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A Short History of the
Roman Mass Michael Davies “For
from the rising of the sun even to the going down, My name is great among the
Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to My
name a clean oblation: for My name is great among the Gentiles, saith the
Lord of hosts.” -----Malachias
1: 11 Contents Gradual Development of Ceremonies The Origins of the Roman Rite and its Liturgical Books The Canon of the Mass Dates from the 4th Century The Reform of St. Gregory the Great Eastern and Gallican Additions to the Roman Rite A Sacred Heritage Since the 6th Century The Protestant Break with Liturgical Tradition The Development of the Low Mass The Medieval Uses and the Importance of Printing The Antiquity and Beauty of the Roman Missal Our Ancient Liturgical Heritage “Our
Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed
out of the oldest liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that liturgy, of
the days when Caesar ruled the world and thought he could stamp out the faith
of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to
Christ as to a God. The final result of our inquiry is that, in spite of
unsolved problems, in spite of later changes, there is not in Christendom
another rite so venerable as ours.” -----Fr.
Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: A Study of
the Roman Liturgy [1912], p. 213 “From
roughly the time of St. Gregory [d. 604] we have the text of the Mass, its
order and arrangement, as a sacred tradition that no one has ventured to
touch except in unimportant details.” -----Fr.
Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: A Study of
the Roman Liturgy [1912], p. 173 This
booklet is in large part a compilation of material from Father Adrian
Fortescue’s classic work, The Mass: A
Study of the Roman Liturgy [ THE
first source for the history of the Mass is obviously the account of the Last
Supper in the New Testament. It was because Our Lord told us to do what He
had done, in memory of Him, that Christian liturgies
exist. No matter in which respects there are differences in the various
Eucharistic liturgies they all obey His command to do “this,” namely what He
Himself had done. A definite pattern for the celebration of the Eucharist had
developed within decades of the death of Our Lord, a pattern which was
carried on well past the conclusion of the 1st century, and which can still
be discerned clearly in the finalized Roman Mass of 1570. The
earliest and most detailed account of the Eucharist is found in St. Paul’s
First Epistle to the Corinthians, which, of course, predates the Gospels, and
was written in Ephesus between 52-55 A.D. Scholars agree that the
Consecration formula used by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 11, quotes
verbatim from a stylized formula already in use in the Apostolic liturgy. For
I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the
Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and giving
thanks, broke, and said: Take ye, and eat: This is My Body, which shall be
delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of Me. In
like manner also the chalice, after He had supped, saying: This chalice is
the new testament in My Blood: this do ye, as often
as you shall drink, for the commemoration of Me. For as often as you shall
eat this Bread, and drink the Chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord,
until He come. Therefore
whosoever shall eat this Bread, or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily,
shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord. [1 Cor: 11: 23-27]. The
passage is rich in doctrine. It identifies the Eucharist with the Passion. A
new and permanent covenant or alliance is concluded between God and man in
the Blood of Jesus. His sacrifice was mystically anticipated at the Last
Supper. The Apostles, and implicitly their successors, are commanded to
celebrate the Eucharist in His memory; and this remembrance is of such
efficacy that it is an unceasing proclamation of His redemptive death, and
renders it actually present until the day when He returns in the full glory
of His Second coming. The Eucharist is the memorial of the Passion, anamnesis
in Greek, and it commemorates the Passion by renewing it in an unbloody
manner upon the altar. Finally, great purity of soul is required to take part
in a rite as sacred as the offering and reception of the Body and Blood of
Our Saviour. By
combining Our
knowledge of the liturgy increases considerably in the 2nd century, and
special reference must be made to the testimony of a pagan Roman-----the
younger Pliny [C. Plinius Caecilius, c. 62-113], at that time Governor of
Bithynia [modern “They
assert that this is the whole of their fault or error, that they were
accustomed on a certain day [stato die]
to meet together before daybreak [ante
lucem], and to sing a hymn alternately [secum invicem] to Christ as a god, and that they bound themselves
by an oath [sacramento] not to do
any crime, but only not to commit theft nor robbery nor adultery, not to
break their word nor to refuse to give up a deposit. When they had done this,
it was their custom to depart, but to meet again to eat food-----ordinary and
harmless food however. They say that they [the apostate informers] have
stopped doing; this after my edict which forbade private assemblies [hetaerias] as you commanded.” 1 The
status dies is certainly Sunday.
