Back to the Library
The Church Fathers · 569
Vexilla Regis and the Passion Hymns
Venantius Fortunatus · c. 530–c. 609
Read elsewhere
What it is
Hymns written for the arrival of a relic of the cross at Poitiers, singing of the tree on which the price of the world hung.
Why it lasted
Sung in Holy Week for fourteen centuries, and the source of the Western image of the cross as a royal standard rather than an instrument of shame.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
Read next