From sufferance, a cry to Mary: Alma Redemptoris Mater (Gregorian chant)

Aurelio Porfiri

Among the Marian antiphons traditionally performed at the end of Mass or during the Marian months, Salve Regina and Regina Coeli would certainly claim the prize for popularity. Nonetheless, the antiphon typical for the Advent and Christmas seasons, Alma Redemptoris Mater, certainly holds its own beside them. To discuss this antiphon, we must refer to its author and take a long journey back in time to 11th-century Germany.

Here, on July 18, 1013, a child was born to Count Wolfrat of Altshausen, child that from the very beginning tasted the "valley of tears" that is life. He had problems with his lower limbs. Historians do not give us certainty about the exact moment of this paralysis, whether from birth or early childhood. The Count sent the boy, at the age of 7, to the Abbey of Saint Gall (at least according to biographer Bucelinus). After his studies, the boy donned the Benedictine habit and became a professor at Reichenau, where, after a life of diligent study marked by physical difficulties due to his infirmity, surrounded by the esteem of the greats of his time, he died on September 24, 1054, at the age of 41. He was buried in his father's estate, but the exact location of the grave is unknown today. He left behind apologetic, poetic, and historical texts (such as his Chronicon Universale). His name was purely German, Hermann, meaning "warrior." Due to his deformity, which caused his limbs to contract with great suffering, he became known as Hermannus Contractus, Hermann the Crippled. Thanks to Migne's Patrologia Latina, we have some important information about Hermann, such as the biographical note from his disciple Berthold.