There are, according to Pliny, two meetings, the early one, in which they
sing their hymn, and a later one, when they eat food-----the Agape or
Eucharist. The oath to do no wrong is probably a confusion of Pliny’s mind.
He would have taken it for granted that these secret meetings must involve
some kind of conspirator’s oath; whereas, the only obligation of which his
informers could tell him was not to do wrong. Pliny’s letter does not add
much to our knowledge of the early liturgy, but it is worth quoting for the
picture it gives, one of the first mentions of Christianity by a pagan, of
the Christians meeting before daybreak and singing their hymn “to Christ as a
god.” The
early Christians assembled for Divine worship in the house of one of their
number which possessed a large dining room, a coenaculum, as the Vulgate puts it. This was because, as a
persecuted minority, they could erect no public buildings. Our knowledge of
the details of the liturgy increases from the earliest Fathers and with each
succeeding century. There is a gradual and natural development. The prayers
and formulas, and eventually the ceremonial actions, develop into set forms.
There are varying arrangements of subsidiary parts and greater insistence on
certain elements in different places will produce different liturgies, but
all go back eventually to the biblical pattern. The Roman Mass is a
liturgical form that we find first, not in the laws of some medieval pope,
but in the Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Gospels. Gradual Development of
Ceremonies Although
there was considerable liturgical uniformity in the first two centuries there
was not absolute uniformity. Liturgical books were certainly being used by
the middle of the 4th century, and possibly before the end of the third, but
the earliest surviving texts date from the seventh century, and musical
notation was not used in the west until the ninth century when the melodies
of Gregorian chant were codified. The only book known with certainty to have
been used until the fourth century was the Bible from which the lessons were
read. Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer were known by heart, otherwise the prayers
were extempore. There was little that could be described as ceremonial in the
sense that we use the term today. Things were done as they were done for some
practical purpose. The lessons were read in a loud voice from a convenient
place where they could be heard, and bread and wine were brought to the altar
at the appropriate moment. Everything would evidently have been done with the
greatest possible reverence, and gradually and naturally signs of respect
emerged, and became established customs, in other words liturgical actions
became ritualized. The
Lavabo or washing of hands is an
evident example. In all rites the celebrant washes his hands before handling
the offerings, an obvious precaution and sign of respect. St. Thomas Aquinas
remarked: “We are not accustomed to handle any precious things save with
clean hands; so it seems indecent that one should approach so great a
sacrament with hands soiled.” 2 The washing of the hands almost
inevitably came to be understood as a symbol of cleansing the soul, as is the
case with all ritual washing in any religion. There were originally no
particular prayers mandated for the washing of hands, but it was natural that
the priests should say prayers for purity at that moment, and that eventually
such prayers should find their way into the liturgical books. What prayer
could be more appropriate than Psalm 25, Lavabo
inter innocentes manus meas? All ritual grew
naturally out of these purely practical actions, just as vestments evolved
out of ordinary dress. The only really ritual actions we find in the first
two centuries are certain postures, kneeling or standing for prayer, and such
ceremonies as the kiss of peace, all of which were inherited from the Jews. 3
It
is easy to understand that the order, the general outline of the service,
would become constant almost unconsciously. People
who do the same thing continually, naturally do it in much the same way.
There was no reason for changing; to reverse the order suddenly would disturb
and annoy people. The early Christians knew for instance at which moment to
expect the lessons, when to receive Communion, when to stand for prayer. The
fact that the catechumens were present at some part of the service, but must
not see other parts, involved a certain amount of uniform order. But the
prayers too, although there was as yet no idea of fixed forms, would
naturally tend towards uniformity, at least in outline. Here also habit and
custom would soon fix their order. The people knew when to expect the prayer
for the emperor, the thanksgiving, the petitions.
