Galician-Portuguese lyric

Traditionally, the end of the period of active trovadorismo is given as 1350, the date of the testament of D. Pedro, Count of Barcelos (natural son of King Dinis of Portugal), who left a Livro de Cantigas (songbook) to his nephew, Alfonso XI of Castile.

The troubadours of the movement, not to be confused with the Occitan troubadours (who frequented courts in nearby León and Castile), wrote almost entirely cantigas (although there were several kinds of cantiga) with, apparently, monophonic melodies (only fourteen melodies have survived, in the Pergaminho Vindel and the Pergaminho Sharrer, the latter badly damaged during restoration by Portuguese authorities).

Beginning probably around the middle of the thirteenth century, the songs, known as cantares, cantigas or trovas, began to be compiled in collections known as cancioneiros (songbooks).

All three are lyric genres in the technical sense that they were strophic songs with either musical accompaniment or introduction on a stringed instrument.

The latter two genres (totalling around 900 texts) make the Galician-Portuguese lyric unique in the entire panorama of medieval Romance poetry.