Conference Agenda

The earliest colonial pursuits of the Catholic Iberian kingdoms in the Americas are sometimes assumed to have been immune from the religious conflicts simultaneously raging in Europe. But with the broader understanding of Catholic Reform explored by this session, we can see the early colonial endeavors in the Americas as deeply integrated with the religious reforms afoot in Europe.

This paper explores musical engagement with Catholic Reform in colonial New Spain in both evangelical and ecclesiastical contexts. The evangelical context concerns the missionary tactics of two sixteenth-century Franscisan friars active in Mexico’s central valley: Peter van de Moere (better known as Pedro de Gante, ca. 1480–1572) developed a pioneering approach to Catholic catechesis by uniting Christian theology with indigenous musical practice. A few decades later, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (ca. 1499–1590)’s Psalmodia Christiana (published 1583) equips catechists in the mission field for the instruction of Christian doctrine and practice of the faith through the use of indigenous musical practices and Nahuatl text. Pedro de Gante and Bernardino de Sahagún championed a novel evangelizing method that was culturally intelligible for the neophytes they instructed, yet strictly orthodox in its presentation of Christian doctrine. But they were acutely aware of the potential merits and perils of their use of vernacular language, including of scriptural elements—a central point of contention in European reforms—when wedded with music in both liturgy and religious praxis.

The ecclesiastical context concerns the collection of composed polyphonic music of the Mexico City Cathedral, near to where Fray Pedro and Fray Bernardino were active. When the cathedral’s music collection was inventoried in 1589, it contained post-conciliar chant books, contemporary liturgical music by Peninsular and international composers, and vernacular devotional music, demonstrating a rapid adoption of both liturgical changes and musical styles associated with Catholic Reform. By examining the evangelizing innovations of Fray Pedro and Fray Bernardino alongside the 1589 Mexico City Cathedral music collection, we can better understand the multifaceted function of music in the early modern mission field as part of the formation of Catholic identity.

Boundaries between Catholic and Protestant musical practices were porous in sixteenth-century Spain. Spanish Catholic reformers preceding the Council of Trent invested heavily in music as a tool of devotional discipline—through catechisms, theoretical treatises, and adapted repertoires—harnessing the affective and mnemonic power of secular music for religious ends and for the construction of confessional identity. In doing so, they often developed strategies that closely paralleled those employed by Protestant reformers elsewhere in Europe, even though Protestant devotional practices were vigorously prosecuted in Spain.

Drawing on devotional manuals, theoretical writings, musical sources, and inquisitorial records, I demonstrate how vocal prayer and communal singing were systematically promoted across diverse social groups as instruments of catechetical formation and confessional consolidation. Catholic reformers such as Juan de Ávila (1500–1569) encouraged the use of vernacular devotional texts to facilitate doctrinal instruction, while music theorist Tomás de Santa María (1510–70) advocated the use of popular melodies for sacred contrafacta, thereby redirecting 'profane' repertoires toward spiritually edifying purposes.

At the same time, inquisitorial documentation attests to the pervasive dissemination of the French psalter of Clément Marot (1496–1544) and Théodore Bèze (1519–1605). Although officially prohibited by Catholic authorities, this book—and the melodies associated with its French settings of the Psalms of David—circulated widely throughout the Iberian Peninsula, particularly through communal singing in private gatherings, where it was also employed in the religious instruction of children. The recurrent identification of heresy through the medium of vernacular psalm singing in the trials serves to emphasise the extent to which music functioned as an audible marker of confessional identity.

By foregrounding musical practice rather than doctrine alone, I situate sixteenth-century Spanish religious reform within a broader context that transcends national boundaries, in which Catholic and Protestant strategies of devotional pedagogy, musical practice, and identity formation were deeply intertwined.

This paper examines how non-notated musical practices sustained Catholic identity in the Calvinist United Provinces during the Eighty Years’ War (ca. 1566–1648). In this confessional context, where public celebration of the liturgy was often prohibited, Catholic music had to be redefined. In cities like Delft, music was no longer characterized by strong links to established ritual, but by its function within social and devotional networks. Many of these networks were by necessity clandestine.

Central to my paper is the Catholic priest Johannes Stalpaert van der Wiele (1579–1630) and his Gulde-Jaer ons Heeren Jesu Christi (printed posthumously in 1635). My research focuses on the ‘Madrigalia’, an appendix to this volume. This collection comprises non-notated Dutch devotional lyrics intended to be performed as contrafacta to secular, polyphonic Italian madrigals. While the music itself is absent, the textual incipits of the original Italian models are provided with each Dutch song. I argue that the appropriation of these elite, cosmopolitan musical forms served as a deliberate strategy of cultural resistance. By adopting the polyphony of these Italian madrigals, Stalpaert claimed for Delft’s significant Catholic minority a sophisticated, trans-European identity that effectively resisted religious and political repression.

In this paper, I also explore the gendered social networks facilitated by these songs, particularly their original intended performance by Delft’s religious women. By mapping these networks—specifically, among early modern Delft’s beguines and Poor Clares—I show that music functioned as a kind of portable liturgy. These women, often worshipping in secret without regular access to a priest, used these madrigals to maintain a collective confessional consciousness, which was further disseminated in Stalpaert’s 1635 print.

This paper addresses two questions of identity. First, how does the conversion of secular Italian polyphony into Dutch devotional song challenge our understanding of sacred and secular? Second, how did the non-notated nature of these texts necessitate a reliance on shared cultural memory, thereby strengthening the internal bonds of the Catholic community? Ultimately, I argue that Stalpaert’s ‘Madrigalia’ reveals Catholic music as a dynamic process of adaptation, which was essential for a community’s survival.