The Pergaminho Sharrer (; gl, Pergamiño Sharrer {{IPA-gl, peɾɣaˈmiɲʊ ˈʃarɪɾ}; "Sharrer Parchment") is a mediaeval

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 ...

fragment containing seven songs by King Denis of Portugal, with lyrics 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 ...

language and musical notation. The fragment was discovered in 1990 by American scholar Harvey L. Sharrer, of

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

. Sharrer was analysing documents in the Torre do Tombo archive in Lisbon, when he found the folio in the binding of a 16th-century book. Before Sharrer's discovery, the only known

mediaeval manuscript with love (non-religious) songs and musical notation was the Vindel Parchment, which contains seven songs by

troubadour A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairi ...

Martim Codax. Several songbooks covering the period exist, but all of them lack musical notation except the ''

Cantigas de Santa Maria The ''Cantigas de Santa Maria'' (, ; "Canticles of Holy Mary") are 420 poems with musical notation, written in the medieval Galician-Portuguese language during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile ''El Sabio'' (1221–1284). Traditionally, they a ...

'', which are religious in tone. The text and musical notation of the Sharrer Parchment are fragmentary, due to damage done to the folio during the centuries; but further damage was inflicted during a disastrous "restoration" by Portuguese authorities. The parchment is written with Gothic letters and contains seven love songs (''cantigas de amor''). Even though the name of the author is not given, all songs appear in the same order in other songbooks (''cancioneiros'') of Galician-Portuguese poetry ('' Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional'' and the '' Cancioneiro da Vaticana''), where they are attributed to King Dinis I of Portugal (reigned 1279-1325), known for his love for the arts. The folio probably belonged to a larger 14th century songbook that has been lost. The songs of the Sharrer Parchment are: *''Poys que vos Deus, amigo, quer guisar'' *''A tal estado me adusse, senhor'' *''O que vos nunca cuidei a dizer'' *''Que mui grão prazer que eu hei, senhor'' *''Senhor fremosa, no posso eu osmar'' *''Não sei como me salva a minha senhor'' *''Quis bem amigos, e quero e querrei'' Since their discovery, the songs have been recorded by several groups dedicated to early music like the Theatre of Voices.

References

*Harvey L. Sharrer
''The discovery of seven cantigas d'amor by Dom Dinis with musical notation''.
Hispania 74, May 1991. *Manuel Pedro Ferreira. ''Cantus Coronatus: 7 Cantigas d’El Rei Dom Dinis''. Kassel: Reichenberger, 2005.
Visualization
Portuguese music history Galician language Portuguese literature Galician-Portuguese Chansonniers (books)

See also

References