REGINA CAELI. - Major antiphon with which the Church greets and prays to the Most Holy Virgin, associating her with the triumph of the Resurrection through which she has become the Queen of heaven and the universal intercessor. The R. c. is recited at the end of the Divine Office during Paschal time (from Compline of Holy Saturday to None of the Saturday after Pentecost). Its author is unknown, but it is attributed to Pope Gregory V (10th century).
It is composed of four stichs in accentual rhythm, of which the first two have paired rhyme (a, a) and the principal tonic accent on the 1st, 4th and 7th (the quia of the 2nd verse is to be considered as an anacrusis or lead-in), the third is equivalent to two paired quaternaries with assonance (exit, ixit); the fourth, a septenary with the accent on the 1st and on the 6th, stands on its own. In this way the Alleluia, at the end of each verse, is regarded as a refrain that serves to fuse the brief poem into a single rhyme.
In antiquity it was used as a processional antiphon; then as an Easter antiphon to the Gospel canticles (Benedictus and Magnificat), a use that remained in the votive Office of St. Mary on Saturday; then as a Marian antiphon at the end of the Divine Office, first (according to the testimony of Giovanni da Parma, from 1249) among the Franciscans, then, in 1350 (at Avignon, under Clement VI), in the Breviary of the Roman Curia. The use in force was regulated by the reform of Pius V (1568). As an antiphon to the Magnificat of the Easter octave, the R. c. is found in the Antiphonary of St. Peter (12th century) edited by I. M. Tommasi (Opera omnia, ed. A. F. Vezzosi, IV, Rome 1749, p. 100). With a trope (as a commentary) it appears in the Antiphonary of the convent of Rivoli, in use until the French Revolution (cf. S. Bäumer, Hist. du Brév., I, Paris 1905, p. 422 ff.), and in cod. 314 of the monastery of Engelberg (fol. 74; cf. K. Young, The Drama of the medieval Church, I, Oxford 1933, p. 662).
The original Gregorian melody, from the 10th century, is of the first tone, less rich but devout; the one in use, of the sixth tone, easy and solemn, tender and joyful, is from the 13th century: in its simplified form, from the 17th century. According to the legend (Durandus, Ration. div. off., VI, 89, 3) the R. c. would have been sung by three angelic voices while an angel atop the Mole Adriana was sheathing his blood-stained sword at the end of the litania septiformis ordered by St. Gregory the Great for the liberation of the Roman people from the plague (cf. Divina Commedia, Par., XXIII, 127-129; Benedict XIV decreed that the R. c. replace the recitation of the Angelus (v.) during the Easter season (20 Apr. 1742; cf. AAS, 25 [1933], p. 71 ff.).
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Igino Cecchetti