The Santa Tecla Festival (, ) is a festival held in Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain.
Plunging into the festivities of Santa Tecla of Tarragona unavoidably involves becoming impregnated with fragrances that link the present times with history, with heritage legacy. This is precisely the route, maintained through the centuries, that defines the personality of the festivities are rock music, jazz, drama plays, music-hall, movies, parties, sport activities and so on. However, the essence of it still is the collection of dances, the bestiary, the entremesos (interlude or short farce), the "spoken dances" and the "human castles", all of which shape the "Popular Retinue" of the city, as a genuine corpus, particular of the celebration.
It has been named as a Traditional Festival of national interest (Festa tradicional d'interès nacional, in catalan language), by the Government of Catalonia, and also as a Touristic Festival of national interest by the Spanish Government. It is one of the two unique festivals in Catalonia has both declarations.
History
Although in Tarragona the cult to Santa Tecla has existed since ancient times, it was not until the period of the Reconquest that the festivities outline the embryonic structure that will be perpetuated, and that adopt the streets of the city as the essential physical space in which such festivities are to take place.
In 1091, the Pope Urban II restored, if only juridically, the metropolitan seat of Tarragona and declared the festivities of Santa Tecla as a day of obligation and main celebration of the year. However, this was only a phase previous to the effective restoration, which took place several years, later, in 1118, when the count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer the Great offered the city to the bishop Olegarius (Oleguer) of Barcelona. It was from that moment on that we refer to a real repopulation of Tarragona. The pontifical bull of Gelasius II ratified the day of Santa Tecla as the main festivity of the year and, of course, as a day of obligation.
The relevance of the path which had been started was confirmed in year 1239 at the first Provincial Council, presided by the archbishop Pere d'Albalat, and in year 1277, at the Council, of archbishop, Bernat d'Olivella. Until that moment, however, the festivity is confined within the strictly liturgical framework.
The increasing popularity of the celebration leads to a fact that will become extremely important for the evolution of the Festivities. On 17 May 1321, the relic of the arm of the patroness saint arrives in Tarragona, from Antioch, located in the Orient. The city carried out an absolutely spectacular and overwhelming welcome reception, in such a way that this would become the point of reference for the subsequent structuration of the festivity. For the first time ever, the population, by means of all of its integrating social classes or strata—political, ecclesiastical, soldiers or military men and working class—fills the streets and takes possession of it. Space is filled with the new dances performed by the local guilds which, in a process of syncretism of pre-christian and Christian rituals, are always made functional the service of the sacred.
The civic significance that this ceremony had, as well as the comparison of the festivity of Santa Tecla to that of Corpus Christi—which was already the object of an outstanding celebration since 1357, at the request of the archbishop Sanç López d’Ayerbe—will lead to the establishment of the solemn celebration of the octave of Santa Tecla from 1359 onwards, and to the publication of a document which is essential to understand the Festivities: the Bylaws of Santa Tecla, which on 26 July 1370, archbishop Pere Clasquerí establishes at the request of the consuls of the city.
The philosophy of the text puts on the same level the festivity of Santa Tecla and that of Corpus Christi, the essential dates of the local calendar. The structure of the Festivities established for the eve and the day of the patroness saint is maintained until the present times. 22 September is the date set for the singing of vespers at the Cathedral, which is the centre of the festivity, as well as the performance of dances by the guilds throughout the city, that is, the Cercavila ("the big parade in the streets") of nowadays. On 23 September, the attendance to religious service is to take place, with the dances and the establishment of the Procession of the Holy Arm, under a canopy, through the streets and preceded by the dances.