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 o ...

codex 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 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