Cancioneiro de Elvas facts for kids

The Cancioneiro de Elvas (which means Elvas Songbook in English) is a very old music book from the 1500s. It's one of four important songbooks from the Renaissance period in Portugal. This book is a key source for understanding secular music (music not made for church) from Portugal and Spain during that time.

The songs in the Elvas Songbook are written in both Portuguese and Spanish.

What is the Elvas Songbook?

The Elvas Songbook was found in 1928 in a library in Elvas, a city in Portugal. A music expert named Manuel Joaquim discovered it. The book was copied by hand in the 1500s. It has two main parts:

• The first part is about music. It contains 65 songs with three different singing parts (this is called polyphonic music). These songs are from Portugal and Spain. The poems used for these songs are called villancicos and cantigas.
• The second part is about poems. It has 36 poems, but without any music.

Many music experts, including Manuel Joaquim, have studied and written down the music from this songbook.

How old is the Songbook?

The Elvas Songbook doesn't have a date written inside it. So, it's hard to know exactly when it was put together. However, some clues help us guess the time:

• One song in the book uses a poem written by a poet named Dom Manuel de Portugal. This poem was written around 1555.
• The special marks (called watermarks) on the paper are similar to those used in Italy until the 1570s.

Based on these clues, experts believe the Elvas Songbook was copied sometime between the 1560s and 1570s.

Who wrote the music?

The Elvas Songbook does not name any of the composers. All the songs are listed as anonymous (meaning the author is unknown). But, by comparing this songbook with other old music books from Spain and Portugal, experts have found out who wrote some of the songs.

Here are the composers identified for a few of the songs:

• Juan del Encina (4 songs)
• Pedro de Escobar (2 or 3 songs)
• Pedro de Pastrana (1 song)

See also

In Spanish: Cancionero de Elvas para niños

Images for kids

• 

  Testou minha ventura, one of the 65 anonymous works compiled in the Elvas Songbook