Seven Joys of the Virgin
popular devotion to Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ
The Seven Joys of the Virgin (or of Mary, the Mother of Jesus) is a popular devotion to events of the life of the Virgin Mary, arising from a trope of medieval devotional literature and art.
The Seven Joys were frequently depicted in medieval devotional literature and art. The seven joys are usually listed as:
The Annunciation
The Nativity of Jesus
The Adoration of the Magi
The Resurrection of Christ
The Ascension of Christ to Heaven
The Pentecost or Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and Mary
The Coronation of the Virgin in Heaven
Alternative choices were made and might include the Visitation and the Finding in the Temple, as in the Seven Joyful Mysteries of the Life of the Ever-Blessed Virgin from St. Vincent's Manual, or the Franciscan Crown form of Rosary, which uses the Seven Joys, but omits the Ascension and Pentecost.
Depiction in art of the Assumption of Mary may replace or be combined with the Coronation, especially from the 15th century onwards; by the 17th century it is the norm. As with other sets of scenes, the different practical implications of depictions in different media such as painting, ivory miniature carving, liturgical drama and music led to different conventions by medium, as well as other factors such as geography and the influence of different religious orders. There is a matching set of seven Sorrows of the Virgin; both sets influenced the selection of scenes in depictions of the Life of the Virgin.
Originally, there were five joys of the Virgin. Later, that number increased to seven, nine, and even fifteen in medieval literature, although seven remained the most common number, and others are rarely found in art. The five joys of Mary are mentioned in the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a source of Gawain's strength.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1331636. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Seven Joys of the Virgin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.