Cantigas de escárnio e maldizer

Cantigas de escárnio e maldizer (Portuguese), cantiga de escarnio e maldicir (Galician) or cantigas d'escarnho e de maldizer (Galician-Portuguese), are poems of insult, mockery and scorn – nearly always with comic intent - which constitute one of the three main genres of medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric.

[3] The physical and social world of the time, unlike the two other Galician-Portuguese genres, is very present in the cantigas de escárnio e maldizer, making this genre a great way of studying the social and cultural history of that time.

[3] This genre includes sexual themes, mockery of other troubadours and their songs, social conflicts, legal and political questions, mockery of religion, more specifically of Catholicism, including mockery of the Pope and blasphemies against biblical figures such as Jesus and Mary, mother of Jesus, and parodies of cantigas de amor and cantigas de amigo.

The addressed person may be the target of insult, or a rhetorical "you", serving as an example of a bigger discourse, or a party to the action described or enacted.

The background elements are far more varied than compared to the two other genres, and so too is the present situation and action.