The Cantigas de Santa María, composed by Alfonso X, king of Castile and Leon, form a collection of monodic songs, written in the medieval Galician-Portuguese language and in mensural notation, in honour of the Virgin Mary. They sing of her virtues and narrate the miracles performed through her intercession.

There are four original manuscripts of the Cantigas: one originally from Toledo Cathedral’s Chapter Library, today in the Spanish National Library, known as the Toledo Codex, two preserved in the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial and one in the National Library of Florence. In a first phase, the Toledo Codex was composed with one hundred ‘songs’ to the Virgin Mary, as if it were a book of courtly love songs or an Andalusi diwan. The musician and poet king, as Mary’s troubadour, dedicated the codex to the great Lady in the hope of being rewarded with her help to reign well in her lands and obtain her love in Paradise.

The project entered a second phase when it reached 200 cantigas with the Codex Rico (Rich) of El Escorial, which incorporated a visual narration with miniatures into the poems and music. At some point in time, the project was increased by the 200 new cantigas in the Codex of Florence, and the Musicians Codex was composed as an anthology making a total of 400 cantigas. The project continued until the death of the king, and a total number of 427 cantigas have been preserved.

---

Recorded in 2020/2021 in Madrid by Hugo Westerdahl and Pablo Villuendas