Cloistered women, freed musicians: the musician nuns of the Royal Monastery of São Bento da Avé-Maria in Porto (Portugal)

In most female convents active in eighteenth-century Europe, music was essential to religious life. Women with previous musical knowledge were highly appreciated and offered benefits when entering the monastic life. Women found in cloisters a space to develop their talents, receive education, and even achieve some recognition for their artistry. This becomes evident with the musician nuns of the ancient Royal Monastery of São Bento da Avé-Maria in Porto, where a few women became virtuous performers, indispensable to commissioning new repertoire for the most important celebrations of the catholic calendar. The present paper intends to analyse the case of the musician nuns of the ancient Royal Monastery of São Bento da Avé-Maria in Porto during the transition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing on their education and on what it was like to be a woman, an artist, and a nun in Portuguese society.