of thirty-four Arabic and Sanskrit tales, was meant to serve as a rule for clerics. As early as the twelfth century, the work was rendered into French.
The references to Piers Alfonce appear only in The Tale of Melibee and correspond to similar passages in Le Livre de Mellibee et de Prudence (The Book of Melibee and Prudence) by Renaud de Louens (after 1336) and the Liber consolationis et consilii (The Book of Consolation and Counsel) by Albertanus of Brescia (1246). On the wisdom of repaying good or evil slowly, Mel 1053 (S&A 573; Sundby 11-12), see Disciplina clericalis XXIV. On not making friends of old enemies, Mel 1189 (S&A 581; Sundby 50), see Disciplina clericalis IV.4; on doing nothing of which one may later repent, Mel 1218 (S&A 582; Sundby 59), see Disciplina clericalis IV.4; on not keeping company with people one does not know, Mel 1309-1311 (S&A 587; Sundby 69-70), see Disciplina clericalis XVII.2. Instead of Pamphilles, Dame Prudence quotes Petrus Alfonsi, Disciplina clericalis iv, Mel 1561. On the indignity of asking alms from former enemies, Mel 1566 (S&A 600; Sundby 99), see Disciplina clericalis ii.2.
Chaucer uses Piers, the Anglo-Norman variant of French Pierre, four times, Mel 1053, 1218, 1309, 1566, and the English variant, Peter, once, Mel 1189.