This edition is based on two sources, namely Librone 1, ff. 143v–145r (copied by Scribe A) and Librone 3, ff. 125v–126r (copied by Scribe I). The scribes inserted many phonetic variants, such as ‘regena’ for regina, ‘dulgiter’ for dulciter, and ‘relasetur’ for relaxetur, but did not make many mistakes.
The subject of this motet is devotion to Mary and all portions of text except the last were taken from different Marian sequences. The last textual segment (‘O virgo pura, / Pro nobis dulciter ora’) was not drawn from a particular sequence, but represents an addition of general devotional character. In general, the texts are very faithful to their models and only in one case did the scribes insert textual variants (the Marian sequence has ‘super solem’ instead of ‘super omnes’ in the second verse).
Relevant in the motet’s text are the metaphors of the Virgin Mary as a rose (‘mundi rosa’) and a lily (‘caelibatus lilium’), and the analogy between Mary and the sealed fountain from which streams of grace flow generously (‘fons signatus / Dans fluenta gratiae’). The first analogy in which Mary is compared to a rose can already be found in patristic writings (Ambrose, Sedulius) and in early Greek litanies and became very popular in high and late medieval religious hymnography and sequences.^[1] The image of Mary as a lily and as a sealed fountain were both drawn from the Song of Songs, one of the biblical sources that was used very intensely for the composition of new devotional texts for the Virgin Mary – from the twelfth century onwards the bride of the Song of Songs was commonly identified with Mary herself.^[2] The lily recalls Song of Songs 2: 1–2, where the groom talks about his bride and describes her as a lily among thorns: ‘Sicut lilium inter spinas, sic amica inter filias’ (As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters). The image of the sealed fountain, which is parallel to the enclosed garden also used as a metaphor for Mary, is drawn from Song of Songs 4: 12: ‘Hortus conclusus soror mea, sponsa, hortus conclusus, fons signatus’ (My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up). Naturally the idea of the inaccessible garden and sealed fountain came to signify Mary’s virginity and her immaculate conception. The graphic representations of such closed or walled gardens, in which often also some sort of well or fountain can be seen, also became very popular during the late Middle Ages.^[3]

^[1] Anne Winston Allen, Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 88.

^[2] ‘Since she was seen as the first bride of Christ’: ibid., 92.

^[3] See the illustrations ibid., 85–108.