Mendinho, also Meendinho, Mendiño and Meendiño, was a medieval Iberian

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

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Nothing is known about Mendinho except by inference. Scholars generally assume from the reference to the shrine

Shrine

A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....

 of San Simión (in the modern Isle of San Simón, Rías Baixas

Rías Baixas

The Rías Baixas are a part of Costa del Marisco facing the Atlantic Ocean in the southern part of the Galicia region of Spain. They consist of the southern part of the Province of Coruña and the entire Province of Pontevedra...

 of Vigo

Vigo

Vigo is a city and municipality in north-west Spain, in Galicia, situated on the ria of the same name on the Atlantic Ocean.-Population:...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

) that he was Galician. And it is supposed from his name (without any accompanying patronym or toponym), his style, and the place of his song in the manuscripts (the Cancioneiro da Vaticana

Cancioneiro da Vaticana

The Cancioneiro da Vaticana is a compilation of troubadour lyrics in Galician-Portuguese. It was discovered c. 1840 in the holdings of the Vatican Library and was first transcribed by Ernesto Monaci in 1875....

, Vatican Library

Vatican Library

The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

, and the Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional

Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional

The Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional , commonly called Colocci-Brancuti, is a compilation of Galician-Portuguese lyrics by both troubadours and jograes...

, Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

) that he was a jogral - a non-noble

Nobility

Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

 Minstrel

Minstrel

A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...

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Mendinho may have been active in the early 13th century, making him one of the earliest poets in this genre whose work has survived. A single cantiga de amigo

Cantiga de amigo

The Cantiga de amigo or Cantiga d'amigo , literally a "song about a boyfriend", is a genre of medieval erotic lyric poetry, apparently rooted in a song tradition native to the northwest quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula. What mainly distinguishes the cantiga de amigo is its focus on a world of...

 (song about a boyfriend song in the feminine) is attributed to him - Sedia-m' eu na ermida de San Simion, but it is among the most famous in the Galician-Portuguese

Galician-Portuguese

Galician-Portuguese or Old Portuguese was a West Iberian Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages, in the northwest area of the Iberian Peninsula. It was first spoken in the area bounded in the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean and the Douro River in the south but it was later extended south...

 lyric corpus of around 1685 texts. It has been admired for its imagery (critics say the girl is afraid of the waves of her own passion), its rhythm, and its formal and semantic parallelism (including the system of alternating strophes with the rhymes-sounds -on(or)/-ar). The text in the manuscripts is problematic in places, especially in the refrain, where the reading is much disputed.

In 1998, the Día das Letras Galegas

Día das Letras Galegas

Galician Literature Day is a public holiday observed in Galicia, Spain. Introduced by the Royal Galician Academy in 1963 it is a celebration of the Galician language and its literature. This celebration has taken place on May 17 since 1963...

 (Galician Letters Day) was dedicated to Mendinho, along with Martín Codax

Martín Codax

Martín Codax or Martim Codax was a Galician medieval jogral , possibly from Vigo, Galicia in present day Spain. He may have been active during the middle of the thirteenth century, judging from scriptological analysis...

 and Xohán de Cangas

Xohán de Cangas

Johan de Cangas was a jograr or non-noble troubadour, probably active during the thirteenth century. He seems to have been from—or associated with -- Cangas de Morrazo, a small town on Pontevedra, Galicia . Only three of his songs survive...

. His single known poem was set to music by Alain Oulman

Alain Oulman

Alain Oulman was a Portuguese composer. He was responsible for some of the biggest hits of Amália Rodrigues....

, the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 composer and long term musical collaborator of the great Portuguese Fado

Fado

Fado is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Portugal, but probably with much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar, Rui Vieira Nery, states that "the only reliable information on the history of Fado was orally transmitted and goes back to the 1820s and 1830s at best...

 singer Amália Rodrigues

Amália Rodrigues

Amália da Piedade Rodrigues, GCSE, GCIH, , also known as Amália Rodrigues was a Portuguese singer and actress.She was known as the "Rainha do Fado" and was most influential in popularizing the fado worldwide. She was one of the most important figures in the genre's development, and enjoyed a...

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Sediam'eu na ermida de San Simión

Text of Cohen 2003, slightly modified.

Galician-Portuguese:

English:

Sedia-m'eu na ermida de San Simion e cercaron-mi as ondas, que grandes son, eu atendendo meu amigo. Estando na ermida ant'o altar, cercaron-mi as ondas grandes do mar, eu atendendo meu amigo. E cercaron-mi as ondas, que grandes son: non ei i barqueiro, nen remador, eu atendendo meu amigo. E cercaron-mi as ondas do alto mar: non ei i barqueiro, nen sei remar, eu atendendo meu amigo. Non ei i barqueiro, nen remador: e morrerei fremosa no mar maior, eu atendendo meu amigo. Non ei i barqueiro, nen sei remar: e morrerei eu fremosa no alto mar, eu atendendo meu amigo.

I was sitting at the shrine of San Simeon And the waves surrounded me, how high they were, Me waiting for my friend. Sitting at the shrine, before the altar, The high waves of the sea surrounded me, Me waiting for my friend. And the waves surrounded me, how high they were: I have no boatman, nor any one to row, Me waiting for my friend. And the waves of the high sea surrounded me: I have no boatman and don’t know how to row, Me waiting for my friend. I have no boatman, nor anyone to row: And I’ll die, beautiful me, in the vast sea, Me waiting for my friend. I have no boatman and don’t know how to row, And I’ll die, beautiful me, in the sea so vast, Me waiting for my friend.