The Rosary

Etymology

"Mid-15th century, "rose garden," from Latin rosarium "rose garden," from neuter of rosarius "of roses," from rosa "rose" (see rose). The sense of "series of prayers" is 1540s, from Middle French rosaire, a figurative use of the word meaning "rose garden," on the notion of a "garden" of prayers. This embodies the medieval conceit [practice, conception, habit] of comparing collections to bouquets (cf. anthology ["a collection of flowers"] and Middle Latin hortulus animæ, "prayerbook," lit. "little garden of the soul"). This sense was transferred around 1597 to the strings of beads used as a memory aid in reciting the rosary."[1]

History

St. Dominic and Our Lady

"When the Albigensian heresy was devastating the country of Toulouse, St. Dominic earnestly besought the help of Our Lady and was instructed by her, so tradition asserts, to preach the Rosary among the people as an antidote to heresy and sin. From that time forward this manner of prayer was 'most wonderfully published abroad and developed [promulgari augerique coepit] by St. Dominic whom different Supreme Pontiffs have in various past ages of their apostolic letters declared to be the institutor and author of the same devotion.' That many popes have so spoken is undoubtedly true, and amongst the rest we have a series of encyclicals, beginning in 1883, issued by Pope Leo XIII, which, while commending this devotion to the faithful in the most earnest terms, assumes the institution of the Rosary by St. Dominic to be a fact historically established. ... We will confine ourselves here to the controverted question of its history, a matter which both in the middle of the eighteenth century and again in recent years has attracted much attention."

Paternoster Beads

• The use of beads to count prayers is found in many religions around the world.
• Monks developed the tradition of substituting saying 150 "Our Fathers" (Latin: Paternosters) for saying the 150 Psalms for the repose of the souls of the dead. Monks who could not attend choir for the recitation of the Psalms also said Paternosters as a substitute.

Catholic Encyclopedia, "The Rosary"

"The Countess Godiva of Coventry (c. 1075) left by will to the statue of Our Lady in a certain monastery 'the circlet of precious stones which she had threaded on a cord in order that by fingering them one after another she might count her prayers exactly' (Malmesbury, 'Gesta Pont.', Rolls Series 311). Another example seems to occur in the case of St. Rosalia (A.D. 1160), in whose tomb similar strings of beads were discovered. Even more important is the fact that such strings of beads were known throughout the Middle Ages — and in some Continental tongues are known to this day — as 'Paternosters.' The evidence for this is overwhelming and comes from every part of Europe. Already in the thirteenth century the manufacturers of these articles, who were known as 'paternosterers,' almost everywhere formed a recognized craft guild of considerable importance."

"It was only in the middle of the twelfth century that the Hail Mary came at all generally into use as a formula of devotion. It is morally impossible that Lady Godiva's circlet of jewels could have been intended to count Ave Marias. Hence there can be no doubt that the strings of prayerbeads were called 'paternosters' because for a long time they were principally employed to number repetitions of the Lord's Prayer."

Development of the "Hail Mary"

The final addition to the Angelic Salutation is attributed to St. Peter Canisius in the mid-16th century.

"In any case it is certain that in the course of the twelfth century and before the birth of St. Dominic, the practice of reciting 50 or 150 Ave Marias had become generally familiar. The most conclusive evidence of this is furnished by the 'Mary-legends,' or stories of Our Lady, which obtained wide circulation at this epoch."

Development of the Mysteries

"The practice of meditating on certain definite mysteries, which has been rightly described as the very essence of the Rosary devotion, seems to have only arisen long after the date of St. Dominic's death. It is difficult to prove a negative, but Father T. Esser, O.P., has shown (in the periodical Der Katholik, of Mainz, Oct., Nov., Dec., 1897) that the introduction of this meditation during the recitation of the Aves was rightly attributed to a certain Carthusian, Dominic the Prussian. It is in any case certain that at the close of the fifteenth century the utmost possible variety of methods of meditating prevailed, and that the fifteen mysteries now generally accepted were not uniformly adhered to even by the Dominicans themselves. To sum up, we have positive evidence that both the invention of the beads as a counting apparatus and also the practice of repeating a hundred and fifty Aves cannot be due to St. Dominic, because they are both notably older than his time. Further, we are assured that the meditating upon the mysteries was not introduced until two hundred years after his death."

Repetition

• Jesus in His Agony in the Garden (Mt 26:44).
• The four living creatures: "Day and night they do not stop exclaiming: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come" (Rev 4:8).