The ''Cancioneiro da Ajuda'' (, ; "Ajuda Songbook") is a collection of Galician-Portuguese lyric poems probably dating from the last quarter of the 13th-century. It is the oldest of the Galician-Portuguese ''cancioneiros'' with secular music.

Description

The ''Cancioneiro'' is kept in the library of the

Ajuda National Palace The Palace of Ajuda ( pt, Palácio da Ajuda, ) is a neoclassical monument in the civil parish of Ajuda in the city of Lisbon, central Portugal. Built on the site of a temporary wooden building constructed to house the Royal family after the 175 ...

, a former royal residence located in Lisbon. It consists of a

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of ...

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

written in Gothic script by three hands and containing illuminated miniatures. Both the text and the miniatures remained unfinished and not a note of music was written in the space left for it. The whole codex contains 310 poems, nearly all of them ''cantigas de amor'' (male-voiced love songs, though a few are satiric and there are a few male/female dialogs).

History

The first (crude) edition dates from 1823, but a monumental critical edition, still a standard work, was published by the German-born Romance philologist

Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos Carolina may refer to: Geography * The Carolinas, the U.S. states of North and South Carolina ** North Carolina, a U.S. state ** South Carolina, a U.S. state * Province of Carolina, a British province until 1712 * Carolina, Alabama, a town in ...

in 1904. An important paleographic transcription was published by American scholar Henry H. Carter in 1941.

References

* Carter, Henry H. 1941. ''Cancioneiro da Ajuda. A Diplomatic Edition''. New York-London: Modern Language Association of America/Oxford University Press (rpt Milwood, N.J.: Klaus Reprint Co., 1975; rpt ith an introduction by Maria Ana RamosLisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa de Moeda, 2007). * Lanciani, Giulia and Giuseppe Tavani (edd.). 1993. ''Dicionário da Literatura Medieval Galega e Portuguesa''. Lisbon: Caminho. * Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Carolina. 1904. ''Cancioneiro da Ajuda''. Edição critica e commentada. 2 vols. Halle a.S., Max Niemeyer (rpt com "Glossário" Michaëlis 1920 Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional - Casa de Moeda, 1990). * Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, Carolina. 1920. "Glossário do Cancioneiro da Ajuda". ''Revista Lusitana'' 23: 1–95. * Ramos, M. A. ''et al.''. 1994. ''Fragmento do Nobiliario do Conde Dom Pedro & Cancioneiro da Ajuda. Edição Fac-similada do códice existente na Biblioteca da Ajuda''. Apresentação, Estudos e Índices. Lisbon: Edições Tavola Redonda. * Ramos, Maria Ana, and António Resende de Oliveira. “Cancioneiro da Ajuda”, in Lanciani and Tavani 1993: 115–118.

External links

Article (large) on the Cancioneiro da Ajuda (in Galician).
{{Portuguese cancioneiros 13th-century books 13th-century illuminated manuscripts 13th century in music 13th century in Portugal Chansonniers (books) Galician language Galician-Portuguese Music illuminated manuscripts Portuguese literature Portuguese music history