Osoiro Anes
Trovador medieval

Biographical Note:

Galician troubadour, active in the first decades of the 13th century, that is, in the initial stages of the galician-portuguese poetry. The existence of several homonyms around these years introduces, however, some uncertainty on his concrete identification, moreover very recently reviewed by Henrique Monteagudo1 and José António Souto Cabo2.
Osoiro Anes has been traditionally identified as the canon of Santiago de Compostela, whose will, dated 1236, is preserved in the cathedral of this city (see namely, Yara Frateshi Vieira3). Son of João Froiaz Marinho, lord of Valadares (in the Noia region), this Osoiro Anes could be a brother of the troubadours Pero Anes and Martim Anes Marinho, as we discusse in the biographical note of the latter. However, the existence of another document, dated 1239, in which Osoiro Anes is mentioned as lieutenant of Lama Mala (which Resende de Oliveira situates in the Toronho territory, close to the portuguese border4) and, mostly, the well-attested existence of one Osoiro Anes who was lieutenant of Búval and Ribadávia, in a very prior date (1187-1213) introduced, from the outset, some uncertainty in the aforementioned identification of the troubadour as the canon of Compostela.
Actually, this uncertainty recently led to a thorough revision of the data from which resulted, as we mention above, a new identification proposal, suggested by Monteagudo and adopted by Souto Cabo. These researchers defend, then, that the troubadour would be exactly this last knight, equally documented in 1217, as owning assets in Santiago de Compostela, and that they identify as Osoiro Anes de Lima or da Nóvoa, son of João Airas da Nóvoa and Urraca Fernandes de Trava. Documented for the first time in 1175, in the charter of a sale made by his parents, Osoiro Anes belonged to an important galician family, that played relevant roles in the leonese court. An example of this is the fact that King Afonso IX was raised in the house of João Airas da Nóvoa, the troubadour’s father, most probably, as Souto Cabo thinks, by his matrimonial connection to a Trava, a lineage that frequently played that role. As to Osoiro Anes, we also know, through the will of Maior Peres, wife of Múnio Fernandes de Rodeiro, that it was in the latter’s house that he was raised. As a chronological arc of the troubadour’s life, Souto Cabo thus suggests the years 1160 to 1220, also adding to these chronological data a set of informations that seem to demonstrate the proximity (in many cases, even familiar) of Osoiro Anes with all the remaining troubadours in the initial stage of the galician-portuguese poetry.

References

1 Monteagudo, Henrique (2008), Letras primeiras. O Foral de Caldelas, os primordios da lírica trobadoresca e a emerxencia do galego escrito, Corunha, Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza.

2 Souto Cabo, José António (2012), Os cavaleiros que fizeram as cantigas. Aproximação às origens socioculturais da lírica galego-portuguesa, Niterói, Editora UFF, pp. 81-87.
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3 Vieira, Yara Frateschi (1999), En cas dona Maior. Os trovadores e a corte senhorial galega no século XIII, Noia, Edicións Laiovento.

4 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.