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Marian antiphon

Alma Redemptoris Mater — Loving Mother of the Redeemer

The Advent antiphon of Our Lady — 'Loving Mother of the Redeemer' — its hexameters credited to the crippled monk Hermann of Reichenau (d. 1054), sung at Compline from the First Sunday of Advent until Candlemas.

The prayer

Mother of Christ, hear thou thy people's cry, Star of the deep and Portal of the sky! Mother of Him who thee from nothing made, Sinking we strive and call to thee for aid: O, by that joy which Gabriel brought to thee, Thou Virgin first and last, let us thy mercy see.

Where it comes from

The dated sources the library holds, oldest first — in their own words.

  1. 1,050
    The Catholic Encyclopedia Catholic
    1907–1914
    “The hexameter verses are credited to Hermannus Contractus, or Hermann "the Cripple" (d. 1054).”
    Source
  2. 1,200
    The antiphon of Advent

    One of the four seasonal Marian antiphons of Compline, the Alma Redemptoris Mater is sung from the first Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent until Compline of Candlemas (2 February).

  3. 1,390
    Chaucer's Prioress's Tale

    In Chaucer's Prioress's Tale (c. 1390) a little schoolboy learns to sing the Alma Redemptoris by heart, "as children lerned hir antiphoner" — a witness to the antiphon's hold on late-medieval English devotion.