Airas Peres Vuitorom
Trovador medieval

Biographical Note:

Troubadour whose biography still presents many obscure points. Taking into account several of his songs whose context is the Portuguese civil war of 1245-47, he has been considered a Portuguese troubadour, possibly one Airas Peres, native of Vitorino de Piães (Ponte de Lima) that appears in the 1258 inquiries. But Carolina de Micaelis1 had already admitted his possible Galician origins, probably as the son of the archdeacon of Lugo, Pero Aires Vuyt. Resende de Oliveira2 also thinks that, being the family name unknow in Portugal, his origin is probably from Galicia, where the said family name has been documented around the mid-13th century. Therefore, a certain Pero Pais Vultoran, knight (that may be his father) and one João Peres Vuitorom (that may be his brother) appear, in 1255 and 1262 respectively, in documents from the region between Ourense and Santiago de Compostela, making it possibly the lineage’s place of origin. More recently (2018), Ron Fernández3 advanced an alternative hypothesis, that the cradle of the family could be the locality of Buitorón, in the present municipality of Muxia (in the so call Galician Finisterra ), an obligatory passage in the way of pilgrimage from Compostela to Finisterra. Which, in any case, wouldn’t be impeditive of a later Portuguese journey, as we know was the case of several other Galician knights in the same period. Be that as it may, it’s almost certain that Airas Peres acompannied the path of Alfonso X, prince and King (or at least the first years of his reign). He was most certainly with him in Portugal, at the military campaign to help the unfortunate King Sancho II that the prince heir undertook in 1246/1247, as the mentioned songs demostrate. He also took part in the conquest of Seville, given that his name appears in the repartimiento of this city as a beneficiary of some assets. From this date on, although some other compositions appear to show him still active, we know nothing about his life.

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 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.

3 Ron Fernández, Xavier (2018), "Martin Codax: o nome. A onomástica na lírica trobadoresca", in The Vindel Parchment and Martin Codax. The Golden Age of Medieval Galician Poetry, edited by Alexandre Rodríguez Guerra and Xosé Bieito Arias Freixedo, John Benjamins Publishing Company, p. 227.
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