The dialogue form of prayer, of which we have many traces in this first
period, also involves uniformity, at least in the general idea of the
prayers. The people made their responses, “Amen,” “Lord have mercy,” “ Thanks
be to God”, and so on at certain points, because they knew more or less what
the celebrant would say each time. In a dramatic dialogue each side must be
prepared for the other. So the order and general arrangement of the prayers
would remain constant. We find in many cases the very same words used; whole
formulas sometimes long ones, recur. This can be
easily understood. In
the first place there were many formulas that occur in the Old or New
Testament, that were well known in Jewish services. These were used as
liturgical formulas by Christians too. Examples of such forms are: “Amen,” “Alleluia”,
“Lord have mercy”, “Thanks be to God “, “For ever
and ever”, “Blessed are Thou O Lord our God.” Moreover it will be noticed
that extempore prayer always tends to fall into stereotyped formulas A man
who prays for the same object will soon begin to repeat the same words. This
may be noticed in extempore preaching. The fact that since all early
Christian language was saturated with Biblical forms means that it would
hardly be possible for the bishop to use different words and forms each time
he prayed, even if he tried to do so. And why should he try? So the same expressions
recurred over and over again in the public prayers. A formula constantly
heard would soon be considered the right one,
especially as in some cases [the psalms and Lord’s prayer] the liturgy
already contained examples of constant forms. A younger bishop when his turn
came to celebrate, could do no better than continue to use the very words [as
far as he remembered them] of the venerable predecessor whose prayers the
people, and perhaps himself as deacon, had so often followed and answered
with reverent devotion. 4 Historical
factors played a crucial role in the manner in which the liturgy was
celebrated. During times of persecution brevity and simplicity would be its
principal characteristics for obvious reasons. The toleration of Christianity
under Constantine I, and its adoption as the religion of the Empire under
Theodosius I [379-95], had a dramatic effect on the development of ritual.
Congregations increased in size; and benefactions for the building and furnishing
of churches resulted in the enrichment of vessels and vestments. Those
presenting such gifts would naturally want them to be of the richest and most
beautiful nature possible. In a parallel and natural development the
liturgical rites became more elaborate, with solemn processions and stress
upon the awesome nature of the rite. This elaboration of the liturgy
proceeded faster and further in the East than in the West during the fourth
century, but the universal change in style was initiated throughout the
Christian world by the change from an illegal and private ritual into a state
supported public one. From
the fourth century onwards we have very detailed information about liturgical
matters. The Fathers such as St. Cyril of The
fact that until the 8th century the West did not apply the general principle
that rite follows patriarchate is both anomalous and unique. That the Bishop
of Rome was Patriarch of all the West is a fact not
disputed by anyone, and yet the Western Churches did not follow his rite.
Until the 8th century, it was the local rite of the city of From
about the 8th century the local Roman rite gradually spread throughout the
West, displacing the Gallican liturgies, but being modified by them in the
process. There are two places in The
city of The Origins of the Roman
Rite and its Liturgical Books By
about the middle of the 4th century there were certainly some liturgical
books, How long before that anything was written one cannot say. The first
part of the liturgy to have been written appears to have been the Diptychs.
The word Diptych is derived from the Greek for twicefolded. A Diptych
consisted of two tablets [covered with wax at the beginning] hinged and
folded together like a book. On one the names of the living for whom prayers
were to be said were written, on the other the names of the dead. These names
were then read out by the deacon at the appointed place in the liturgy. Their
use, in the East went on till far into the middle ages. Then the lessons were
set down in a book. The old custom of reading from the Bible until the bishop
made a sign to stop, soon gave way to a more orderly plan of reading a
certain fixed amount at each liturgy. Marginal notes were added to the Bible
showing this. Then an Index giving the first and last words of the amount to
be read is drawn up. Other books were read besides the Bible [lives of Saints
and homilies in the Divine Office]; a complete Index giving references for
the readings is the “Companion to the books,” comes, liber comitis or comicus. Lastly, to save trouble, the
whole texts are written out as they are wanted, so we come to the
[liturgical] Gospelbook (evangelarium),
Epistlebook (epistolarium), and
finally the complete Lectionary (lectionarium).
Here
we must notice an important difference between the older arrangement and the
one we have now in the West. Our present books are arranged according to the
service at which they are used; thus the Missal contains all that is wanted
for Mass, the Breviary contains all the Divine Office, and so on. The older
system, still kept in all Eastern churches, considers not the service but the
person who uses the book. One book contained all that the bishop or priest
says at any service, the deacon has his book, the choir theirs, and so on.
