Nativity scenes with multiple voices

villancicos in the Royal Chapel of Lisbon, 1640-1716

Abstract

The article analyses the references to subalternized groups and others in the poems of the booklets with vilancicos sung in the Royal Chapel of Lisbon. This was a space marked by a rigid hierarchy in Paço da Ribeira, but also related to the dynamics of the Portuguese overseas empire, as a cultural sounding board. Like a nativity scene updated in time, the lyrics of the vilancicos sung on Christmas and Epiphany days, at the heart of the Portuguese monarchy, represent how those elite men and women saw themselves and projected poetic images of those considered subordinate and/or ethnically different. The songs mimicked and recognized the existence of “others”, associating them with figures from the gospels. The poetic and musical genre and the supports of the documentary corpus are analyzed in relation to these aspects.