The Royal Patriarchal Music Seminary of Lisbon (Portuguese: Real Seminário de Música da Patriarcal de Lisboa) was founded in 1713 by Portugal's king John VBoth in his lifetime and later, John V referred to, but not always in a complimentary manner, with soubriquets such as "The Magnanimous" (Portuguese: o Magnânimo), "The Magnificent" (Portuguese: o Magnifico), "The Portuguese Sun King" (Portuguese: o Rei-Sol Português), and less flatteringly, "o Freirático" (literally "the devotee of nuns")). to train singers for his Royal Chapel of Saint Thomas (Portuguese: Capela de São Tomé) at Ribeira Palace (Portuguese: Paço da Ribeira).
Its role was similar to that of other schools which for some centuries had been training singers and musicians for European abbeys, cathedrals, parish and collegiate churches, and court chapels. Over time, its influence expanded as it produced singers, instrumentalists and composers of merit, many of whom took on careers in sacred and secular music including opera both within and outside of Portugal.
According to the records, the official date of the Seminary's foundation was 9 April 1713, three years before the Patriarchate of Lisbon (Portuguese: Patriarcado de Lisboa) came into operation. At that early stage, the Seminary was housed in the Archbishop's Palace near Lisbon Cathedral (Portuguese: Sé Catedral Metropolitana Patriarcal de Santa Maria Maior de Lisboa); but from the outset, the Seminary's function and purpose were directly associated with the court, and once the position of Patriarch of Lisbon was created and the holder became chaplain to the king, the Seminary as part of the patriarchal household continued to serve its primary purpose in providing music in the Royal Chapel.
Although it was neither Portugal's first nor only music school associated with the church, the Seminary's location in Lisbon and its relationship with the monarchy placed it at the forefront of Portugal's music life at this time.
It remained the country's most important music school until it was closed in 1834 and replaced the following year by the Lisbon Conservatory (Portuguese: Conservatório de Música).Now the School of Music of the National Conservatory (Portuguese: Escola de Música do Conservatório Nacional (EMCN)) History.. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
According to one analysis, "In it [the Seminary] was formed the great majority of our most outstanding eighteenth-century composers"Cymbron, Luísa and Manuel Carlos Brito. História da Música Portuguesa (History of Portuguese Music). Universidade Aberta, 1992. p. 105. . including Francisco António de Almeida,Vieira, Ernesto. Diccionario biographico de músicos portuguezes: historia e bibliographia da música em Portugal (Biographical Dictionary of Portuguese Musicians: History and Bibliography of Music in Portugal). Vol. 1. Mattos Moreira & Pinheiro, 1900. pp. 13–19. Facsimile of the original edition digitized by Google from the library of Harvard University. Almeida (Francisco António de).. Retrieved 2 November 2018. João Rodrigues Esteves,Vieira Diccionario biographico …, Vol. 1, p. 397. Esteves (João Rodrigues).. Retrieved 30 October 2018. António Teixeira,Vieira, Diccionario biographico …, Vol. 2, pp. 347–348. Teixeira (Antonio).. Retrieved 2 November 2018. José Joaquim dos Santos,Vieira, Diccionario biographico …, Vol. 2, pp. 274–276. Santos (José Joaquim dos).. Retrieved 2 November 2018. António Leal Moreira,Vieira, Diccionario biographico …, Vol. 2, pp. 105–110. Moreiro (António Leal).. Retrieved 2 November 2018. Marcos Portugal,Dicionário Biográfico Caravelas PORTUGAL (PORTOGALLO), Marcos (Marco) António (da Fonseca) (Lisboa, 24/03/1762 – Rio de Janeiro, 17/02/1830).. Retrieved 27 September 2018.Vieira, Diccionario biographico …, Vol. 2, pp. 191–230. Portugal (Marcos Antonio da Fonseca).. Retrieved 2 November 2018. and others.Fernandes, Cristina. Boa voz de tiple, sciencia de música e prendas de acompanhamento. O Real Seminário da Patriarcal (1713–1834) (Good treble voice, music science and accompanying gifts. The Royal Seminary of the Patriarchal (1713–1834)). Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, 2013. p. 9.. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
The Patriarchate of Lisbon and its Seminary John the "Absolutist" in power
Historical analysis places emphasis on the fact that John V reigned according to the absolutist model of monarchy,Beloff, Max. The Age of Absolutism 1660–1815. 2nd ed., Routledge Revivals, 2014. pp. 100–101. .Hanson, Economy and Society in Baroque Portugal 1668–1703. Macmillan, 1981. Ch. 2: "Privilege and Property". pp. 10–38. one which assumed the monarch to be ruling according to Divine Right and subject to no higher power except, ultimately, God's judgement. Therefore, while the crown could seek advice or counsel from others, usually members of the nobility or aristocracy, he or she was not subject to follow their direction, nor was the monarch ever seen as a purely symbolic head of state as in a constitutional monarchy.
John V was following a model set up by his father, Peter II who began his rule in 1683 and was later recognised as Portugal's first absolutist monarch.Hanson, p. 27.
Towards the end of Peter II's reign, alluvial gold was discovered in the Colony of Brazil and from that emerged a massive international trade which restored Portugal's wealth to the same level it had enjoyed in the 15th and early 16th centuries.
