João Pires de Lobeira (c. 1233–1285) was a Portuguese

troubadour A troubadour (, ; ) 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 equivalent is usually called a ''trobairitz''. The tr ...

of the time of King Afonso III, who is supposed to have been the first to reduce into prose the story of '' Amadis de Gaula''. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, in her masterly edition of the ''

Cancioneiro da Ajuda 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. ...

'' (Halle, 1904, vol. 1, pp. 523–524), gives some biographical notes on Lobeira, who is represented in the ''

Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional The ''Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional'' (, ; "The National Library Songbook"), commonly called ''Colocci-Brancuti'', is a compilation of Galician-Portuguese lyrics by both troubadours and ''jograes'' (non-noble performers and composers) . Th ...

'' (Halle, 1880) by five poems (Nos. 230–233). In number 230, Lobeira uses the same ''ritournelle'' that Oriana sings in ''Amadis de Gaula'', and this has led to his being generally considered by modern supporters of the Portuguese case to have been the author of the novel, in preference to Vasco de Lobeira, to whom the prose original was formerly ascribed. The folklorist A. Thomas Pires (in his ''Vasco de Lobeira, Elvas'', 1905), following the old tradition, would identify the novelist with a man of that name who flourished in

Elvas Elvas (), officially the City of Elvas (), is a Portuguese municipality, former episcopal city and frontier fortress of easternmost central Portugal, located in the district of Portalegre in Alentejo. It is situated about east of Lisbon, and ab ...

at the close of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century, but the documents he publishes contain no reference to this Lobeira being a man of letters. His name suggests he was from Lobeira, in the northernmost limits of Portugal.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lobeira, Joao 1230s births 1285 deaths Portuguese male poets 13th-century Portuguese poets 13th-century Portuguese people Portuguese male composers