Salve Regina

The story

The Salve Regina ("Hail, Queen"), also known as the Hail Holy Queen, is a Marian hymn and one of four Marian antiphons sung at different seasons of the Catholic Church's year. It was composed in Latin during the Middle Ages. Tradition has ascribed it to the eleventh-century German monk Hermann of Reichenau, and also to Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter of Compostela and Adhemar of Le Puy, among others, but most musicologists regard it as anonymous.

Marian antiphons have been sung at the close of Compline, the last Office of the day, since the thirteenth century, and the Salve Regina is the best known of the four. Its place after Compline probably goes back to the monastic custom of intoning it in chapel and chanting it on the way to the sleeping quarters. It was set down in largely its present form at the Abbey of Cluny in the 12th century, where it served as a processional hymn on Marian feasts, and the Cistercians chanted it daily from 1218. The text sung today is almost exactly the original: one word of the first line seems to have been added in the 16th century, and one of the last line in the 13th.

In the 1220s or 1230s the Dominican friars of Bologna adopted a nightly Salve procession at Compline, and the practice soon spread through the whole order; because the Dominicans were already spread across Europe, the hymn's popularity is largely credited to them. Pope Gregory IX, on the advice of the Dominican Raymond of Penyafort, introduced it in the diocese of Rome on Fridays at Compline, and many dioceses and orders took it up during the 13th century. It was also popular at medieval universities as an evening song, became part of the ritual for blessing a ship, and was especially dear to sailors.

Later centuries gave it new uses. Pope Pius VI attached an indulgence to its recitation by a decree of 5 April 1786. In the 18th century Alphonsus Liguori built his book The Glories of Mary on its outline. Pope Leo XIII added it to the prayers said at the end of Low Mass; it is traditionally sung at the end of a priest's funeral Mass and said at the end of the Rosary. In 1687 the German priest Johann Georg Seidenbusch, inspired by the pilgrimages to Aufhausen Priory, published a hymn whose salutations come mostly from the Salve Regina; its English version, "Hail, Holy Queen enthroned above", first appeared in The Roman Missal in 1884.

Victoria, Palestrina, Josquin, Lassus, Charpentier, Pergolesi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Zelenka, Handel and Liszt all set the text; Schubert wrote no fewer than seven versions, Poulenc one in 1941, and Arvo Pärt one first performed in Essen Cathedral in 2002. Salve Regina University, founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1934, is named after the hymn.

What it says

The hymn greets Mary as queen and mother and turns to her for help and mercy. It is sung as an evening prayer at the close of the day, and its tone is humble and trusting. Later devotion read it as presenting Mary as a "Gate of Heaven" given to humankind.

The words