The Vila Vicosa Ceremonial del Rey, and Contexts for Ritual, Ceremony, and Music at the Royal Chapel of Dom João III (r. 1521-57)

One of the most important documents acquired in recent years by the Museu-Biblioteca da Casa de Bragança, Vila Viçosa, is a royal chapel ceremonial compiled during the reign of Dom João III. It in many ways complements a similar court ceremonial copied for Maria de Portugal (niece of João III) on the occasion of her marriage to Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza in 1565 (Biblioteca Nacional, Naples: edition by J.M. Pedrosa Cardoso, 2008). This Vila Viçosa Ceremonial da Capella del Rey is fundamental for a history of the royal court and chapel during at least c.1547-1554 (dates which appear in the manuscript), and includes significant information concerning ritual and ceremony, as well as certain musico-liturgical practices in the chapel which, given the relatively poor survival of polyphonic sources and repertories from that period, is invaluable. Although principally written for use by the officiating clergy (presumably by a high royal court chaplain), it also includes a number of unique records of types and styles of musical elaboration or interpolation during the liturgy and processions, both by the choir—canto de orgaõ, contrapunto, and canto chaõ—and by musical instruments. It also incorporates snippets of plainchant copied in black void notation on four-line staves, especially in connection with the liturgy on Palm Sunday, and during the days of Holy Week through to Easter. An appendix written by the 1580s shows that the book had a later history at Porto Cathedral, and significantly incorporates information about the exequies (with music) held there in 1578 for Queen Catherine and Dom Sebastião, and other royal observances.
Besides looking at the overall structure and contents of the Vila Viçosa ceremonial, this paper examines the musical references in the contexts of the feasts and liturgical items, contextualising some of this information with other little-studied documentation attesting to the running and musical makeup of the royal chapel during the time of Dom João III, about which still relatively little is known.