Document authorizing the Court Treasurer to pay thirty gold florins to a court musician. Pere de Vallseca ("player of stringed instruments or harp")
On sale [28/1/2012] from James Cummins, bookseller, New York. Document authorizing the Court Treasurer to pay thirty gold florins to a court musician. Pere de Vallseca ("player of stringed instruments or harp")
http://www.jamescumminsbookseller.com/pages/books/247202/queen-of-alfonso-v-of-aragon-maria-of-castile/document-authorizing-the-court-treasurer-to-pay-thirty-gold-florins-to-a-court-musician-pere-de [accessed 28/1/2012]. Description:
The music of the court of Queen Maria and Alfonso V of Castile in the mid 15th-century - particularly its lute-guitar-vihuela-harp music - gave rise to that celebrated tradition which flowered in the vihuela and lute music of Luis Milán (d. ca. 1561) in the following century. Court records such as this provide important clues in the reconstruction of that early tradition. The payment authorized here of the very considerable sum of 30 florins is to one "pere de Vallseca" ("Vallseca the Elder"), "sonador de corda o de arpa." Ity almost certainly refers to Eduardo de Vallseca, a harpist and contemporary of "Rodrigo de la guitarra", whose importance has been ably demonstrated (See Maricarmen Gomez, pp. 583-593). A full transcription and translation is available upon request Oblong folio. One page on watermarked paper, in a chancery, cursive script. In medieval Catalan. Seal on verso, and small resulting perforation in center from opening, with loss of two letters. gomez1992-2
Text (transcribed by Marcarmen Gómez sent to me in a personal e-mail 8-2-2012: “Maria per la gràcia de Déu Reyna d’Aragó, de Sicilia, de València, de Mallorques, de Serdenya e de Corsega, comtessa de Barcelona, duquessa de Athenes e de Neopatria, e encare comtessa de Rosselló e de Serdanya. Al feel conseller e tresorer nostre micer Johan de Masguillem, salut e gràcia. Deym e manam-vos que de qualsevol pecunies de nostra cort a mans vostres pervengudas, o [que] dia andant pervindran, donets [e] paguets al feel sonador de corda o de arpa de casa del señor Rey, en Pere de Vallseca, treinta florins d’or d’Aragó los quals per diversos serveys que [ens] ha fets e fa continuament, axí en son offici com en altres maneras, graciosament li otorgam e per vos volem esser pagats; et en la paga de aquells cobrats d’ell la present ab apoca de reebuda. Dada en València a XXIX dies de juliol en l’any del naixement de Nostre Senyor Mil CCCC XXVI. La Reyna.”