Ave verum corpus natum

Ave verum corpus natum Latin, 13th century. This medieval Latin hymn (Analecta Hymnica 54. 257) was used at the elevation of the Host at Mass, a liturgical practice that was introduced in the 12th century. The authorship is uncertain. It is not common in medieval manuscripts, but does appear in a Reichenau manuscript (14th century), a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, dated ca. 1340 (see Frost, 1962, p. 354), and in a 13th-century central Italian Franciscan manuscript (Chicago, Newberry Library, 24).  The Reichenau MS attributes this hymn to Pope Innocent VI (Pope 1352-62), but this attribution is of course untenable given the hymn's presence in manuscripts of earlier date. The...

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