At first the Marian antiphons were sung, like the psalms, in a weekly cursus. In the modern liturgy,
only four have been retained, and they follow a seasonal round. In winter (that is, from Advent until the
Feast of the Purification on February 2), the seasonal anthem to the Blessed Virgin Mary is the penitential
Alma Redemptoris Mater (“Sweet Mother of the Redeemer ... have pity on us sinners”). In spring (from
Purification until Holy Week), it is the panegyric Ave Regina coelorum (“Hail, O Queen of the heavens”).
For the exultant fifty-day period between Easter and Pentecost, known as Paschal Time, Regina caeli,
laetare (“O Queen of heaven, rejoice”) is the prescribed antiphon (Ex. 3-12a); and during the remaining
(biggest) portion of the year, encompassing late summer and fall, it is Salve, Regina (“Hail, O Queen”),
the most popular of the Marian antiphons (Ex. 3-12b) and the only one for which a plausible author has
been proposed: Adhémar, Bishop of Le Puy and a leader of the First Crusade (d. at Antioch, 1098).
These eleventh-century melodies, the one exultant and the other penitent, exemplify in their contrast of
modes the persistence of the doctrine of ethos, alive even today in our conventional assignment of
contrasting moods to the major and the minor. Regina caeli, in fact, is in the major mode to all intents and
purposes. Its final, F (tritus), became ever more prevalent in the later Frankish genres; and when it
appeared, it was usually given a “signature” of one flat to “soften” progressions from B to F (of which
Regina caeli is especially full). The resulting “Lydian” octave species, TTST–TTS, is identical to what
we would call the major scale. (Its “natural” diatonic occurrence, beginning on C, was not recognized as
a mode in its own right until the middle of the sixteenth century, but it was obviously in practical use for
centuries before its theoretical description.) The mode here works in tandem with other traditional
earmarks of rejoicing, notably “jubilation” (melismas on portare and, especially, alleluia, replete with
internal repeats clearly modeled on those of the Mass Alleluia).
EX. 3-12A Marian antiphon, Regina caeli, laetare