It has been argued (by great early scholars such as Henry Roseman Lang and Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos) that an indigenous popular poetry existed before the beginning of the written record, although the first datable poems (a handful between around 1200 and 1225) show influences from Provence.
There was a late flowering during the reign of King Dinis I (1261-1325), a very learned man, whose output is the largest preserved (137 texts).