Fernando Esquio
Trovador medieval

Biographical Note:

Galician troubadour, most probably active at the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the next. He seems to be native of the Ferrol region, where the Esquio family had properties (in Neda and Jubia) and where we find some members of this lineage performing public duties of some importance. At the end of the 13th century a member of this family, Gonçalo Esquio, may even have married into the important Trava’s lineage. As to the troubadour, we don’t have, however, any concrete data allowing us to establish a minimum biography, besides the toponyms present in his songs relating him to Santiago de Compostela and Lugo. It should also be added that some specialists (as Torriello and Carlos Alvar2) have put forward the hypothesis of Fernando Esquio being identifiable with another author appearing in the songbooks, Fernão do Lago.. This hypothesis does not, however, gather the researcher’s consensus, namely Resende de Oliveira, whose opinion remains that we are dealing with two distinct authors.

References

1 Toriello, Fernanda (1976), Fernand' Esquyo, Le poesie, Bari, Adriatica Editrici.

2 Alvar, Carlos (1993), "Fernand'Esquio", in Dicionário da Literatura Medieval Galega e Portuguesa, Lanciani, Giulia e Tavani, Giuseppe (org.) , Lisboa, Editorial Caminho.

3 Oliveira, António Resende de (1994), Depois do espectáculo trovadoresco. A estrutura dos cancioneiros peninsulares e as recolhas dos séculos XIII e XIV, Lisboa, Edições Colibri.