LOBEIRA

lobeira, joao (c. 1233-1285), a portuguese troubadour of the time of king alphonso iii., who is supposed to have been the first to reduce into prose the story of _amadis de gaula_ (q.v.). d. carolina michaelis de vasconcellos, in her masterly edition of the _cancioneiro de ajuda_ (halle, 1904, vol. i. pp. 523-524), gives some biographical notes on joao lobeira, who is represented in the colocci brancuti _canzoniere_ (halle, 1880) by five poems (nos. 230-235). in number 230, joao lobeira uses the same _ritournelle_ that oriana sings in _amadis de gaula_, and this has led to his being generally considered by modern supporters of the portuguese case to have been the author of the romance, in preference to vasco de lobeira, to whom the prose original was formerly ascribed. the folklorist a. thomas pires (in his _vasco de lobeira_, elvas, 1905), following the old tradition, would identify the novelist with a man of that name who flourished in elvas at the close of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century, but the documents he publishes contain no reference to this lobeira being a man of letters.