A fifth of the value of all gold mined flowed directly to the king's treasury, allowing him to allocate it wherever he wished. But while the industry was in its infant stages during the last decade of Peter II's life, the greatest income emerged during the new king's reign. From John V's hands, a substantial amount of this money was mortgaged to the country's upper classes to advance their lifestyle, even more was spent by the king on state projects such as the complete rebuilding of the University of Coimbra, the expansion and modernisation of the navy, and the royal family pursued its own objectives in erecting the grand-scale, 1,200 room Palace of Mafra (Portuguese: Palácio de Mafra) and rebuilding the Braganza dynasty's ducal palace at Vila Viçosa. As one description summed it all up:"John V … reigned over the great flowering of Portuguese art and culture. Architecture blossomed as it had done under the first colonial empire of King Manuel in the early sixteenth century. Royal palaces and noble manor houses mirrored the splendour which Spain had built from Latin American mining revenues. A small cultured elite became conversant with the world of learning and built fine libraries. Diplomats and even members of the royal family travelled through Europe and acquired cosmopolitan tastes. Churches were lavished with gilded carvings and ornamental decoration. The aristocracy ostentatiously rode in carriages wearing their finest robes. … The Lisbon élite were fashion-conscious and like to be seen in clothes of the latest Paris design. The king was said to possess more clothes than all the fashion houses of Lisbon put together. In order to keep their costumes clean in the narrow streets which served as drains and latrines the beautiful ones were carried in litters, curtained off from the popular gaze. Churchmen also had their bearers, coaches and escorts when they went out wining and dining."Birmingham, David. A Concise History of Portugal. Cambridge University Press, 1993. pp. 65–66. .
The negative side of this was that the king was highly selective about spending money on practical projects such as improving the public's education standards, repairing the country's shabby roads or building new ones, developing new industries or reforming agriculture where large amounts of land were not in use except as country estates and hunting grounds for the wealthy who, along with the largest land-owner of all, the church,Hanson, p. 28. were exploiting those without means while turning a blind eye to their needs. In fact, the life of the poor did not change:"The wealth of the few was matched by the poverty of the many. Peasants lived in almost feudal conditions of dependency. Fine palaces were not reflected in improvements to domestic and rural housing. The flowering of aristocratic learning was not mirrored by the development of public education or popular literacy. … Subsistence and survival were the hallmark of popular experience throughout the 'golden age'."Birmingham, p. 65.
Therefore, in assessing Portugal's long-term gain from Brazil's gold, the criterion, aptly named the "empire extraction rate",Costa, Leonor Freire, Nuno Palma and Jaime Reis. "The great escape? The contribution of the empire to Portugal's economic growth, 1500–1800". European Review of Economic History, Vol. 19/1. Oxford Academic, 1 February 2015, Ch. 5, par. 11. . . Retrieved 4 December 2018. . which judges the extent to which income drawn from an empire's colonial resources was used to expand home-based economic resilience, finds that because John V had spent his revenue on personal extravagance while ignoring Portugal's broader, long-term economic needs. The decline in income from Brazil's gold, which began after about 1740 and had fully depleted by 1750, left the country's per capita income as low as during its first bout of empire expansion in the 16th century.
By the second half of the 18th century, along with Spain, Portugal was the poorest of Europe's empires while, because of good investment on the home front, Britain and the Netherlands were the wealthiest. In addition, John V ignored the need to maintain his army and navy, and after his death the country became more reliant on the help of its wealthy ally, Britain, with consequences that would play against the country's and monarchy's stability in the not-so-distant future.
But that was of no concern to the king because, with Portugal riding high on its wealth, during his reign he had no need to call a meeting of the Cortes, the last of which had been assembled by Peter II to recognise John as the rightful successor to the throne, and he was able to reign with autonomy and self-confidence. Further, it would seem logical to assume that without the discovery of gold in Brazil and the subsequent generation of wealth in John V's hands, it would have been unlikely that setting up the Patriarchate and the Seminary would have been possible.
The pope submits to the king
The Patriarchate of Lisbon came into being following extensive pressure by John V on the papacy. Papal approval was issued by Pope Clement XI on 7 November 1716 in the so-called "Golden Bull", In supremo apostolatus solio by which the former archiepiscopal see of Lisbon was divided in two, the court's collegiate church was elevated, now under dedication to Our Lady of the Assumption, to the status of cathedral for the new see of Western Lisbon, and the ordinary was given the new title of Patriarch with a leadership role within the wider church in Portugal and its empire. At the same time, the patriarch was to fulfil a role as First Court Chaplain (Portuguese: Capelão-mor). The first patriarch was Tomás de Almeida whose formal entry into Lisbon and enthronement took place on 13 February 1717. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1737 and remained in office as patriarch until his death in 1754.
This sublimation of the patriarch to the authority of the king was demonstrated by the co-relationship of the patriarchal throne within the king's court, the fact that the patriarch was also the king's chaplain, and by virtue of the way the king constructed the patriarchal residence as a wing of Ribeira Palace. As a member of the court, the patriarch was in a position to be consulted by the king but at the same time subject to his commands.