ALANO della RUPE (de Rupe, de la Roche, van den Clip). — Dominican preacher and propagator of the Rosary, born in Brittany around 1428, died at Zwolle on 8 September 1475. He entered the Dominican convent of Dinant, in the diocese of Saint-Malo. He studied philosophy and theology at S. Giacomo in Paris, where—after having been at Lille in 1460—he lectured (1461–62) on the Sentences of the second year, continuing his teaching at Douai (1464–65), Ghent (1468–70), and Rostock in Mecklenburg, where he became master of theology.
In 1460 he encouraged the first steps taken at Lille toward the restoration of regular observance. Returning to Paris with Fra Pagano Dolon and a certain Fra Marco—all three affiliated with Lille in 1462—he promoted observance there. Detached from the province of Paris, the convent of Lille joined the Dutch Reformed 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 completed there the Apologia of the psalter. Shortly afterward he is found at Douai, then at Tournai, where he dedicated the Apologia to Bishop Ferricius of Cluny. After visiting the Carthusian monastery of Hérinnes, he went to Ghent, and in 1474 to Zwolle. A. was often called blessed; his cult, however, is not confirmed.
As early as 25 May 1476, the chapter of his congregation ordered that his writings be collected. In 1498 a first collection appeared at Stockholm and a second likewise in Sweden, while German translations were 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 by A. (Apologia; Relationes, revelationes et visiones; Sermones s. Dominici Alano revelati; Sermones et tractatuli; Exempla seu miracula), probably already altered by others beforehand.
The following are also attributed to A.: Compendium psalterii B. mue Trinitatis et s. Mariae; La confrariae du psautier de Notre Dame (published in the sixteenth century); Expositio in regulam s. Augustini, divided into 15 chapters according to the mysteries of the Marian psalter.
A.’s role in the Rosary movement is important. Like his writings, his sermons concerned the «psalter of the Virgin», that is, a way of praying to the Madonna by saying 150 Aves, divided by a Pater into decades and joining oral recitation to meditation on the mysteries of the Redemption.
A. avoided the designation «rosary» as profane, preferring for the devotion he propagated the expression «Marian psalter»; indeed, he declares that he knew through revelation that Mary entrusted s. Dominic with the institution of the «psalter». It should be noted, however, with Echard that «revelation» at that time meant only a rhetorical device for winning the attention of hearers and readers. The pre-existing practice of reciting 50 or more Aves was accepted by A., but fixed at 150 Aves. As regards meditation on the mysteries that were added to the Ave, which at that time ended with «Iesus»—one may recall the 50 clauses of the Carthusian Domenico di Prussia—A. likewise followed the practice already in force. His merit was to have organized the oral component and the meditations, and above all to have initiated the Confraternity of the Psalter of the Virgin, drawing up special statutes. The first confraternity was erected by him personally at Douai in 1470. His spiritual heirs, such as Fathers Michele François of Lille, Cornelio van Sneek, SPRENGER, JACOB (v.) at Cologne, propagated the Marian rosary and the confraternities devoted to this prayer.
BIBLI.: J. Quétif-J. Echard, Script. Ord. Praedic., I, Paris 1719, pp. 948–52; A. Mortier, Hist. des Maîtres Généraux de l'Ordre des Frites Prêcheurs, IV, Paris 1909, pp. 626–46; VII, there 1914, pp. 198, 328; R. Coulon, s.V. in DHC, I cols. 1906–12, where the works of Th. Esser (1897–1906), H. Holzapfel (1903), H. Thurston (1900), G. A. Meijer (1909) are cited; A. Walz, Compendium hist. O. P., 2nd ed., Rome 1948, pp. 196–98; M. Gorce, Rosaire, in DThC, XIII, cols. 2008, 2911; A. De Meyer, La Congrégation de Hollande, Liège n.d., pp. LXXIX–LXXXI. Angelo Walz