Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages

Keywords: Keywords: Cantigas de amigo, Eroticism, Galician-Portuguese troubadour lyric.

It is an approach of the female images reproduced in the cantigas de amigo “Fui eu, madre, lavar meus cabelos” by Johan Soarez Coelho and “Levou s’ aa alva, levou s’ a velida” by Pero Meogo, both outstanding troubadours Galician-Portuguese. In the cantigas de amigo, eroticism appears as the theme of the possibility of satisfaction, of promise, of desire or its negation, and of the closeness of happiness. In this sense, it is intended in this paper to reflect on the recurring images in the lyricism of these minstrels and how ethical elements of loyalty, courage, tenderness are treated by an erotic-cultural aspect that makes the medieval nobility capable of transforming the sufferings of love into beauty, offering in this way a meaning and a suitable value for feeling.