Mem Vasques de Folhente
Trovador medieval


Nationality: Portuguesa

Biographical Note:

Troubadour, probably portuguese, and maybe originating from a gentry lineage based in Ardegão, in the county of Ponte de Lima (in the place of Folhente). The lineage is not unknown to the Books of Lineages, where one Rui Peres de Folhente appears, whose father, according to the “Livro do Deão”, would be called Pero Vasques Pinguelo. Resende de Oliveira suggests1, then, that taking the patronymic into account, Mem Vasques could possibly be brother to this Pero Vasques (already using the Folhentes family name, as happens in the next generation).
Nevertheless, we know nothing about the troubador’s life, but his activity, accounting for the placement, in the italian aphographs, of his only preserved song, should have occurred in the second half of the 13th century,
It should be added that, in the manuscripts, the troubadour’s surname is always written “Folhete”. However, given the lineage’s origin, it is probably just the omission of the nasality sign.


References

1 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.

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