Saint Venantius Fortunatus, 6th century
Sung at the adoration of the Cross on Good Friday
Crux fidélis, inter omnes arbor una nóbilis: nulla silva talem profert, fronde, flore, gérmine. Dulce lignum, dulces clavos, dulce pondus sústinet.
Faithful Cross, alone among all trees in nobility: no forest brings forth its like, in leaf, in flower, in fruit. Sweet the wood, sweet the nails, sweet the weight it bears.
Amen.
SourceSaint Venantius Fortunatus, 6th century · Sung at the adoration of the Cross on Good Friday
Read the piece it comes from →St Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530–c. 600), an Italian poet who ended his life as bishop of Poitiers, wrote the hymn Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis in 569, for the arrival at Poitiers of a relic of the True Cross sent by Emperor Justin II to Queen St Radegund. The Crux fidelis is the stanza used as its refrain.
Since the Middle Ages the Church has sung it on Good Friday while the faithful come forward to kiss the Cross. The wood of shame is sung as the noblest tree of all. This page gives the refrain stanza.
On Good Friday, during the adoration of the Cross. Many also sing it at other celebrations of the Holy Cross.
No. Venantius Fortunatus' (sixth century) sings of the Cross; St Thomas' (thirteenth century) sings of the Eucharist and was modelled on the earlier one.
No, it is the stanza that serves as the refrain. The full hymn has ten stanzas.