Having fixed, then, the period within which the _Salve_ must have first appeared, namely, the eleventh century, Dr. Oviedo goes on to search for the precise moment in that century at which the prayer became a historical fact. St. Pedro de Mezonzo died in 1003, Herman Contractus in 1054, and Ademar de Monteil in 1098. One of these three must have been the author of the _Salve_. In the eighteenth century the famous poet-priest of Fruime, in Galicia,[67] published a little work entitled _Who Wrote the Salve?_ and he brought all his erudition, all his power of literary criticism, to bear upon the subject, with the result that he was able to successfully combat the theory upheld by Florez, that St. Bernard was its author, as well as to prove that it was not written by Contractus or by Monteil. His judgment has been upheld by the most eminent writers of Galicia in our own time, including Lopez Ferreiro.[68] Among foreign authorities who have held this view may be mentioned Mabillon, Du Cange, and Pope Benedict XIV. Dr. Oviedo in his recent thesis brings forward two important witnesses. The first is Guillermo Durando, a canon of the school of Bologna, who became bishop of Menda in 1285, best known as the author of a book on ancient ecclesiastical institutions, entitled _Rationale Divinorum Officeorum_. The second is Ricobaldo de Ferrara, canon of the cathedral of Ravenna, who was a contemporary of Durando, and who is best known as the author of a Universal History. Both these writers clearly affirm that St. Pedro de Mezonzo was the author of the _Salve Regina_. Dr. Oviedo has copied out their words on the subject with full contexts. I have them before me as I write. “If anyone should ask,” says Dr. Oviedo, “how it comes that the _Salve_ was known in France and Italy in those remote times, I reply that it was from Provence in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that the greater number of the pilgrims who visited Galicia came. Thence also there came those pious caravans who, attracted by the throngs of French, Belgians, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, juglares and troubadours, who animated the streets and palaces of Compostela, the Holy City of the West, the emporium and centre of a powerful movement which carried multitudes of clever men from Galicia to occupy the professional chairs of the most celebrated schools of the Middle Ages, and multitudes of inspired Gallegan poets to sing before the most splendid courts of Europe. Who doubts that by means of these troubadours, of these scholars, the glorious traditions which join the name of _Salve_ to that of St. Pedro de Mezonzo should have been spread far and wide?”