Function and liturgical context of the villancico in Salamanca Cathedral *

The principal occasions on which villancicos were performed within religious feasts are already well known. Matins on Christmas Eve and Epiphany and the Corpus Christi procession are mentioned in most studies of the genre and in reference books. ¹ The emphasis on these feasts is largely a consequence of the available musical and textual sources. On the one hand, most surviving villancico manuscripts only provide the dedication of the compositions (Christmas, the Blessed Sacrament and Epiphany are the most common); the detail of the exact moment of performance within the liturgy is specified much less often. It has generally been assumed that most villancicos for Christmas and Epiphany were performed at Matins (unless Calenda or Vespers were specifically stated), while those dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament were composed for the Corpus Christi procession.1 ² On the other hand, many villancico texts have survived in chapbooks which contain the compositions for specific celebrations, among which villancicos for Christmas and Epiphany Matins are predominant, ³ while villancico texts for many other occasions were never printed. 100Hence, the villancico imprints, although an essential source for the understanding of the genre, have to be assessed with care, since they provide a partial picture of the cultivation of the genre.