A música no quotidiano das monjas nos séculos XVII e XVIII - mosteiros de beneditinas e ursulinas em Portugal

Abstract

This article describes and analyses historical situations that allow us to understand and to build up a body of knowledge relating to the practice and teaching of music at the Portuguese Benedictine and Ursuline nuns' monasteries during the 17th and 18th centuries. Some comparative rules dealing with the practice of liturgic music are presented and documental sources of a normative nature are analysed, like canons, constitutions and regulations, as well as the official reports of the visitations of ecclesiastic authorities. Moreover, the functions of the singers, instrumentalists and chapelmasters are emphasized as well as the dominant musical repertory used in the daily monastic life.