The cycle Ave mundi domina by Gaspar van Weerbeke is transmitted in complete form only in Librone 1, which is the only source for four of the eight motets. For the motet opening the cycle, Ave mundi domina, Librone 1 (ff. 126v–127r) is the unique source and thus the text of the motet copied there represents the basis of the present edition. It was copied by Scribe A, who, except for the inversion of ‘tua’ and ‘sit’ in the Bassus in stanza 2, only produced one variant and one error: he wrote nuntiatio instead of annuntiatio  (stanza 3, T) and wrongly copied ‘nostra’ for nostrae (stanza 5, T). He did register some interesting phonetic variants found in medieval Latin, such as, for instance, the use of x instead of s in the word rosa (‘roxa’ in stanza 1, all voices), the omission of the double consonant s in the word assumptio in all voices (stanza 5) and the use of o instead of u (‘mondi’ for mundi in C, A and T in stanza 1).

Devotion to Mary is the topic of this first motet. In the first stanza the Virgin is addressed and greeted as mistress of the world and queen of heaven, as undefiled mother of God, and lastly as rose without thorn. The following stanzas resemble a list and thus recall the structure of a rosary, which developed from an idea of ‘multiplication’ (of prayers, petitions, epitheta, and so on). The rosary was a particular form of devotion especially typical of Dominican spirituality. Dominicans also played a major role in the invention and propagation of late medieval confraternities, many of which were dedicated to Marian devotion.^[1] Even though the rosary was a ‘Dominican practice’ the text of this motet seems more connected to Franciscan spirituality: the stanzas enumerate the so-called ‘joys of Mary’ (gaudia Mariae), a very important topic in late medieval devotion and especially central in Franciscan devotion. The Franciscans developed the so-called ‘Franciscan crown’, a form of the rosary in which the seven joys of Mary are listed and repeated over and over.^[2]  

The text of this hymn is already attested at the beginning of the fourteenth century in French books of hours linked to Blanche of Burgundy (New York Public Library, MS Spencer 56, ff. 28v–29r) and in an English manuscript (London, British Library, MS Royal 7.A.3, f. 25v).^[3] It also appears, among others, in a fourteenth-century manuscript now preserved in Venice (Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Cicogna 2239; see MONE 2, no. 322, pp. 4–5), a fourteenth-century manuscript now in Wolfenbüttel (Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 18.30 Aug. 4^o, ff. 46v–47r), and a fifteenth-century miscellaneous codex now preserved in the university and regional library of Jena that probably comes from Hildesheim (Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Ms. Sag. o. 2, f. 150v).^[4] A comparison with the text as transmitted in Librone 1 and the edition in MONE 2 shows what was left out of our motet:

In the text of the motet, the fifth joy of the traditional list (the parturitio, Maria’s giving birth to Jesus) is missing, as well as ‘nostra sit salvatio’ in the previous line.^[6]

In the last stanza the expression ‘O clemens, o pia, [...] o dulcis Maria’ was probably drawn from the last words of the Salve regina antiphon, in which we read: ‘O clemens, o pia, o dulcis virgo Maria’. The addition ‘fac nos tecum vivere’, however, is not present in the antiphon. As different hymns in Analecta Hymnica reveal, this expression was mostly used in reference to Jesus (see, for instance, ‘Fac nos tecum vivere, / Iesus, in caelestibus’, AH 33, no. 154, p. 136; ‘Florere, o Domine, / pro devotione, / fac me tecum vivere / in regno Sione’, AH 33, no. 235, p. 231; ‘Bone pastor / [...] fac nos tecum vivere’, AH 42,  no. 7, p. 24), but was also adapted for Mary (see, for instance, ‘Mundi mundans latere, / fac nos tecum vivere / Mater Christi’, AH 49, no. 769, p. 362) and other saints.

^[1] Richard Kieckhefer, ‘Major Currents in Late Medieval Devotion’, in Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation, ed. Jill Raitt, World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, 17 (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 75–108, at 93.

^[2] Gottfried Egger, Mit Maria die Freuden betrachten: Meditationen zum Franziskaner-Rosenkranz (Freiburg Schweiz: Kanisius Verl., 1999).

^[3] See Agnese Pavanello, ‘Praying to Mary: Another Look at Gaspar van Weerbeke’s Marian Motetti Missales’, in Motet Cycles between Devotion and Liturgy, ed. Daniele V. Filippi and Agnese Pavanello, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Scripta 7 (Basel: Schwabe, 2019), 339–80, at 344.

^[4] See Pavanello, ‘Praying to Mary’, 344, n. 18.

^[5] Based on the manuscript Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, Cicogna 2239. MONE 2, no. 322, p. 4, indicated with the old shelfmark Cicogna 2331.

^[6] Concerning the ‘textual mouvance’ of Ave mundi domina, see in particular Pavanello, ‘Praying to Mary’, 349–50.