Cantigas de Santa Maria

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An illustration from the E codex of the Cantigas de Santa Maria.

The Cantigas de Santa Maria (Galician:

Galician-Portuguese language during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221–1284). Traditionally, they are all attributed to Alfonso, though scholars have since established that the musicians and poets of his court were responsible for most of them, with Alfonso being credited with a few as well.[1]

It is one of the largest collections of monophonic (solo) songs from the

Virgin Mary
in every song, while every tenth song is a hymn.

The Cantigas have survived in four manuscript codices: two at

Florence, Italy. The E codex from El Escorial is illuminated with colored miniatures showing pairs of musicians playing a wide variety of instruments
. The Códice Rico (T) from El Escorial and the one in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence (F) are richly illuminated with narrative vignettes.

Description

"Santa Maria, strela do dia"
Cantiga 100, "Santa Maria, strela do dia"
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The Cantigas are written in the early Medieval Galician variety

Galician-Portuguese, using Galician spelling; this was because of Galician-Portuguese being fashionable as a lyrical language in Castile
at the time, as well as Alfonso X having passed part of his early years in Galicia and so probably being a fluent speaker since his childhood.

The Cantigas are a collection of 420 poems, 356 of which are in a narrative format relating to Marian miracles; the rest of them, except an introduction and two prologues, are of songs of praise or involve Marian festivities. The Cantigas depict the Virgin Mary in a very humanized way, often having her play a role in earthly episodes.

The authors are unknown, although several studies have suggested that

cantigas d'amigo
and cantigas d'amor.

A lute player.

The metrics are extraordinarily diverse: 280 different formats for the 420 Cantigas. The most common are the

rondeau
. The length of the lines varies between two and 24 syllables. The narrative voice in many of the songs describes an erotic relationship, in the troubadour fashion, with the Divine. The music is written in notation which is similar to that used for chant, but also contains some information about the length of the notes. Several transcriptions exist.[4] The Cantigas are frequently recorded and performed by early music groups, and quite a few CDs featuring music from the Cantigas are available.

Codices

Miniatures, Cantiga #35

The Cantigas are preserved in four manuscripts:[5]



E contains the largest number of songs (406 Cantigas, plus the Introduction and the Prologue); it contains 41 carefully detailed miniatures and many illuminated letters. To is the earliest collection and contains 129 songs. Although not illustrated, it is richly decorated with pen flourished initials, and great care has been taken over its construction. The T and F manuscripts are sister volumes. T contains 195 surviving cantigas (8 are missing due to loss of folios) which roughly correspond in order to the first two hundred in E, each song being illustrated with either 6 or 12 miniatures that depict scenes from the cantiga. F follows the same format but has only 111 cantigas, of which 7 have no text, only miniatures. These are basically a subset of those found in the second half of E, but are presented here in a radically different order. F was never finished, and so no music was ever added. Only the empty staves display the intention to add musical notation to the codex at a later date. It is generally thought that the codices were constructed during Alfonso's lifetime, To perhaps in the 1270s, and T/F and E in the early 1280s up until the time of his death in 1284.

The music

The musical forms within the Cantigas, and there are many, are still being studied. There have been many false leads, and there is little beyond pitch value that is very reliable. Mensuration is a particular problem in the Cantigas, and most attempts at determining meaningful rhythmic schemes have tended, with some exceptions, to be unsatisfactory. This remains a lively topic of debate and study. Progress, while on-going, has nevertheless been significant over the course of the last 20 years.

See also

References

  1. ^ Fassler 2014, pp. 163–164.
  2. ^ Rübecamp, Rudolf (1932). "A linguagem das Cantigas de Santa Maria, de Afonso X o Sábio". Boletim de Filologia. I: 273–356.
  3. doi:10.5752/P.2358-3428
    . Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  4. S2CID 163583685
    .
  5. ^ Walter Mettmann, Alfonso X. el Sabio: Cantigas de Santa Maria, Clásicos Castalia, Madrid 1986–1989.

Bibliography

External links

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