Bernal de Bonaval

Probably, the name comes from the name of the Bonaval district in Santiago de Compostela , where the Dominican monastery Santo Domingo de Bonaval is located . The toponym Bonaval is found in 5 cantiges of troubadour.

For example, in the cantig of the friend Diss' a fremosa en Bonaval assi ^{[1], the} mention of the “festival in Bonaval” ( sagraçõ de bonaual ) should be attributed to the consecration of the church of St. Dominic in Bonaval (Santiago de Compostela), which took place around 1230 . It is possible that some cantiges of Bonaval were composed precisely for this occasion:

Not so long ago, José António Souto Cabo discovered new data that could change the current attitude to the work of Bonaval and affect the perception of his cantigas in a different light. The researcher finds a connection between "brother Bernard, prior Bonaval" ( Frei Bernardo, prior de Bonaval ) and the poet Bernard de Bonaval. If this hypothesis is true, the troubadour was a priest in the Moors-free northwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula . Christian priests from the vicinity of Santiago de Compostela actively participated in the Reconquista movement and the development of Galician-Portuguese poetry.

In the cantiges of the Songwriter of Ajud ( Cancioneiro de Ajuda ), the poet uses the forgotten medieval term segrell ( Gal. Port . - segrel , from ox. Segrer ) ^{[4] [5]} . In the social hierarchy, the segrel stood above the juggler and below the troubadour. Segrel came from a noble family that did not occupy a very high social position. Unlike the juggler, he composed and performed his own songs, that is, he was a professional poet, but did not belong to a high and powerful nobility. A segrell could be an hidalgo who traveled freely on horseback from one royal court to another ^[6] .

In the “ Songbook of the National Library ” a section of 10 cantigas about Bonaval's love and Ay Deus song ! e quen mi tolherá is preceded by an explanatory note: “The cantiges of love begin here, the first troubadour Brynal de Bonavallo ”. The box at the end of the page was later added: “Trobador primeiro bernal de bonavallo” ^[7] . According to researchers, Bernal de Bonaval was one of the first authors to use the Galician-Portuguese language as the literary language of the northwestern part of the Pyrenees. He belonged to a generation of authors of the "pre-Alfonsian era." Among the famous troubadours and jugglers of the middle of the 13th century, Bonaval was the oldest in age ^[5] .

The work of Bonaval developed at the courts of the Castilian kings Fernando III Saint and his heir Alphonso X the Wise ^[8] . For troubadours from the environment of Alfonso X the Wise, Bonaval became an object of ridicule, since he dared to follow samples of oral folk art, whose aesthetics differed from the courteous lyrics developed under the influence of Provencal culture. In the cantigue of ridicule and slander ( cantiga escárnio e maldizer ) Pero da Ponte, paro-vos sinal Alfonso X The wise neglected reproaches segrela Pero da Ponte ( Pêro da Ponte ) in that he composes and sings his songs ( trobades ), like Bernardo de Bonaval, that is, does not adhere to the Provencal canons:

Vos non trobades come proençal

mais come Bernaldo de Bonaval

e, por ende, nõ é trobar natural ^[9] .

Describing this cantigue as a sirvent , Carolina Michaelis de Vachconselusz drew attention to the fact that the king refers to Bernald de Bonaval as the predecessor and mentor of Pero da Ponte ^[10] , from whom he adopted his style: “ pois que o del e do dem 'aprendestes ".

The medievalist Jose Carlos Ribeiro Miranda wrote: “Bonavala's poetic language is full of archaic drama. The troubadour adhered to the indigenous Galician tradition ” ^[11] . This archaic drama is felt in a short cantig about love A dona que eu am'e tenho por senhor , in which love is adjacent to death ^[12] .

Currently, 19 songs of Bernal de Bonaval are known: 10 cantigas about love ( cantigas de amor ), 8 cantigues about a friend ( cantigas de amigo ) and one tenson in collaboration with Abril Peres ^[5] . The question of the reliable identification of Abril Peres (Galician or Portuguese?) And his affiliation with troubadours or jugglers is debated and remains open ^[13] . However, Abril Perez in his only surviving cantig — the aforementioned tenson with Bonaval Abril Peres, muit'hei eu gram pesar — leaves the last and final word for himself in the last stanza. Abril Perez calls Don Bernaldo a segrell, recalls hierarchy among poets, implying that he belongs to a higher rank of troubadours, and claims his own superiority. This tennson of love belongs to the cantig genre without refrain ( cantigas de mestria ) and is one of the rare examples of tenns that are not acute satirical.

With the modern performance of medieval Galician-Portuguese songs, the courtly canon may be violated, according to which a cantiga about a friend (the lyrical "I" speaks on behalf of a woman) was composed and performed by a man: troubadour, segrell or juggler. In the cantiga about Bonaval’s friend Ai fremosinha, se bem hajades - a vivid example of an autochthonous Iberian (not Provencal) tradition - the man performs the main verse of the song, and the queen Fado Fad Amale sings the refrain “I came to wait for my beloved” ( Vim esperar o meu amigo ) Rodrigues ^[14] .

• D'Heur, Jean-Marie . Troubadours d'Oc et troubabours galiciens-portugais. Recherches sur quelques échanges dans la littérature de l'Europe au Moyen Age. Paris, 1973, pp. 291-299.
• Souto Cabo, José António . En Santiago, seend 'albergado en mia pousada. Nótulas trovadorescas compostelanas. 2012, in Verba, 39.
• Vasconcelos, Carolina Michaëlis de . Cancioneiro da Ajuda. Edição crítica e comentada . - Halle : Max Niemeyer, 1904. - Vol. 2. - 1001 p.

• Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. Bernal de Bonaval (port.) . Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas . Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH / NOVA. Date of treatment January 6, 2018. (Eng.) Lyrics, manuscripts, songs of Bonaval in a modern interpretation.