The processional anthem Salve Regina (Hail holy queen, mother of mercy) is one of the four main Marian antiphons in the Catholic Breviary. Roman church authorities frequently ascribe its composition most confidently to the Swabian monk, chronicler, and astrologer Hermannus Contractus (1013 - 1054). Some sources credit the Salve Regina to Petrus of Monsoro (who died in 1000), and yet others claim the Salve Regina was written as a rallying cry by Adhémar de Montiel (who died in 1098), Bishop of Podium and leader of the first Crusade into Antioch. This has led to an occasional reference identifying the Salve Regina as the "Antiphona de Podia," although few scholars today are likely to take this notion seriously. Secular musicologists are of an altogether different mind about the origins of the Salve Regina. The earliest reference to the work yet found is in a 1135 declaration of Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, who made it a rule that the Salve Regina be sung during processions held on certain feast days. The earliest manuscript source for the work is found in a Cistercian antiphoner formerly from the abbey of Movimondo near Milan, now housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale (F-pn n.a.1412) and compiled in the 1150s. The remainder of most manuscripts containing the Salve Regina datable to before the fourteenth century originate from Cistercian monasteries, and on this basis it is generally concluded that the Salve Regina originated in France among the Cistercian order. In the late middle ages, the Salve Regina was sung in a wide variety of liturgical contexts. The current placement of the anthem between the First Vespers of Trinity Sunday through the Saturday before Advent was established by the Dominican Order in the thirteenth century. Polyphonic settings of the Salve Regina were common in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly among English and Franco-Flemish composers of sacred music. The Salve Regina remains popular even at the end of the twentieth century, where its English language equivalent "Hail holy queen" was included in a list of the top 20 most popular Catholic hymns. The common version of the Salve Regina is in the First Mode, identical still to the version recorded in the Movimondo manuscript, although there is a version in the Third Mode found in early German manuscripts that is performed with far less frequency. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide
