On performing practices in mid-to late 16th-century Portuguese church music: The cappella of Évora Cathedral

According to a memorial from the cathedral's chapter dated 10 April 1582, the regular employment of singers for the purpose of performing polyphony at Évora Cathedral 'on solemn days and feasts over the year' began in the late 1510s, on the orders of King Manuel I.¹ The Bishop of Évora since 1485 had been Dom Afonso de Portugal, son of the fourth Earl of Ourém and first Marquis of Valença, and thus a relative of the Dukes of Bragança. He died on 24 April 1522, little more than four months after King Manuel himself died. Dom Afonso de Portugal was succeeded as bishop in 1523 by the young Cardinal Infante Dom Afonso (illus.1), the sixth son of the deceased king and his second wife, Maria of Aragon, who was also invested with the Archbishopric of Lisbon. The memorial from Évora cathedral's chapter notes.