Vasco Gil
Trovador medieval

Biographical Note:

Portuguese troubadour, active around the mid-13th century. Although the songbooks make no mention of his surname, Carolina de Michäelis1 identified him as Vasco Gil de Soverosa, an identification generally accepted by most specialists. Belonging to a lineage that occupied important posts in the Portuguese courts of the 12th century and the first half of the 13th, Vasco Gil was half-brother of Dom Martim Gil de Soverosa, the powerful counsellor of king Sancho II, who Fernão Garcia Esgaravunha, at the end of the civil war (1248), accused of being the main responsible for the political crisis, in what became known as the challenge of Trancoso. A staunch supporter of the deposed King, like his brother, Vasco Gil, and recorded in the Portuguese court since 1238, he was even captured by the troops of the Count of Boulogne in Leiria, in 1246, during the armed confrontations that preceded the king’s deposition2. Freed shortly after, he takes exile in Castile, where he takes part in the conquest of Seville, being benefited in its Repartimento (1253). Thus, the tenção (poetical exchange) he keeps with Alfonso X should date to those years. Having returned to Portugal at an uncertain date (maybe around 1255, like his brother Martim, but in any case before 1258, since the royal inquiries of that year mention him), he seems to have lived apart from the court, the date of his death being unknown.
Count D. Pedro’s Book of Lineages further informs us (25H3) that D. Vasco was d’epistola in his youth (that is, he would have taken to minor orders in view of an ecclesiastical career), having later married with Froile Fernandes de Riba de Vizela, a marriage that produced five children.

References

1 Vasconcelos, Carolina Michaëlis de (1990), Cancioneiro da Ajuda, vol. II, Lisboa, Imprensa nacional - Casa da Moeda (reimpressão da edição de Halle, 1904).

2 Pizarro, José Augusto (1999), Linhagens medievais portuguesas: genealogias e estratégias 1279-1325, vol. II, Porto, Centro de Estudos de Genealogia, Heráldica e História da Família da Universidade Moderna, p. 809.
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