Gil Vicente (Juliet Perkins)

On the night of 7 June 1502, the royal apartments were invaded by a rumbustious figure, a herdsman sent on behalf of his village to find out whether it was true that the Queen of Portugal, Maria of Castile, had given birth. Indignant but not cowed by the strong-arm tactics of palace servants to stop him entering into the Queen's presence, amazed but not speechless at the luxurious surroundings, he addresses the young mother, jumping with joy at her safe delivery and radiant pride. He showers warm praise on the baby heir to the throne and his lineage before ushering in his companions to present their gifts of eggs, milk, honey and cheese, but not without muttering that they too will have to run the gauntlet of the pages at the door. The Spanish verse monologue delivered by this yokel signalled the beginning of Gil Vicente's career as author, and probably as actor too. It contains, in a nutshell, the blend of forthrightness, religious devotion, loyalty to the sovereign, sly humour and satire that would be repeated in Gil Vicente's subsequent autos. It allows also a fleeting glimpse of the gulf that had opened up in sixteenth-century Portugal between courtier and peasant, palace and countryside, conspicuous consumption and subsistence diet, leisure and unremitting toil. It identifies the author as someone sympathetic to rural life and people, yet at ease and of some standing at Court.

That standing can be explained by documentary evidence that the playwright of 1502 had been for some time a goldsmith in the service of Queen Leonor, Dowager Queen since 1495. Belonging to the aristocracy of craftsmen but of humble birth, his early life and education are undocumented. Most likely born in rural northern Portugal (there is evidence for the town of Guimarães, and for a goldsmith father), he could have come south to Lisbon around 1490. In his capacity as poet, he contributed several pieces to Garcia de Resende's compendium of palace poetry, the Cancioneiro Geral (General Songbook) of 1516. During the 1520s and 1530s he received various pensions from King João III. In a letter to his king, written from Santarém after the earthquake that devastated the Tagus area in 1531, Gil Vicente refers to himself as being close to death.