The cantiga is a vocal work made up of 'words' (lines)" and 'sound' (music). Its theme can either be profane or religious. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, compiled in the Court of Alfonso X, King of León and Castile (1252-84), fall into the latter category; of the former, there are about 1680 texts composed between the end of the 12th Century and the middle of the 14th, known through the Cancioneiro da Ajuda, the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional or Colocci-Brancuti and the Cancioneiro da Vaticana. In these cancioneiros there are about five hundred cantigas d'amigo texts. The amigo is the one with whom the maiden (moça) falls passionately in love. This love, in which the mother (madre) and the young damsel's intimate friends (irmanas) are accomplices, constitutes the main theme of the poem. Amigo, ũa moça (or equivalents), madre and irmana are key words, which when used in the first lines of a text indicate to the listener that they belong to this poetic genre. MANUEL PEDRO FERREIRA in The Sound of Martin Codax Martim Codax Probably a galician minstrel, active in the middle or third quarter of the 13th century. Although he is one of the only two authors present in the songbooks whose compositions were also preserved in an individual manuscript, the so-called Pergaminho Vindel, where they are accompanied by their respective musical notation (the other author being King Denis), nothing concrete is known about his biography. His surname seems to rule out the hypothesis of a higher social status. He would then be a minstrel or a segrel, most possibly connected to Vigo, a location repeatedly sung in his compositions. It should be added that the authorship of the seventh song attributed to Martim Codax (Ai ondas que eu vim veer) is uncertain, having been added to the Pergaminho Vindel by the first musical scribe. It should also be noted that his name (in the “Martim Codaz” form) equally appears in a note, as yet not fully understood, transcribed by the Vaticana Songbook (and only this manuscript) after one of the songs of Martim de Guinzo. in Projecto Littera/FCSH/UNL, Galician-Portuguese Medieval Songs, Graça Videira Lopes/Manuel Pedro Ferreira/Nuno Júdice (www.cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt)