Stella Splendens

Someone suggested an online lesson on the Medieval Pilgrim song “Stella Splendens”. The earlier plan was to look at “De Profundis”, which would be very sensible, but not very exciting. Maybe we’ll do that next week.

Happily, this song is in my book, A New Book of Old Hymns. It was one of the crazier ones as even the Latin words I had from the liner notes of an old CD didn’t make sense - there were typos which needed fixing, and I think I’ve found another one today… My method of making translations was generally to do a rough job myself then give it someone wiser than me to fix. I think this was one of those cases.

Funnily enough, Wikipedia doesn’t give a translation either, though they have a lovely photo of the page from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat.

So, being a Medieval Song, you can expect some gramatical irregularities. It’s not going to be totally random sounds, it’s mostly fine, just this word Serrato is tripping me up.

Here’s what Whittaker’s Words gives:

serr.ato             V      1 1 FUT  ACTIVE  IMP 2 S    
serr.ato             V      1 1 FUT  ACTIVE  IMP 3 S    
serro, serrare, serravi, serratus  V (1st) TRANS   [DXXDS]    Late  lesser
serrat.o             VPAR   1 1 DAT S M PERF PASSIVE PPL
serrat.o             VPAR   1 1 DAT S N PERF PASSIVE PPL
serrat.o             VPAR   1 1 ABL S M PERF PASSIVE PPL
serrat.o             VPAR   1 1 ABL S N PERF PASSIVE PPL
saw; saw up, saw into pieces;
serrat.o             N      2 1 DAT S M                 
serrat.o             N      2 1 ABL S M                 
serratus, serrati  N (2nd) M   [XLXFO]    veryrare
coin with notched edges (milled);
serrat.o             ADJ    1 1 DAT S M POS             
serrat.o             ADJ    1 1 DAT S N POS             
serrat.o             ADJ    1 1 ABL S M POS             
serrat.o             ADJ    1 1 ABL S N POS             
serratus, serrata, serratum  ADJ   [XXXDO]    lesser
serrated, toothed like a saw;

Wiktionary.org reckons that a later meaning can be “close”

Neither of those really fit.

Most online translations (including my book) give some variation on “shine” as that kind of fits, but I don’t see any way to get that from Serrato

So, it could be a special word for that special part of Spain that this special pilgrim’s song book came from.

One translation from a group called duo Mignarda uses it to describe the people as divided, which sort of works.

I’ll outline the puzzle to the students but I won’t put Serrato on the test today.