Hymns to Mary

These liturgies include the Magnificat hymn, which is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns—perhaps the earliest, according to historian Marjorie Reeves.

It is named after its first word in the 4th-century Vulgate Bible, based on Luke 1:46–55, and is widely used by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and the Eastern Orthodox.

These Marian hymns have been used in daily prayers since early Christianity (they became part of liturgy later) as a way to teach people the Orthodox beliefs, and to prepare them against ideas considered heresies.

[6] Marian hymns remain a key element in the liturgy of the Coptic Church and are included in every canonical hour, day and night.

[10] In the Orthodox weekly liturgical cycle, Wednesday is dedicated to the Theotokos, and all daily services include numerous Marian hymns.

[8] On Wednesdays and Fridays, the regular Theotokia are replaced with Stavrotheotokia, hymns in which the focus is less on the incarnation (although this imagery is still present) and more on the image of the Virgin Mary standing before the Cross.

Centuries later, the Sunday of Orthodoxy continues to combine Marian hymns and the veneration of icons in a manner that confirms the identity of Mary as the Theotokos.

Saint Francis began to improvise hymns of praise as he wandered the hills behind Assisi, begging for stones to restore the church of San Damiano.

In this time frame poets and trouvères such as Jaque de Cambrai introduced a new range of Marian poems which were not simply devotional texts that affirmed a religious point of view, but had specific melodic components that allowed them to be sung with ease.

[24] The Cantigas de Santa Maria are 420 poems with musical notation, written in the medieval Galician-Portuguese language during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio (1221–1284).

Marian antiphons are a group of hymns in the Gregorian chant repertory of the Catholic Church, sung in honor of the Virgin Mary.

[26] Although there are a number of Marian antiphons, some of great antiquity, the term is most often used to refer to the four hymns which have been used as detached chants since 1239:[26] There have been exceptions to this schedule in different monastic traditions over the years, e.g. the Benedictine monasteries were using them in the 14th century.