The bishop’s book, from which the priest also used whatever he needed is the Sacramentary [Sacramentarium or liber
sacramentorum]. It contained only the celebrant’s part of the Eucharistic
liturgy, such prayers as the Canon, Collects, and Prefaces, but not the
Epistles and Gospels or such sung parts as the Gradual. It also contained the
bishop’s part in many other services, ordinations, baptism, blessings and
exorcisms, in short all sacerdotal functions. The deacon had his book too,
the diakonikon; but as his function
at The Canon of the Mass
Dates from the 4th Century Towards
the end of the fourth century St. Ambrose of Milan, in a collection of
instructions for the newly baptized entitled De Sacramentis, quotes the central part of the Canon which is
substantially identical with, but somewhat shorter than, the respective
prayers of the Roman Canon. This proves beyond doubt that the core of our
Canon, from the Quam oblationem
[the prayer before the Consecration], including the sacrificial prayer after
the consecration, was in existence by the end of the fourth century. The
earliest Roman Sacramentaries are the first complete sources for the Roman
Rite. These were written in the Latin language which had gradually replaced
Greek as the language of the Roman liturgy. Scholars differ as to the precise
time when the transition was complete, giving dates from the second half of
the third century up to the end of the fourth. Both languages must have been
used side by side during a fairly long period of transition. 7 The
genius of the Latin language certainly affected the ethos of the Roman Rite.
Latin is naturally terse and austere when compared with the rhetorical
abundance of Greek. It was a natural
tendency of Latin to curtail redundant phrases, and this terseness and austerity
are a noticeable mark of the Roman Mass. 8 Of
the Sacramentaries, three stand out as the earliest, the most complete, the most important in every way. These are the so-called
Leonine, Gelasian, and Gregorian Sacramentaries, named respectively after
three popes St. Leo [440-61], Gelasius [492-6], and St. Gregory the Great
[590-604]. The names imply an authorship which cannot be substantiated even
in the case of St. Gregory. There is no evidence that Pope Gelasius
contributed anything to the Sacramentary attributed to him; St. Leo may have
composed some of the prayers in the Leonine Sacramentary, but this is not
certain; but the Gregorian Sacramentary almost certainly contains some
material composed by St. Gregory. The Leonine Sacramentary, the Sacramentarium Leonianum, the oldest
of the three, can be found in a seventh century manuscript preserved in the
Chapter Library at The
Gelasian Sacramentary is the oldest Roman Massbook in the proper sense of the
term. It is far more complete than the Leonine, and has the feasts arranged
according to the Ecclesiastical Year. It also contains the Canon and several
votive Masses. The most ancient extant manuscript dates from the 8th century
and contains some Gallican material. The Reform of St. Gregory
the Great St.
Gregory the Great became Pope in 590 and reigned until 604. His achievements
during those fourteen years almost defy credibility. Prominent among the many
important reforms that he undertook was that of the liturgy. His pontificate
marks an epoch in the history of the Roman Mass, which, in every important
respect he left in the state that we still have it. He collected the
Sacramentary of Gelasius into one book, leaving out much but changing little.
What we now refer to as The Gregorian
Sacramentary cannot be ascribed to the Pope himself as, apart from other
evidence, it contains a Mass for his feast, but it is certainly based upon
his reform of the liturgy and includes some material composed by him. The
keynote of the reform of St. Gregory was fidelity to the traditions that had
been handed down [the root meaning of the Latin word traditio is to hand over or hand down]. His reform consisted
principally of the simplification and more orderly arrangement of the
existing rite-----the reduction of the variable prayers at each Mass to three
[Collect, Secret, and Postcommunion], and a reduction of the variations
occurring at that time within the Canon, prefaces and additional forms for
the Communicantes and Hanc Igitur. These variations can
still be found on a very few occasions such as Christmas and Easter. His
principal work was certainly the definitive arrangement of the Roman Canon.
The Lectionary was also given a definitive form, but was still to undergo
considerable change subsequently. The Order of Mass as found in the 1570
Missal of St. Pius [1566-1572], apart from minor additions and
amplifications, corresponds very closely with the order established by St.
