The largest collection of medieval songs in a vernacular language is the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which are preserved in several manuscripts compiled at the court of King Alfonso X of Castile "El Sabio/The Wise" (1221-1284). The cantigas are written in an early form of Galician-Portuguese from modern-day northwestern Spain, which was the poetic language of King Alfonso's court. The music itself is mostly written in a kind of mensural notation, meaning we can decipher the rhythms of these songs. However, there are several cantigas written in a way where the rhythmic values doesn't line up with the rules of rhythmic notation of the time, so we can assume that these in particular were supposed to be performed in a rhythmically-free manner, such is the case with this cantiga. (The 13th century saw rapid developments in musical notation in terms of depicting rhythm; previous notation systems only depicted pitch/melodic contour).
King Alfonso is known as "The Wise" because he commissioned and oversaw the creation of numerous works of knowledge and the arts, including texts on medicine, astronomy, astrology, chess, history, and of course, a collection of over 400 cantigas. Although he had to deal with social tensions and several clashes between Christians and Muslims within his kingdom during his reign (a large portion of southern Spain/Andalusia had been recently reconquered from Muslim rule when he took the throne in 1252), he supported a diverse court culture, employing Christians, Muslims, and Jews to translate works of knowledge. These groups can even be seen performing music together in the illuminations from the Cantigas manuscripts.
This cantiga bears a striking resemblance to the Troubadour song Reis Glorios by Giraut de Bornelh (1138 - 1215) from a few generations earlier. Bornelh's Reis Glorios itself is based on the melodic structure of the hymn Ave Maris Stella, which had been in use for several centuries by the time he wrote his song. A perfect example of how some melodies are passed down and evolve through the ages.
Although he was born and spent his early childhood in England, King Richard I spent nearly his entire adult life and time as king fighting to defend his lands in France (he was also Duke of Aquitaine, Normandy, Gascony, as well as Count of Nantes, Poitiers and a few other places) and on crusade. Today he is perhaps best known for facing off against Salah ad-Din (Saladin), Sultan of Egypt and Syria, during the third crusade as well as being in the legends of Robin Hood. On his way back from crusade, he was captured and held for ransom by Leopold of Austria for over year. It was actually a common practice during the Middle Ages for rich/powerful people to capture and hold each other for ransom during times of conflict, and a king's ransom could be worth up to about three times the annual income of their crown lands. While he was being held prisoner, Richard wrote this simple yet haunting melody and set words to it in both French and Occitan (his native languages) that basically complain about how nobody is paying his ransom. This type of bagpipe is a design that appears in iconography in the 12th and early 13th centuries and seems to have existed before the type of pipes with the large shoulder drone(s). Here you can see that the drone is in the same stalk as the chanter. Bagpipes from around the same time as this design may have also been drone-less. Either way, if a medieval piper would have gone around playing King Richard's melody around the time he wrote it, it probably would have been on a bagpipe similar to this. Musicologist Raul Lacilla worked with the Sevaine Bagpipe workshop in Spain to create this specific model, which based on iconography from a Cantigas de Santa Maria manuscript.
A popular chason by one of the most famous composers of the earlier Renaissance, Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-1521). Josquin was such a highly regarded composer that many works began to be published under his name even if he didn't write them (we do know he wrote this one)!