The joys, poetic compositions to be sung in praise of the Virgin, Jesus Christ or the saints, which began to be cultivated at the end of the Middle Ages, are still today the object of study, devotion and collecting. The first were in Latin and later appeared in other Romance languages such as Catalan or Occitan and, to a lesser extent, Castilian, Sardinian and Basque.
Spread by the church and brotherhoods, these liturgical hymns were sung by the faithful to make requests to the virgin or saint in question. “People asked for help in times of drought, against hail, so that the cattle would not suffer epidemics, to have a good birth, and Saint Roch was invoked in times of pestilence,” explains Pep Vila, author of Els goigs, a publication of Quaderns from the Girona Magazine in which he explains the evolution of these religious texts.
The author estimates that 30,000 different specimens are preserved in Catalonia, which at the same time "makes their study difficult." These texts, which were mainly sung in parishes, hermitages or at patron saint festivals, “are the only Catalan contribution to the study of European religious language.” He points out that nowhere else is there the “richness” that Catalonia has in this semi-popular genre with religious, artistic, typographic, literary and documentary value.
The text that appears in the joys is normally written in seven-syllable verses and contains information about hermitages, temples or the hundreds of saints who have left their mark on popular mysticism and who were invoked by the faithful. They were printed on loose sheets, easy to transport, and were ordered by the Church, brotherhoods, devotees or religious orders. The faithful offered alms to get one of them.
“In general, the joys are a compendium of popular religiosity and a derivation of the liturgical songs of the church,” explains Vila, who places the period of greatest splendor of this genre between the 19th and early 20th centuries.
“That is when people mostly learn to read and the printing press becomes very important,” he points out. Previously, the faithful used to learn a verse because most did not know how to read.
Vila states that most modern joys began with an invocation to the Virgin, Christ or a saint. Later – he adds – their attributes were sung, life, death or martyrdom, if any, “which should be an example for the devotees.” The last step was the invocations, personal or collective supplications in which they were asked for help.
It was customary to sing the joys. In fact, some included a score. “But since the solfa made the product more expensive and since most people did not understand the notes or the text, the compilers did not feel the need to transcribe those melodies,” explains the author, who places the oldest joys in the 14th century.
The author also dedicates a chapter to talking about the authorship of these compositions, most of which are anonymous. Its authors were priests, religious or educated people. However, writers such as Jacint Verdaguer, Joan Maragall, Josep Carner and Joaquim Ruyra also spread this genre.
The work also shows the existence of historical, political or secular joys and emphasizes censored compositions. In the bishopric of Girona, between 1940 and 1960, newly created joys and those that were reissued when they were out of stock or because they had disappeared during the Civil War used to undergo ecclesiastical censorship.