Gregory. It is also to this great Pope that we owe, to a large extent, the
codification of the incomparable chant that bears his name. Eastern and Gallican
Additions to the Roman Rite The
Roman Mass as reformed by St. Gregory gradually spread and became predominant
not only in The
Sacramentary that bears the name of St. Gregory is the term used for a family
of Sacramentaries which emerged after his pontificate. The most important of
the Gregorian Sacramentaries is the one referred to as The Adrianum. It was sent by Pope Adrian I [722-795] to
Charlemagne at the request of the Emperor in 785 or 786. Charlemagne had
asked for a Roman Massbook as he wished to standardize the liturgy in his
Empire in accordance with the Roman usage. He was helped in this task by
Alcuin, an English monk, who made up for deficiencies in the Roman
Sacramentary by adding material from Gelasian sacramentaries current in The
additions to the Roman rite, some of which originated in Jerusalem and the
East as well as from Gallican rites, or via Gallican rites, form its more
elaborate, decorative, and symbolic parts. The pure Roman rite was
exceedingly simple, austere, and plain; nothing was done except for some
reason of practical utility. Its prayers were short and dignified, but almost
too austere when compared with the exuberant rhetoric of the East. In our
Missal we have from non-Roman sources much of the Holy Week ritual, and such
decorative and symbolic processions and blessings as those of Candlemas and
Palm Sunday. Doctor Fortescue writes: “If
one may venture a criticism of these additions from an aesthetic point of
view, it is that they are exceedingly happy. The old Roman rite, in spite of
its dignity and archaic simplicity, had the disadvantage of being dull. The
Eastern and Gallican rites are too florid for our taste and too long. The few
nonRoman elements in our Mass take nothing from its dignity and yet give it
enough variety and reticent emotion to make it most beautiful.” 9 A Sacred
Heritage Since the 6th Century We
have now arrived at the early middle ages. From this time forward there is
little to chronicle of the nature of change in the order of the Mass itself
which had become a sacred and inviolable inheritance, its origin forgotten.
It was popularly believed to have been handed down unchanged from the
Apostles, or to have been written by St. Peter himself. Dr. Fortescue
considers that the reign of St. Gregory the Great marks an epoch in the
history of the Mass, having left the liturgy in its essentials just as we
have it today. He writes: “There
is, moreover, a constant tradition that St. Gregory was the last to touch the
essential part of the Mass, namely the Canon. Benedict XIV [1740 1758] says:
‘No pope has added to or changed the Canon since St. Gregory.’” 10 Whether
this is totally accurate is not a matter of great importance, and even if
some very minor additions did creep in afterwards, perhaps a few Amens, the
important point is that a tradition of more than a millennium certainly
existed in the Roman Church that the Canon should not be changed. According
to Cardinal Gasquet: “This
fact, that it has so remained unaltered during thirteen centuries, is the
most speaking witness of the veneration with which it has always been
regarded and of the scruple which has ever been felt at touching so sacred a
heritage, coming to us from unknown antiquity.” 11 Although
the rite of Mass did continue to develop after the time of St. Gregory,
Doctor Fortescue explains that: “All
later modifications were fitted into the old arrangement, and the most
important parts were not touched. From, roughly, the time of St. Gregory we
have the text of the Mass, its order and arrangement, as a sacred tradition
that no one has ventured to touch except in unimportant details.” 12 Among
the later additions: “The
prayers said at the foot of the altar are in their present form the latest
part of all. They developed out of medieval private preparations and were not
formally appointed in their present state before the Missal of Pius V [1570].”
13 They
were, however, widely used well before the Reformation and are found in the
first printed edition of the Roman Missal [1474]. “The
Gloria was introduced gradually, at
first only to be sung on feasts at bishop’s Masses. It is probably Gallican.
