It’s a text from 1175, called Notícia de Fadores, but it’s hard to understand! The similarity with current Portuguese is very little. Even the way the patrician wrote the lyrics is complicated! But linguists identify several elements in it that characterize it as ancient Portuguese, or Galician-Portuguese, and differ it from Latin, still widely used at the time. The text lists the guarantors of a certain Pelágio Romeu, a Portuguese who, despite being noble, was not rich. The document was discovered by researcher Ana Maria Martins, from the University of Lisbon, in 1999. She found it in the National Archive of Torre do Tombo, while researching for her doctoral thesis. As the place has a huge unexplored collection, other older documents can still be painted. Check out the original version of the old text on the side. And then, of course, your “translation”!
Original text
Noticia fecit pelagio romeu de guarantors Stephano pelaiz .xxi. lecton solids .xxi. soldes pelai garcia .xxi. pays. Güdisaluo Menendici. xxi soldos /2 Egeas anriquici xxxta soldos. petro colaco .x. pays. Güdisaluo anriquici .xxxxta. Aegean wages Monííci .xxti. wages [i l rasura] Ihoane suarici .xxx.ta soldos /3 Menendo garcia .xxti. pays. petro suarici .xxti. pays Era Ma. CCaa xiiitia Istos guarantors atan .v. Years have started from this male that I read avem
modernized version
Pelágio Romeu lists his guarantors here: to Pedro Colaço, I owe ten contos; for Estevão Pais, Leitão, Paio Garcia, Gonçalo Mendes, Egas Moniz, Mendo Garcia and Pedro Soares, he owes twenty contos; for João Soares, thirty contos, and for Gonçalo Henriques, forty contos. Now it’s 1175, and it’s only five years from now that I’m going to have to pay these patricians!