Cancioneiro de Resende (Madeira in the)

In his book Poetas Palacianos, which deals at length with the ‘Cancioneiro de Resende’, Teófilo Braga includes a chapter entitled ‘El-Rei D. Duarte e o cyclo poético da Madeira’. There, for the first time, he sets out the idea that there existed a group of devotees of poetry, natives of Madeira or residents of the island, who were amply represented in that same songbook and who, by their undeniable literary merit, could form a cycle or school of their own amid the numerous phalanx of poets who appear in that celebrated collection. It seems to us that the illustrious writer carried too far the favourable view he so generously formed of this Madeiran Cycle or School.

Dr Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo, the authoritative commentator on the ‘Longing for the Homeland’ (Saudades da Terra) and also a distinguished literary critic, disagrees with Teófilo Braga’s opinion and makes the following sensible observations: ‘We hold that the group of Madeiran poets of this period does not constitute a distinct cycle but merely a branch of the mainland cycle, because it has no character of its own; the nature and form of these poets’ productions are shared with those of the other court poets of the same school, collected in the ‘General Songbook’ (Cancioneiro Geral). But that most notable group is nonetheless sufficient grounds for the island of Madeira to have an honourable share in the pre-classical history of the national literature, a share that T. Braga claimed for it.’

We shall now attempt a brief inventory or survey of these poetic compositions included in the ‘Cancioneiro Geral de Garcia de Resende’, going through the pages of its five volumes (1910–1918 edition) and at the same time offering some brief personal notes that may better identify the authors to whom they relate.

The first volume of the Cancioneiro opens with the celebrated poetic contest on ‘O Cuydar e o Sospirar’, to which many works make frequent reference and in which various court poets took part; this whole elegant debate fills more than a hundred pages of the edition we are consulting. The Madeira cycle is worthily represented in it by the compositions of the troubadour João Gomes, of whom we have already said elsewhere: ‘It has not been established whether he came to this archipelago as one of its early settlers or whether he was born in Madeira. In various writings he is cited as João Gomes da Ilha and also as João Gomes the Troubadour, for he cultivated poetry with distinction, and thirteen of his compositions are found in the “Cancioneiro de Garcia de Resende”.’

He married Dona Guiomar Ferreira in Funchal, daughter of Gonçalo Aires Ferreira, the well-known companion of João Gonçalves Zarco. He held sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation) lands on the banks of the stream that took, and still keeps, the name of João Gomes. He was a page to Prince Henry the Navigator and died around 1495. Besides the verses cited above and included in the dispute of ‘O Cuydar e o Sospirar’, the Cancioneiro contains another twenty poetic compositions, all under the title ‘De Joham Gomez da Ylha’, though with some variants in the way these headings are spelt. As Dr Rodrigues de Azevedo has already noted, João Gomes was the most prolific of the poets of the Madeira cycle; to which we may add that he was also the most distinguished of them all.

He is followed immediately in the Cancioneiro by the name of Tristão Vaz Teixeira, who appears there under the heading De Tristam teyxeyra capitãao de Machyco. He was the second captain-donatary (capitão-donatário) of Machico and son of the first donatary (donatário), Tristão Vaz Teixeira. He was born in mainland Portugal and died in the capital of his donatary captaincy (donataria), where he was buried in the chapel of São João (St John the Baptist) in the church of Machico, which he had founded and built in the parish church of the town (vila) of Machico. He became better known as Tristão das Damas (‘Tristão of the Ladies’) because, says Dr Gaspar Frutuoso, he was a great courtier and a fine talker, composed many verses for the ladies and was very eloquent in speech. He appears as one of the most important characters in the interesting Madeiran novel A Filha de Tristão das Damas, by the illustrious writer and academician Mr J. Reis Gomes, which reproduces one of his poems included in the second volume of the Cancioneiro.

João Gonçalves da Câmara, son of João Gonçalves Zarco and second captain-donatary of Funchal, appears in Garcia de Resende’s collection with three poetic compositions under the heading Joham Gonçalves capytão da ilha. From the information given by Frutuoso, he must have been born around 1414; he died in Funchal on 25 March 1501 and was buried in the church of the Convent of St Clare (Santa Clara), beside the steps of the high altar, where the stone covering his grave was discovered a few years ago. He greatly advanced the work of colonisation begun by his father and contributed considerably to the progress and growth of the old town of Funchal. In our hard-fought struggles in Morocco against the Moors he stood out for his fearless courage, and also for the material aid with which he several times helped to relieve the imminent danger facing the Portuguese possessions in that region. He founded the Convent of St Clare, to which he gave the large property of Curral das Freiras (‘nuns’ fold’) in 1492. He also appears as a notable character in the novel A Filha de Tristão das Damas mentioned above.

Manuel de Noronha is another court poet of the ‘Madeira cycle’ with some compositions in the Cancioneiro. He was born in Funchal and was the son of the second captain-donatary, João Gonçalves da Câmara. The old Madeiran chronicles speak in glowing terms of the services he rendered in North Africa and of his great bravery as a soldier, referring in particular to an encounter ‘in which, at the head of a hundred and fifty horsemen, almost all from the island, he performed prodigies of valour.’

With a small output of eight lines we come upon the name of Pero Correia, or rather Pedro Correia, as it appears in various writings on Madeiran matters. He was the second captain-donatary of Porto Santo, although Gaspar Frutuoso does not regard him as such. On the death of his father-in-law Bartolomeu Perestrelo, first donatary of that island, Pedro Correia bought the captaincy of Porto Santo, which he administered for some years. When Bartolomeu Perestrelo’s son and heir came of age, he contested possession of the donatary captaincy of which he had been unjustly deprived, and succeeded in recovering it by order of the monarch and taking possession of it. Pedro Correia was captain-donatary of the island of Graciosa, which he had to give up when he settled on Porto Santo.

Teófilo Braga and Rodrigues de Azevedo also include in the Madeira Cycle the poets of the Cancioneiro

Duarte de Brito, Rui de Sousa and Rui Gomes da Gran, who, as the historian of the islands tells us (Saud., 156), were married to granddaughters of João Gonçalves Zargo, and also João de Abreu, who was married to a granddaughter of Tristão Vaz, first donatary (donatário) of Machico. Some compositions by these poets are found in the first and fourth volumes of the Cancioneiro.

The following words of Teófilo Braga also seem to refer to a Madeiran poet: ‘In some verses by Francisco da Silveira, written in 1498, mocking a fidalgo (nobleman of the lesser nobility) from the island of Madeira who was living in Castile, he refers to the Count of Tendilla as a poet, father of the head of the Seville school, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza: “Let the Count of Tendilla and the lady Bobadilla say whether from the island of Funchal a man ever went to Castile so much to his misfortune”’

This composition is a long one and bears the title (Canc., IV-230): ‘Do coudel moor Francisco da Sylveira estando em Portugal a estas ceroylas de Manuel de Noronha, as quaes mandou a Castela’ (By the chief cavalry magistrate Francisco da Silveira, being in Portugal, on these drawers of Manuel de Noronha, which he sent to Castile). The comment made by T. Braga cannot be clearly deduced from it; he must surely have had some other source of information besides what the context of this poem provided.