oa ‘What You Do on the Sly … Will Be Deemed Forgiven in the Sight of the Most High’: Gilles Joye and the Changing Status of Singers in Fifteenth-Century Bruges

According to his contemporaries, Gilles Joye was one of the most important composers of his age. However, he has been the focus of relatively little biographical research. New documents reveal that Joye, who also went by the name of vanden Abeele came from the small Flemish town of Courtrai. After a period as a singer at the church of Our Lady in his home-town, he subsequently made a career for himself at the Bruges church of St. Donatian and at the Burgundian court chapel. In Bruges he gained quite a reputation for his secular way of life, becoming well known as a rebel and a pleasure-lover. Even though he had been ordained a priest at a very tender age, he did not observe celibacy. By cleverly exploiting his social networks, Joye managed to acquire many ecclesiastical benefices. However, these did not suffice to support his high standard of living: the enormous debts he incurred would pursue him to his dying day. No more than five of Joye’s compositions have survived, all of them secular songs. Their sophistication and frivolity seem to reflect his lifestyle.