De illis de Mirapixe: Monio Fernandi. The Troubadour Múnio Fernandes de Mirapeixe and his Family Members

Abstract

This paper reveals the so far known only documentary testimony in which the name of Múnio Fernandes de Mirapeixe, a troubadour from one of the earliest periods in the Galician-Portuguese manuscript tradition, explicitly appears. Besides allowing us to establish the poet’s name as “Múnio” (not “Nuno”), and to confirm that he lived in the last decades of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this record opens the door to discover, at least in part, the genealogical identity of the Mirapeixes, allowing us to integrate them into the Monterrosos’ family context. The analysis of the information related to the area closest to the poet is complemented with a large set of data on the Monterroso lineage, highlighting the role of this lineage in protecting the Camino de Santiago (Hospital de Pena Godom) or favoring the installation of the Order of Santiago in the family monastery of Vilar de Donas. Furthermore, with regard to Múnio Fernandes’ poetic work, we consider the possibility that the love song attributed in B to Fernão Figueira de Lemos may in fact be accredited to him.