The Salve Regina emerges in manuscripts of the eleventh century, and by the twelfth it was already famous. Medieval writers ascribed it most often to Hermann of Reichenau, called Hermannus Contractus, the paralyzed monk of the abbey of Reichenau who was one of the most learned men of his age, and sometimes to Adhemar, the crusading bishop of Le Puy, or even to earlier saints, but none of the ascriptions can be established, and modern scholarship leaves the author unknown.
The text itself is a masterpiece of medieval Marian devotion. It addresses Mary as Queen and mother of mercy, life, sweetness and hope, and speaks in the voice of the banished children of Eve, sighing, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears, before asking their advocate to turn her merciful eyes toward them and, after their exile, to show them Jesus, the blessed fruit of her womb.
Tradition holds that the closing triple invocation, O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, was a later addition, and a well loved legend credits it to Bernard of Clairvaux, said to have added the words in the cathedral of Speyer, another story that measures the prayer's prestige rather than documents its history. The Latin has been translated into every language of Catholic devotion, in English most familiarly as Hail, Holy Queen.