The text of the poem has been attributed to many 13th-century individuals, including saints and popes. The most widely accepted attribution identifies Jacopone da Todi, a Franciscan friar who died in 1306, but even this is widely regarded as unsubstantiated, so the author of the poem must be regarded as anonymous. It is a sequence made up of ten pairs of three-line strophes, similar to the longer Dies iræ in the Mass for the Dead. At the time of its origin in the 13th century, sequences were being written for every new feast’s mass. Most of these feasts were local observances in the diocese or religious order that venerated their own saint. In the 16th century, the Council of Trent restricted the local calendars in favor of a universal calendar of feasts. The result was the reduction of sequences to only four, those assigned to Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, and the Mass for the Dead.

In the Middle Ages, Mary was considered loving and lovable, a human figure more approachable than her Son.

The text of the poem has not survived without change. In his monumental collection of texts, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, Guido Maria Dreves identifies endless textual variations in the manuscripts and early printed sources. Few musical settings follow precisely the same text throughout. The most significant difference is found in strophe 10a. As set by most polyphonic composers, it reads: “Fac me cruce custodiri / Morte Christi præmuniri / Confoveri gratia.” In modern liturgical books, a variant of German origin reads: “Christe cum sit hinc exire / Da per matrem me venire / ad palmam victoriæ.” The latter text is clearly inferior, not only because its last word does not even rhyme with the last word (“gloria”) in strophe 10b, but also because it addresses a prayer to Christ rather than to Mary, departing from the thrust of the poem. Furthermore, an English tradition not listed by Dreves but set by the Eton Choirbook composers is entirely different in the last half of the poem.

Stabat Mater dolorosa,
juxta crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.

Cujus animam gementem,
contristatam ac dolentem,
pertransivit gladius.

O quam tristis et afflicta
fuit illa benedicta
mater unigeniti!

Quae moerebat et dolebat,
et tremebat dum videbat,
nati poenas inclyti.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
Christi Matrem si videret
in tanto supplicio!