The Creed came to These
prayers almost invariably have a liturgical use stretching back centuries
before their official incorporation into the Roman rite. The Suscipe sancte Pater can be traced
back to the prayer book of Charles the Bald [875877]. 15 The
prayers which came into the Roman Mass after the time of Gregory the Great
were among the first to be abolished by the Protestant Reformers. The
included the prayers said at the foot of the altar, the Judica me, with its reference to the priest going to the altar of
God, and the Confiteor with its
request for the intercession of Our Lady and the saints were particularly
unacceptable. The Offertory prayers, with their specifically sacrificial
terminology, and the Placeat tibi
which comes after the Communion, were totally incompatible with Protestant
theology. The
fact that these prayers were incompatible with the Protestant heresy is hardly
surprising as one of the reasons which must have prompted the Church to
accept them, guided by the Holy Ghost, is the exceptional clarity of their
doctrinal content. This tendency for a rite to express ever more clearly what
it contains is in perfect accord with the principle lex orandi, lex credendi. This principle has been explained very
clearly by Dom Fernand Cabrol, in the introduction to his edition of the
Daily Missal: “A
pope in the fifth century, in the course of a famous controversy, pronounced
the following words which have been regarded, ever since, as an axiom of
theology: Legem credendi lex statuat
supplicandi [let the law of prayer fix the law of faith]----in other
words, the liturgy of the Church is a sure guide to her teaching. “Above
all else the Church prizes the integrity of the faith of which she is the
guardian: she could not therefore allow her official prayer and worship to be
in contradiction with her doctrine. Thus, she has ever watched over the
formulae of her liturgy with the utmost care, correcting or rejecting
anything that seemed to be in any way tainted with error. “The
liturgical books are, therefore, an authentic expression of the Catholic
faith, and are, in fact, a source from which theologians may, in all
security, draw their arguments in defense of the faith. The liturgy holds an
important place among the loci
theologici [theological sources], and in this respect its principal
representative is the Missal. The latter is not, of course, a manual of
Dogmatic Theology, and it is concerned with the worship of God and not with
the controversial questions. It is nonetheless true that in the Missal we
have a magnificent synthesis of Christian doctrine----the Holy Eucharist,
Sacrifice, prayer Christian worship, the Incarnation, and Redemption, in
fact, in it all dogmas of the Faith find expression.” In
the authoritative exposition of Catholic doctrine edited by Canon George
Smith it is stated that: “Throughout
the history of the development of the sacramental liturgy, the tendency has
always been towards growth, additions and accretions, the effort to obtain a
fuller, more perfect, more clearly significant symbolism.” 16 The
Protestant Break with Liturgical Tradition The
sound and invariable practice of the Church in the West was breached for the
first time by the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformers. They broke with the
tradition of the Church by the very fact of initiating a drastic reform of
liturgical rites, and this would still have been the case even had their
reformed liturgies been orthodox. The nature of their heresy was made clear
not so much by what their rites contained as by what they omitted from the traditional books.
[Emphasis added] In 1898 the Catholic bishops of the “They
must not omit or reform anything in those forms which immemorial tradition
has bequeathed to us. For such an immemorial usage, whether or not it has in
the course of ages incorporated superfluous accretions, must, in the
estimation of those who believe in a Divinely guarded visible Church, at
least have retained whatever is necessary, so that in adhering rigidly to the
rite handed down to us we can always feel secure; whereas, if we omit or
change anything, we may perhaps be abandoning just that element which is
essential. And this sound method is that which the Catholic Church has always
followed . . . That in earlier times local churches were permitted to add new prayers and ceremonies is
acknowledged . . . But that they were also permitted to subtract prayers and ceremonies in previous use, and even to
remodel the existing rites in the most drastic manner, is a proposition for
which we know of no historical
foundation, and
which appears to us absolutely incredible. [Emphasis added] Hence
Cranmer, in taking this unprecedented course, acted, in our opinion, with the
most inconceivable rashness.” 17 The
Development of the Low Mass The
evolution of what we call Low Mass is the most important of the modifications
referred to by Father Fortescue. The simplicity of the Low Mass could give
rise to the impression that it is the primitive form. Nothing could be
further from the truth. It is, in fact, a late abridgment. All that has been
written concerning the Roman Mass so far has concerned what we would describe
as the High Mass. From the beginning we read of the liturgy being celebrated
with deacons and assistants and in the presence of the people who sing their
part. Until the Middle Ages, Mass was not said more than once on the same
