"Sancta Maria dei genetrix"
The Buffalo & Erie Country Public Library (see left) has contributed a leaf whose recto contains an additional portion of the prayer Sancta Maria dei genetrix. (The verso of this leaf proved to be blank except for ruling).
Interestingly, this section of the text appears to contain a grammatical error that likely reflects the prayer’s transmission history.
At the end of line 12, the syntax of the sentence appears to call for "quae," the feminine nominative form of the relative pronoun. However, the manuscript shows an abbreviated form of "quam," the feminine accusative (Capelli p. 303).
This discrepancy becomes less puzzling in light of the history of the text. In the oldest known version of this part of the prayer (found in the 11th century portion of the Codex Gertrudianus, the text reads "cum illa carne quam ex te sancta and immaculata virgine suscepit," or "with that flesh which he accepted from you, holy and immaculate virgin"(Barré, 1963, p. 284; Codex Gertrudianus, 206v). "Quam" is thus the direct object of "suscepit," and is inflected accordingly.
By the 12th century, however, a revised version appears in a manuscript from the Bavarian monastery of Tegernsee that changes the syntax without updating the case ending: "cum carne illa quam ex te virgine assumere dignatus est," or "with that flesh which from you, virgin, is considered worthy [for him] to assume" (Olivar, p.34; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 18541 b, 32r). With this elaboration of the sentence, the relative pronoun is now the subject of “est” and should appear in the nominative, but the adjustment has not been made. This lapse could represent a simple oversight, but given its persistence in later manuscripts, it may also reflect declining familiarity with the significance of Latin case endings.
In any event, FOL 47 retains the error, as do other examples of the text from later periods (e.g. Biblioteca Capitolare di Vercelli 226 and Biblioteca Gambalunghiana SC-MS 23 in Baroffio or Bibliothèque nationale de France Latin 10527, 77v).