The Rosary

History of the Rosary

The origins

From the early days of the Church, Mary is united to her son Jesus in the love of Christians and the prayer of the faithful.
From the3rd century people began to turn to Mary using the words of the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation: Ave gratia plena.
From the9th century the anthem of the offertory of the 4th Sunday of Advent, Elizabeth’s greeting at the Visitation, was joined to it. Only the name of Mary was added to the text. This was the only version of the Hail Mary until the end of the 15th century.
From the12th century devotion to Mary became very important in the western world. This anthem to Mary became a popular prayer which people loved to repeat, as at the same time in the East one repeated the name of Jesus in what was known as the prayer of the heart.
In the monasteries it gradually replaced the “Our Father” which the brothers repeated while the monks sang the psalms in Latin.
Small knotted cords then beads, perhaps influenced indirectly by the Muslims they had seen while on pilgrimage to the Holy Land or on the Crusades were used to count the “Our Father”, then later the “Hail Mary”.
In the 13th century the great mystic St Gertrude added the name of Jesus to the Hail Mary.
In the 14th century they loved to crown the statues of the Virgin Mary with little hats made of flowers, or with garlands of roses, like those won by young girls on feast days. It was because of this that the little cords of knots or beads were named rosaries. Each Hail Mary is like a rose offered to Mary.

Dominique le Chartreux founder of the Rosary

In the 15th century in Prussia, the Prior of the Chartreux of Trèves advised a novice to say 50 Hail Marys a day while meditating on the life of Jesus. The young Dominique then wrote 50 short meditations or "clausules" not only in Latin but also in German. The prior was delighted with these meditations and sent them to the various monasteries of his Order. Then Dominique drew up a series of 3 times 50 clausules, in parallel with the 150 psalms.
Little by little, in order to help memorize them, the Hail Marys were divided into 15 decades, each one introduced by an Our Father. The number of meditations was thus reduced from 150 to 15. The Rosary was born.
It was Brother Alain de Roche, born in Brittany in 1428 and a member of the Order of the preaching friars (Dominicans), who was responsible for the spread of the devotion to the Rosary. He preached in Flanders, then in Lille, where coming into contact with the Chartreux monasteries, he discovered with enthusiasm the meditations of Dominique of Prussia.
Alain de la Roche became the great apostle of the Rosary. He advocated the creation of the Confraternities of the Rosary which became very successful right down to Italy and the rest of Western Europe.
Curiously, Alain de la Roche attributed the origin of the Rosary to St Dominique, the founder of his Order, who died in 1221! Although there is no historical basis to this legend it has been repeated until recent times.
At the end of the 15th century, the phrase "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners" appeared.

The prayer of the Christian people

During the 16th century, printing began and this allowed illustrated booklets representing the “mysteries” to be distributed.
In 1571, Pope Pius V, a Dominican instituted the Feast of Our Lady to be celebrated on 7th of October each year, in thanksgiving for the victory over the Turks at Lepante. This was looked upon as a miracle obtained through the Rosary, which the Christians of the time had recited at his request.
In 1572 the same Pope recognised officially the 15 mysteries of the Rosary and it became the prayer of Christians.
All through the centuries the names of well-known Christians became associated with it.
In the 18th century, Louis Marie Grignon de Monfort was the great apostle of the Rosary.
In the 19th century, Pauline Jaricot started the living Rosary; at Lourdes, Bernadette Soubirous said the Rosary with the Blessed Virgin; At Pompeii Bartolo Longo opened a sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin of the Rosary; Pope Leo XIII wrote 12 encyclicals consecrated to the Rosary, as a result of which he was called “the Pope of the Rosary”.
In the 20th century, at Fatima, Mary herself said to the 3 children: “I am the Virgin of the Rosary and I have come to ask people to say the Rosary every day, to do penance for their sins and to change their way of life”.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Pope Jean-Paul II declared on the 7 October 2002 a year of the Rosary. He added to the 15 mysteries, joyful, sorrowful, glorious, 5 new ones the Mysteries of Light.