João Fernandes de Ardeleiro
Trovador medieval

Biographical Note:

The explanatory item accompanying this troubadour’s satirical song provides us some data regarding his biography, practically the only ones possible to find out: according to that caption, João Fernandes would be a squire and would possess assets in Pavia, Alto Alentejo (region of Mora, in the south of Portugal), assets that would have been donated by the King. Resende de Oliveira1, given the fact that the troubadour Estevão da Guarda (that precedes him in the songbooks) had equally assets in that region, advances the hypothesis that the connection of João Fernandes to the portuguese court was through him. In fact, it’s possible that João Fernandes de Ardeleiro wasn’t portuguese since, in his love song, he tells us that his friends find his permanence in Portugal odd. Like Carolina de Michaëlis supposed, without however proposing a concrete location2, he was maybe from Galicia, most possibly ifrom the village of Ardeleiro, county of Malpica de Bergantiños, province of Coruña.
Anyway, all indications are that we’re dealing with a troubadour in the final stage of the movement, that is, from the final 13th century up to the middle of the 14th.

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.

2 Vasconcelos, Carolina Michaëlis de (1990), Cancioneiro da Ajuda, vol. II, Lisboa, Imprensa nacional - Casa da Moeda (reimpressão da edição de Halle, 1904), p. 611.