This edition is based on two sources, Librone 1 (ff. 140v–141r, Scribe A) and Librone [4] (ff. 133v–134r). In Librone [4] the text was written by two scribes: while f. 133v was written entirely by Scribe J, on f. 134r Gaffurius intervened from line 3 onwards and completed the page with the remaining lines of text.
Practically no mistakes were made in the sources, except for the word suspiria in Librone 1, which in A and B was first written as ‘suspira’ and later corrected.
The source for the text of this motet is not easy to identify, for two reasons: first, a search in Analecta Hymnica revealed that numerous slightly modified versions of this text were in circulation (cf. for instance AH 46, no. 152, p. 202 where the second line reads ‘supernorum laetitia’); second, it seems that these three rhythmic stanzas circulated independently and were attached to or incorporated in pre-existing poems (see AH 45, no. 6, p. 26 and AH 50, no. 323, p. 469). According to Analecta Hymnica, the texts that present the closest correspondence are transmitted in two manuscripts. The first is the famous troper from St-Martial (Paris, BnF lat. 1139), in which the three stanzas are transmitted with other material dedicated to the Virgin Mary in a part of the codex that has been dated to the thirteenth century. Here the three stanzas of the motet are transmitted as an antiphon to the Magnificat (see AH 45, no. 6, p. 26). The second is a fourteenth-century manuscript now in London, British Library, Royal 2 A IX, which contains a miscellany of religious and devotional texts (see AH 50, no. 323, p. 469) from the first quarter of the thirteenth century.