Alanus de Rupe (De Rupe, De La Roche, Van den Clip)

ALANUS DE RUPE (De Rupe, De La Roche, Van den Clip). - Dominican preacher, propagator of the Rosary, b. in Brittany around the year 1428, d. at Zwolle on 8 September 1475. He entered the Dominican convent of Dinant, diocese of Saint-Malo. He studied philosophy and theology at St. James in Paris where - after having been at Lille in 1460 - he lectured (1461-62) on the Sentences of the 2nd year, continuing to teach at Douai (1464-65), at Ghent (1468-70) and at Rostock in Mecklenburg, where he became master in theology.

In 1460 he encouraged the first steps taken at Lille for the restoration of regular observance. Having returned to Paris with friar Pagano Dolon and a certain friar Marco - all three affiliated with Lille in 1462 - he promoted observance there. Detached from the province of Paris, the convent of Lille united with the reformed Dutch congregation, which in 1464 held its first chapter at Lille under the presidency of the master general Corrado d'Asti. On the occasion of another chapter at Lille (1475) he finished there the Apologia of the psalter. Shortly afterwards he is found at Douai, then at Tournai where he dedicates the Apologia to bishop Ferricio of Cluny. Having visited the charterhouse of Hérinnes, he went to Ghent, and in 1474 to Zwolle. A. was often called blessed; the cult, however, is not confirmed.

Already on 25 May 1476 the chapter of his congregation ordered his writings to be collected. In 1498 a first collection came out at Stockholm and a second also in Sweden, while German translations were being published especially at Augsburg and Ulm before 1500. Father Andrea Coppenstein printed (Freiburg 1619, other editions Cologne 1624, Naples 1630, 1642, 1660), though in an arbitrary manner, under the title B. Alanus redivivus, de Psalterio seu Rosario Christi et Mariae tractatus, five texts of A. (Apologia; Relationes, revelationes et visiones; Sermones s. Dominici Alano revelati; Sermones et tractatuli; Exempla seu miracula), probably already touched up before by others.

To A. are also attributed: Compendium psalterii B. mue Trinitatis et s. Mariae; La confrariae du psautier de Notre Dame (ed. in the 16th century); Expositio in regulam s. Augustini divided into 15 chapters according to the mysteries of the Marian psalter.

Important is A.'s part in the Rosarian movement. Like his writings, so too his sermons concerned the "psalter of the Virgin", that is, a manner of praying to the Madonna by saying 150 Hail Marys, divided by a Pater into decades and joining to the oral recitation the meditation of the mysteries of the Redemption.

A. avoided as profane the designation "rosary", preferring for the devotion he propagated the term "Marian psalter"; he declares moreover to know by revelation that Mary entrusted St. Dominic with the institution of the "psalter". It should be noted, however, with Echard that "revelation" at that time meant only a rhetorical form for gaining the attention of listeners and readers. The pre-existing use of reciting 50 or more Hail Marys was accepted by A., but fixed at 150 Hail Marys. Regarding the meditation of the mysteries that were added to the Hail Mary then ending with "Iesus" - let the 50 clauses of the Carthusian Dominic of Prussia be remembered - A. likewise followed the use already in force. His merit was to have ordered the oral part and the meditations, and above all to have begun the Confraternity of the Psalter of the Virgin, drafting special statutes. The first confraternity was erected by himself at Douai in 1470. Spiritual heirs, such as fathers Michele François of Lille, Cornelio van Sneek and more than all Giacomo Sprenger (v.) at Cologne, propagated the Marian rosary and the confraternities of this prayer.

Angelo Walz