De radice processerat

For Christmas

Words and Music: Medieval Latin Hymn

See: Theodoric Petri, ed., Piae Cantiones Ecclesiasticæ Et Scholasticae Et Scholasticae Vetervm Episcoporum. (Gyphisuualdiæ: Augustinum Ferberum, 1582).

Source: Rev. George R. Woodward, ed., Piæ Cantiones. A Collection of Church & School Song. (London: Printed at the Chiswick Press for the Plainsong & Medieval Music Society, 1910) , #53, pp.92-3. See: Christmas Songs in Woodward's Piæ Cantiones (1910)

De radice processerat | Iesse virga mirifica.
Quæ mirum florem gesserat | fœcunda vi Deifica:
Huius virgæ mysterium | si sane vis percipere,
Virginis puerperium | tu debes intelligere.

Flos Christus est in seculo, | dans odorem süauiter
& in cœli rosario | coruscans æternaliter.

In fructum flos conuertitur | gustando salutiferum,
Hoc est corpus [meum] dum | loquitur natus ante luciferum.
Granum, de cuius fructibus | egens turba reficitur,
Christus pro nobis omnibus | cadens in terra moritur.

Flos Christus est in seculo, | dans odorem süauiter
Et in cœli rosario | coruscans æternaliter.

Theodoric Petri, ed., Piæ Cantiones Ecclesiasticae et Scholasticae Veterum Episcoporum. (Gyphisuualdiæ: Augustinum Ferberum, 1582)

Sheet Music and Notes from Rev. George R. Woodward, ed., Piæ Cantiones. A Collection of Church & School Song, chiefly Ancient Swedish, originally Published in A. D. 1582 by Theodoric Petri of Nyland. (London: Printed at the Chiswick Press for the Plainsong & Medieval Music Society, 1910), Carol #53, pp. 91-2, Notes 254.

See: The Christmas Songs in Woodward's Piæ Cantiones (1910)

Also found in:

• G. E. Klemming, ed., Piae Cantiones. S. Trinitas. Iesus Christus. S. Spiritus. S Maria. (1886), p. 11.

• Guido Maria Dreves and Clemens Blume, eds., Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, Vol. 45b. Cantiones et Motetten des Mittelalters. (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1904), pp. 135-6, #168.

Woodward's Note for #LIII, De Radice Processerat, p. 254.

Reprinted from Piæ Cantiones in Klemming, II, p. 18; and in Dreves 'Anal. Hymnica,' XLVb, No. 168, p. 135.

In the second line of the refrain, 'Flos Chriftus est,' 'Anal. Hymnica' wrongly reads veraciter for suauiter. In Stanza II, in the phrase, 'Hoc est corpus meum,' 'meum' is extra metrum.

Apparently a Lydian mode Melody with B moll.

Editor's Note.

“Extra metrum” is an extra word or syllable that does not fit in the metric scheme for that line in a song or poem because it is in excess, more than expected. For example, if I was writing a poem consisting of three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables each, and if the last line consisted of 6 syllables, that would be “extra medium.”

Sources referred to in Woodward's text:

• "Anal. Hymnica" refers to Guido Maria Dreves and Clemens Blume, eds., Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, Vol. 45b. Cantiones et Motetten des Mittelalters (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1904).

• "Klemming II" refers to G. E. Klemming, ed., Piae Cantiones. S. Trinitas. Iesus Christus. S. Spiritus. S Maria. (1886). Primary source for many scholars, including Dreves, Woodward and others.

Additional sources of Latin hymns found in Piae Cantiones:

• George Ratcliffe Woodward, Piae Cantiones: A Collection of Church & School Song, chiefly Ancient Swedish, originally published in A.D. 1582 by Theodoric Petri of Hyland. (London: Chiswick Press for the Plainsong & Medieval Music Society, 1910).

• Sheet music for some hymns can be found in George Ratcliffe Woodward, The Cowley Carol Book, First & Second Series. Table Of Contents. (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., ca. 1902, 1912).

• Translations of some carols can be found in John Mason Neale and Thomas Helmore, eds., Carols for Christmas-tide (London: Novello, 1853). By the same authors was Carols for Easter-tide (1854).

• Translations and sheet music for some hymns can be found in Charles L. Hutchins, ed., Carols Old and Carols New (Boston: Parish Choir, 1916).

• Scans of individual pages from Piæ Cantiones (in the Adobe PDF format) can be downloaded from Facsimiles Piae Cantiones (http://www.spielleut.de/facs_piae_cantiones.htm; accessed June 15, 2009).

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