Sequence of Saint Eulalia

B. Bischoff suggests that it came from a scriptorium in (Lower) Lotharingia, but not from Saint-Amand itself, given its style of construction and the handwriting, which cannot be matched to other manuscripts produced there during the same period.

[3] When Jean Mabillon visited Saint-Amand Abbey in 1672, he made a hasty copy of the Ludwigslied, but neither he nor his hosts seem to have recognized the significance of the Sequence immediately preceding it.

[4] The Eulalia text is a sequence or "prose" consisting of 14 assonant couplets, each written on one line and separated by a punctus, followed by a final unpaired coda verse.

Both the vernacular Sequence and the Latin poem that precedes it show similarities with the hymn to Eulalia in the Peristephanon, by the 4th-century Christian poet Prudentius.

[7] Buona pulcella fut eulalia.Bel auret corps bellezour animaVoldrent la veintre li deo Inimi.Voldrent la faire diaule seruirElle no'nt eskoltet les mals conselliers.Qu'elle deo raneiet chi maent sus en ciel.Ne por or ned argent ne paramenz.Por manatce regiel ne preiement.Niule cose non la pouret omque pleier.La polle sempre non amast lo deo menestier.E por o fut presentede maximiien.Chi rex eret a cels dis soure pagiensIl li enortet dont lei nonque chielt.Qued elle fuiet lo nom christiien.Ell'ent adunet lo suon element.Melz sostendreiet les empedementzQu'elle perdesse sa virginitet.Por o's furet morte a grand honestetEnz enl fou lo getterent com arde tost.Elle colpes non auret, por o no's coist.A czo no's voldret concreidre li rex pagiens.Ad une spede li roveret tolir lo chieef.La domnizelle celle kose non contredist.Volt lo seule lazsier si ruovet Krist.In figure de colomb volat a ciel.Tuit oram que por nos degnet preier.Qued avuisset de nos Christus mercitPost la mort et a lui nos laist venirPar souue clementia.

The pronoun lo that appears in line 19 (instead of the expected feminine form la) has been variously explained as a dialectal feature, a pejorative neuter ("they threw it into the fire"), or simply a scribal error.

[13] The identity of the verb is debated: early editors read adunet, but a reexamination of the manuscript by Learned (1941) revealed that the copyist originally wrote aduret.