The edition of this text is based on Librone 1 (ff. 171v–172r), where it was written by Scribe A.
Except for one minor copying mistake (T writes ‘cristrus’) and some spellings typical of medieval Latin (‘Hemanuel’ for Emanuel in A) the text was copied correctly.
Hodie nobis de virgine was intended for performance during or as substitution for the introit, as the loco rubric indicates (‘loco Introitus’): it opens a cycle of eight motets dedicated to the birth of Jesus and is thus intended for the Christmas season. The topic of this cycle is revealed right at the beginning (‘Hodie nobis de virgine Christus nasci dignatus est’: ‘Today Christ deigned to be born of a Virgin for us’) and maintained throughout. The emphasis on the ideas of ‘today’ and ‘this day’ is typical of liturgical texts, in which the yearly re-enactment of a sacred time from the past is celebrated.^[1] The connection of the cycle to the liturgical setting of Christmas is made evident by the use of textual materials extrapolated from responsories, antiphons, invitatories, and also hymns assembled into a ‘patchwork’.^[2] The first motet of the cycle includes such well-known texts as a stanza from the famous Christmas hymn Christe redemptor omnium and the invitatory Christus natus est nobis, venite adoremus, which opens Matins at Christmas.

^[1] See Felix Heinzer, ‘Figura zwischen Präsenz und Diskurs: Das Verhältnis des “gregorianischen” Messgesangs zu seiner dichterischen Erweiterung’, in Figura: Dynamiken der Zeiten und Zeichen im Mittelalter, ed. Christian Kiening and Katharina Mertens Fleury (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2013), 71–90: 75.

^[2] See Eva Ferro, ‘“Old Texts for New Music”? Textual and Philological Observations on the Cycles “Salve Mater Salvatoris” and “Ave Domine Iesu Christe” from Librone 1’, in Motet Cycles between Devotion and Liturgy, ed. Daniele V. Filippi and Agnese Pavanello, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Scripta, 7 (Basel: Schwabe, 2019), 189–218.