A history of the jubilus—the complex vocal run on the last syllable of the Alleluia chant in medieval Christian liturgy.

In liturgical Christian worship, the Alleluia chant during the Mass involves extensive melismas—vocal embellishments on a single syllable sung over a complex melodic line. The melisma on the final “a” of the word “alleluia” is known as the jubilus—a climactic, musical eruption of joy. In Jubilation of the Heart, Kris Trujillo shows how the performance of this single syllable grew in significance during the European Middle Ages until it became a core element in Christian mystical traditions and beyond.

In various incarnations of the jubilus—from spontaneous sounds of joy to recitations of the Psalms, from meditations on the name of Jesus to glossolalia—Trujillo discovers a range of affective, embodied, and erotic modes of medieval Christian devotion with lasting influence on modern ideas about discourse, the subject, and ecstasy. Truijillo illuminates the raptures of joy expressed by theologians including Augustine, John Cassian, and Bernard of Clairvaux; thirteenth-century holy women like Hadewijch, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Christina the Astonishing; psychoanalytic thinkers Michel de Certeau and Jacques Lacan; popular vocalists Edith Piaf, Linda Ronstadt, and Whitney Houston; and even a diverse set of queer theorists. The result is an enchanting and wide-ranging history of premodern joy and its contemporary afterlives.