day. The bishop or senior cleric celebrated, and the rest of the clergy
either received Communion or concelebrated. This is still the practice in the
The
change came about for theological reasons. Each Mass as a propitiatory
sacrifice has a definite value before God; therefore, two Masses are worth
twice as much as one. The custom arose of offering each Mass for a definite
intention and the acceptance of a stipend for so doing. This was particularly
the case where Requiem Masses were concerned. Faithful Catholics would make
provision in their wills for Masses to be said for their souls and would make
endowments to monastic foundations for this purpose. In the later Middle
Ages, chantries were established for the specific purpose of offering
requiems for a particular person, and it was the common practice of all
medieval guilds to have Masses said for their deceased members. By the 9th
century, the multiplication of Masses had progressed so far that many priests
said Mass several times a day. [In the 13th century, action would be taken to
curb the excessive multiplication of Masses, and a number of synods forbade
priests to celebrate more than once a day, except on Sundays and feast days
and in cases of necessity.] The
multiplication of Masses led to the building of many altars in the same
church and in monasteries where many priests would celebrate at the same time
on different altars. By the 9th century every large monastery was called upon
to offer hundreds or even thousands of Masses each year. All these factors
led to the abridged service that we call Low Mass, and it was Low Mass that
caused the compilation of the Missal as we know it today. In
the earlier period, as we have seen, the books were arranged for the specific
people who used them. The priest’s book was the Sacramentary, containing his
part of Mass and other services. He did not need to have the lessons or
antiphons in his book, as he did not say them. But at a private celebration
he did say these parts himself, substituting for the absent ministers and
choir. Books had to be compiled containing these parts too, and the process
had begun as early as the 6th century in Sacramentaries which show the
beginning of this development. By the 9th century the Common Masses of Saints
are often provided with Epistle, Gospel and choir’s part. The 10th century
saw the first attempts to compile what is known as the Perfect Missal, Missale plenarium, giving the text of
the whole The
necessity for a truly comprehensive Perfect Missal was given a particular
stimulus by the need in Low
Mass then reacted on High Mass. Originally the celebrant said or sang his
part and listened, like everyone else, to the other parts-----the Lessons,
Gradual and so on. Later,
having become used to saying these other parts at Low Mass-----in which he
had to take the place of ministers and the choir himself-----he began to say
them at High Mass too. Thus
we have our present arrangement where the celebrant also says in a low voice
at the altar whatever is sung by the ministers and choir. 18 The
Medieval Uses and the Importance of Printing Although
reference has been made to the triumph of the Roman Rite, it was by no means
celebrated with complete uniformity. A proliferation of local variations or “uses,”
such as the Sarum Rite in “In
everything of any importance at all, Sarum [and all the other medieval rites]
was simply Roman, the rite which we still use. Not only was the whole order
and arrangement the same, all the important prayers were the same too. The
essential element, the Canon, was word for word the same as ours. No medieval
bishop dared to touch the sacred Eucharistic prayer.” 19 The
only important development in the history of the Roman Missal between the
pontificate of Innocent Prior
to the establishment of printing in Europe in the 15th century, every Missal,
Bible, Pontifical, Gradual, Antiphonal or Book of Hours had been laboriously
and often beautifully written by hand, usually by monks. Every monastery had
its scriptorium. The illuminated
manuscripts of these often unknown monks constitute some of the greatest
masterpieces in the history of art. The destruction of countless examples of
these priceless and irreplaceable treasures by the Protestant Reformers
constituted a crime against civilization as well as religion, which is less
well known but no less heinous than their destruction or vandalization of the
churches, monasteries and cathedrals in which the liturgy so exquisitely
presented in these manuscripts was celebrated. The devastation unleashed by
the Reformation upon the cultural heritage of the people of “Between
1536 and 1553 there was destruction and plunder in England of beautiful,
sacred, irreplaceable things on a scale probably not witnessed before or
since . . . By the end, thousands of altars had gone, countless stained glass
windows, statues and wall paintings had disappeared, numerous libraries and
choirs had been dispersed. Thousands of chalices, pyxes, crosses and the like
had been sold or “defaced” [smashed, presumably for easier transport] and
melted down, and an untold number of precious vestments either stripped or
seized.” 20 The Missal of St. Pius V was compiled and published in 1570 in obedience to the Fathers of the Council of Trent. This is the Missal that is used today whenever the Traditional Mass of the Roman Rite, commonly called the Tridentine Mass, is celebrated rather than the Mass of Pope Paul VI found in his 1970 Missal. It is the clearly |