Hi, Mr. Red

I play early music with friends, and we have several cantigas in our repertoire, most of which I received at early music workshops.

Jack's link to a Wikipedia article (above) will explain all about the cantigas. To make the story short, in the middle ages there were many folk tales in circulation about the Virgin Mary. Most of the cantigas put these tales to music, but the article says that some of the cantigas are hymns. They can be in any time signature.

King Alfonso the 9th had the cantigas written down in manuscripts. The monks were not as scrupulous with the music as they were with lyrics. There is at least one MS where they never wrote the music in, and I believe that in places the words and music do not seem to go together.

Nonetheless, the cantigas can be great fun to play. We were doing cantigas at a wedding reception once, and we thought all the guests were ignoring us. However, our guitarist dropped her pick and this caused her to bend way down. When she came up, she said, "There are feet tapping all over the room."