See Victor Saxer, Le Culte de Marie Madeleine en Occident: des origines à la fin du Moyen Âge, II (Auxerre: Société des Fouilles Archéologiques et des Monuments Historiques de l'Yonne-Clavreuil, 1959) 228-47.

«e parec-ho ben a la honor que Déus li féu, que en visió li venc que cercàs a Sent Maxemí lo cos de madona santa Maria Magdalena, en Proença; e en aquell lloc on li venc en vision, més de vint astes de llances davall terra ell trobà lo cos de la benauirada madona santa Maria Magdalena. E així cascun pot saber e pensar que si ell no fos bo e just con era, que nostre senyor Déus no li hagra feta aital revelació» (Ramon Muntaner, Crònica, in Jaume I, Bernat Desclot, Ramon Muntaner, Pere III, Les quatre grans cròniques, ed. Ferran Soldevila, (Barcelona: Selecta, 1971) chap. 167, 817-18). Note the huge depth, twenty lance shafts, at which Muntaner says the body was found.

In his prologue to Charlotte S. Maneikis Kniazzeh and Edward J. Neugaard, eds., Vides de sants rosselloneses, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Fundació Salvador Vives Casajuana, 1977), xvii-xix. Corominas relies on linguistic features that were already archaic when the oldest extant MS was copied at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

J. K. Walsh and B. Bussell Thompson, The Myth of the Magdalen in Early Spanish Literature (with an Edition of the «Vida de Santa María Madalena» in MS. h-I-13 of the Escorial Library), PH 2 (New York: Lorenzo Clemente, 1986): «E después que fizo un monesterio, envió el duc e el abat» (46, ll. 230-31). Compare with «Donc [c]on él agés bastit lo monestir de Viselià, él tramès a l'abat» (Vides, III: 86). Likewise: «viniendo al monesterio do yazía el cuerpo de Santa María Magdalena» (47, ll. 262-63); «con él vengés al monestir de Viziliaco per visitar lo san cors de Santa Magdalena» (87). My italics.

The most recent edition of this piece is by Barbara Spaggiari, «La "poesia religiosa anonima" catalana o occitanica», Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, 3 rd series, 7 (1977): 186-212.

Spaggiari, 197, st. I, 1. 3. The tradition started by St. Bonaventure and followed by all late medieval contemplative literature defined Magdalen as the woman in love with Christ ―a detail that is not forgotten in these verses: «m'as amat entieramen», says Jesus (X.5)―, and so symbolized in her repentance the sorrow of contrition ―the fear of offending God. Instead, here in the Cantinella only the fear of hell or sorrow of attrition is mentioned. Its interpretation of the repentance of the Magdalen perhaps seems pedestrian, but undoubtedly attrition ―«paor d'enfer»― was the kind of feeling that might be understood by all parishioners ―we should remember that, as far as we can tell, this is a liturgical hymn― whereas contrition was rather the preserve of an elite of cultivated souls.

The hypothesis of a more extensive original does not deserve to be rejected so quickly by Spaggiari, who relies on two arguments: a) because «la testimonianza delle altre opere a stampa (dove il numero e l'ordine delle strofi concorda perfettamente col ms. parigino [used by Spaggiari in her edition]),» and b) because its anonymous author follows the Legenda aurea «in filigrana dalla II alla XVII strofe senza tralasciare alcuno degli episodi narrati» (192). In response to this it can be pointed out that: a) apart from the Paris manuscript, there are only three others known, and these are now missing: one from Marseilles, a late copy from the eighteenth century, and one from Barcelona of which only the first four cobles are known (as Spaggiari reports, 187-88); and b) the author does follow Voragine, certainly, but not «in filigrana»: he does not mention either the origins or the social position of Magdalen, and he leaves out many Gospel passages that the Legenda aurea associates with her (criticism from Judas about her spending on perfume, Lazarus' resurrection, Mary vs. Martha as contemplative vs. active life, her fortitude in the Passion). Thus many tralasciamenti exist, whether products of oversight or conscious omission, either by the author or by some early copyist.

In her edition, Spaggiari interprets l. 2 of cobla XXII as «l'a ensebelia» («he has buried her»), since she considers «l'a en sa baillia del tutto privo di senso in un contesto dove si allude alla sepoltura del corpo della santa ad opera di San Massimino, allora vescovo della città» (197). Certainly, according to Voragine, Maximin dealt with burying the body of the Magdalen, who had received communion from his hand before dying. But the writing of the saint's life was finished in stanza XVIII without mention of her marvellous death; therefore it seems odd that the matter would be resumed four stanzas later to allude, in only one line, to the detail of the burying. The whole stanza is edited as follows: «Et son pairin san Maximin / que l'a ensebelia, / pregue per nos ser e matin / per sa gran cortesia». Manuscripts offer XXII: 2 as «l'a en sa ballio» / «la ensebaillia» (206). Bailia/batlia/batllia means in both Old Catalan and Occitan as an «administrative area of the batle», that is, «township». The Cantinella would contain, as I see it, a reference to the town whose patron saint is Maximin, and which has the remains of the Magdalen. This solution seems more viable since it agrees better with the manuscript readings.

See the inventory of manuscripts and editions in Spaggiari 186-89.

See, for example, the account of Martí de Riquer, Història de la literatura catalana, 3 vols. (Barcelona: Ariel, 1964), I: 21-22. Through the troubadours and poets that Riquer studies in this work the skill in the use of Provençal by many Catalan authors can be seen. That is why trying to exclude Catalan authorship of the Cantinella because of the presence of some two or three non-Catalan words, as Spaggiari does (187 note 3, and 193-95), will not solve the problem.