Martin Codax

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Martin Codax or Codaz, Martín Codax (Galician: [maɾˈtiŋ koˈðaʃ]) or Martim Codax was a Galician medieval joglar (non-noble composer and performer, as opposed to a trobador), possibly from Vigo, Galicia in present-day Spain. He may have been active during the middle of the thirteenth century, judging from scriptological analysis.^[1] He is one of only two out of a total of 88 authors of cantigas d'amigo who used only the archaic strophic form aaB (a rhymed distich followed by a refrain). He employed an archaic rhyme scheme whereby i~o / a~o were used in alternating strophes. In addition Martin Codax consistently utilised a strict parallelistic technique known as leixa-pren (see the example below; the order of the third and fourth strophes is inverted in the Pergaminho Vindel but the correct order appears in the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional in Portugal,^[2] and the Cancioneiro da Vaticana). There is no documentary biographical information concerning the poet, dating the work at present remains based on theoretical analysis of the text.