Women writing for the liturgy: manuscripts from the Jesus Convent in Aveiro (1476-1529)

Opening new sound horizons goes hand in hand with retracing the history of the spiritual traditions in which monasteries have played a decisive role in the medieval functioning of Europe. The Dominican order, whose origins lie on the Iberian Peninsula, is a particularly pertinent example of a pan-European monastic community. This chapter concentrates on the Dominican Jesus Convent of Aveiro, its cultural history and production of liturgical manuscripts in its own scriptorium. The former abbey, today a museum, holds in its library the earliest surviving collection of Dominican chant books in Portugal, produced by the sisters themselves between 1461 and 1525. From the Marian feast of Assumption, we present two examples from Compline: the antiphon Virgo Maria, non est tibi similis and Sub tuum presiduum, here used as a variant for the Salve regina. Marian chants from late medieval Aveiro will be the starting point of a multi-disciplinary research, processing the content of the sources, in order to gain insight into the cultural and musical history of the convent.