Martim Peres Alvim
Trovador medieval

Biographical Note:

Portuguese troubadour, active in the late 13th century and early 14th. Son of Pero Soares Alvim and, therefore, half-brother to the troubadour João Lobeira, he would have been born around the mid-13th century, since his son is already mentioned as squire in 12851. His marriage to Margarida Peres Ribeiro, daughter of Afonso Peres Ribeiro, an influent figure in the court of King Denis, should have happened, then, around 1270. Documented from 1288 onwards, we find him, the following year, in the court of Sancho IV of Castilla, where he would have stayed an unspecified, and hard to determine, period. In 1299, however, he is once again in Portugal. But it is mostly from 1308 that his presence in the court of King Denis becomes more permanent, as a vassal to Prince heir Dom Afonso (future Afonso IV), going as such, at that date, to Aragon to arrange the second marriage of Dom Pedro, bastard son of King Denis and future count of Barcelos. His connection to Prince Afonso seems to have stood, even during the years of the conflict between the prince and the monarch (1319-1324), having actually been one of the witnesses to the document through which, in 1320, Prince Afonso answers to his father’s manifesto, concerning the worsening of the crisis. Between 1322 and 1324, he performs the role of Alcaide of Coimbra, a city also belonging to the prince’s lordship. The last document in which he appears is a codicil to his will, dated 1327, but it is possible that he lived for a few more years, since the Book of Lineages of Count Dom Pedro mentions a second marriage of his, certainly at an advanced age, with Maria Mendes Petite, widow of the troubadour Estêvão Coelho, which may only have happened after the latter’s death, maybe in 1330. It should be added, as a curiosity, that Dona Maria was mother-in-law of both children (son and daughter) from the first marriage of Martim Peres. Pizarro, who supplies these data, points to 1334 as the probable year of the troubadour’s death.

References

1 Pizarro, José Augusto (1999), Linhagens medievais portuguesas: genealogias e estratégias 1279-1325, vol. I, Porto, Centro de Estudos de Genealogia, Heráldica e História da Família da Universidade Moderna, p. 560.
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