Mendinho, also ''Meendinho'', ''Mendiño'' and ''Meendiño'', was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

Iberian

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

. Nothing is known about Mendinho except by inference. Scholars generally assume from the reference to the

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they ...

of ''San Simión'' (in the modern Isle of ''San Simón'',

Rías Baixas The Rías Baixas (Galician language, Galician for "Lower Rias") are a series of four estuarine inlets located on the southwestern coast of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, Spain. They are the Ría de Muros e Noia, the Ría de Arousa, the Ria de Ponteved ...

Vigo Vigo ( , , , ) is a city and municipality in the province of Pontevedra, within the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain. Located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, it sits on the southern shore of an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, the ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

) that he was Galician. And it is supposed from his name (without any accompanying

patronym A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' ( proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

), his style, and the place of his song in the manuscripts (the Cancioneiro da Vaticana,

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

, and the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional,

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

) that he was a ''jogral'' - a non- noble

Minstrel A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer ...

. Mendinho may have been active in the early 13th century, making him one of the earliest poets in this genre whose work has survived. A single

cantiga de amigo ''Cantiga de amigo'' (, ) or ''cantiga d'amigo'' (Galician-Portuguese spelling), literally "friend song", is a genre of medieval lyric poetry, apparently rooted in a female-voiced song tradition native to the northwest quadrant of the Iberian P ...

(song about a boyfriend sung in the feminine) is attributed to him - ''Sedia-m' eu na ermida de San Simion'', but it is among the most famous in the

Galician-Portuguese Galician-Portuguese ( gl, galego-portugués or ', pt, galego-português or ), also known as Old Portuguese or as Medieval Galician when referring to the history of each modern language, was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle ...

lyric corpus of around 1685 texts. It has been admired for its imagery (critics say the girl is afraid of the waves of her own passion), its rhythm, and its formal and semantic parallelism (including the system of alternating strophes with the rhymes-sounds ''-on(or)/-ar''). The text in the manuscripts is problematic in places, especially in the refrain, where the reading is much disputed. In 1998, the Día das Letras Galegas (Galician Letters Day) was dedicated to Mendinho, along with

Martín Codax Martin Codax or Codaz, Martín Codax () or Martim Codax () was a Galician medieval ''joglar'' (non-noble composer and performer, as opposed to a ''trobador''), possibly from Vigo, Galicia in present-day Spain. He may have been active during th ...

and Xohán de Cangas. His single known poem was set to music by

Alain Oulman Alain Oulman (15 June 1928 – 28 March 1990 (aged 61)) was a Portuguese songwriter. He was responsible for some of the biggest hits of Amália Rodrigues Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues GCSE, GCIH (23 July 1920 – 6 October 1999), ...

, the

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composer and long term musical collaborator of the great Portuguese

Fado Fado (; "destiny, fate") is a music genre that can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that "the only reliable information on the history of fado was ...

singer

Amália Rodrigues Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues GCSE, GCIH (23 July 1920 – 6 October 1999), better known as Amália Rodrigues () or popularly as Amália, was a Portuguese '' fadista'' (fado singer) and actress. Known as the 'Rainha do Fado' ("Queen ...

. An English translation/adaptation of ''Sedia-m'eu na ermida...'' is contained in the longpoem ''The Tale of Tekarionyoken'' (2013) by Thomas M. Capuano (p. 33).

Sediam'eu na ermida de San Simión

Text of Cohen 2003, slightly modified.

Notes

*Cohen, Rip. ''500 Cantigas d’ Amigo: Edição Crítica'' (Porto: Campo das Letras, 2003). *Ferreira, M. do Rosário. ''Águas Doces, Águas Salgadas: da funcionalidade dos motivos aquáticos nas cantigas de amigo'' (Oporto: Granito, 1999), pp. 41–53. *Montero, Xesús Alonso. “Fortuna literaria de Meendiño”, in ''Estudos Portugueses. Homenagem a Luciana Stegagno Picchio'' (Lisbon: Difel, 1991), pp. 86–109 *Oliveira, António Resende de. ''Depois do Espectáculo Trovadoresco. a estrutura dos cancioneiros peninsulares e as recolhas dos séculos XIII e XIV'' (Lisbon: Edições Colibri, 1994), pp. 391–92. *Reckert, Stephen & Helder Macedo. ''Do cancioneiro de Amigo'' (Lisbon: Assírio e Alvim, 1996), pp. 145–51. *Tavani, Giuseppe. "Meendinho", in G. Lanciani & G. Tavani, edd., ''Dicionário da Literatura Medieval Galega e Portuguesa'' (Lisbon: Caminho, 1993), p. 456. *Tavani, Giuseppe. ''Trovadores e Jograis: Introdução à poesia medieval galego-portuguesa'' (Lisbon: Caminho, 2002), pp. 417–18. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mendinho Galician poets Galician-Portuguese Portuguese language Galician language Galician culture Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Spanish male poets