Troubadorism and Kingship:The political role of Galician-Portuguese "cantigas" (Portugal, 13th and 14th centuries)
Galician-Portuguese songs; troubadourism; King Dinis; medieval monarchy; Medieval Portugal.
The aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate how the role of troubadour in D. Dinis is associated with the exercise of political power. To this end, we also seek to understand how historiography has approached the relationship between troubadourism and politics in the Middle Ages; how the ideal of courtly love elaborated a representation of feudal-vassal relations; which social groups are represented in the songs in Dionysian times; how music influences the mediation and elaboration of the troubadour discourse; and how the performance of the songs acts as a discourse-action of the king and the nobility. The poetic song is based on the feudal and courtly symbolic forms that order medieval society. However, in the act of performance, these forms take on a circumscribed and conditional character that involves the distinct interests of the groups that make up the court. The stage of troubadourism becomes a place of political compositions, where dissonances and consonances are put into action in the songs of troubadours and minstrels. We believe, then, that it is possible to recognize in the songs a form of political action in which, through his songs, D. Dinis says justice, seeks echoes in the nobles and clerics who support him, and promotes values and social models