Martin Codax

Martin Codax (Galician: [maɾˈtiŋ koˈðaʃ]) or Martim Codax (Portuguese: [mɐɾˈtĩ kuˈðaʃ]) 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 the middle of the thirteenth century, judging from scriptological analysis (Monteagudo 2008). He is one of only two out of a total of 88 authors of cantigas d'amigo who used only the archaic strophic form aaB (a rhymed distich followed by a refrain). He employed an archaic rhyme-system whereby i~o / a~o were used in alternating strophes. In addition Martin Codax consistently utilised a strict parallelistic technique known as leixa-pren (see the example below; the order of the third and fourth strophes is inverted in the Pergaminho Vindel but the correct order appears in the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional and the Cancioneiro da Vaticana). There is no documentary biographical information concerning the poet, dating the work at present remains based on theoretical analysis of the text.

The body of work attributed to him consists of seven cantigas d'amigo which appear in the Galician-Portuguese songbooks and in the Pergaminho Vindel (Vindel parchment). In all three manuscripts he is listed as the author of the compositions, in all three the number and order of the songs is the same. This provides what may be important evidence to support the view that the order of other poets' songs in the cancioneiros (songbooks) should not automatically be dismissed as random or attributed to later compilers. The identification of authorship of the poems (and their order) may contribute to a viewpoint that the seven songs of Codax reflect an original performance set. Consequently the sets of poems by other poets might also have been organized for performance.

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