Es ist ein Ros (Reis) entsprungen. [Christmas.] Wackernagel, ii. p. 925, gives two forms, the first in 23 stanzas of 7 lines from the Speier Gesang-Buch (R. C), 1600 (Baümker, i. p. 156, cites it as in the ed. of 1599), the second in 6 stanzas from the Andernach Gesang-Buch (R. C), 1608. In his Kleines Gesang-Buch, 1860, No. 8, he gives stanzas i.-v., xxiii., from the Speier, with the fine melody found there. He thinks it was originally a 15th or 16th century Christmas or Twelfth Night Carol in the diocese of Trier.
It is founded on St. Luke i., ii., and on Isaiah xi. 1, 2. It interprets Isaiah's "Shoot out of the stock of Jesse" not as our Lord Jesus Christ, but as the Virgin Mary. The only translations is "A spotless Rose is blowing," a translation of stanzas i., ii. of the Speier, by Miss Winkworth, 1869, p. 85. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)