counting your beads: the rosary through the years

COUNTING YOUR BEADS: THE ROSARY THROUGH THE YEARS

The idea of using beads to count prayers is ancient and rich with history.

Ireland 800-900AD
Historians trace the origin of the Rosary back to approximately IX century Ireland commonly called the Celtic Rosary formed within the Community of Saint Columba.
Today, as then, the 150 Psalms of the Bible, the Book of Psalms of King David, were an important form of prayer. Monks and clergy recited or chanted the Psalms as a major source of hourly worship. People living near the monasteries/abbeys realized the beauty of this devotion but unable to read or memorize the lengthy Psalms, the people were unable to adapt this form of prayer for their use.

It was suggested that the people might substitute 150 Our Fathers in place of the Psalms. At first, pebbles were carried in a pouch to count the 150 Our Fathers; later ropes with 150 or 50 (1/3 of 150) knots were used (Na tri coicat). Eventually (by the 12th century) strings with 50 small pieces of wood were used (Paternoster cord).

1072AD
Next the Angelic Salutation (Luke 1:28) was added. St. Peter Damian was the first to mention this form of prayer. Soon the Angelic Salutation replaced the 50 Our Fathers.

Some medieval theologians considered the 150 Psalms to be veiled mysteries about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. They began to compose "Psalters of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" – 150 praises in honor of Jesus. Soon psalters devoted to 150 praises of Mary were composed. When a Psalter of 150 praises in Mary’s honor numbered 50 instead of 150, it was called a rosarium, or bouquet.

1365AD
Henry of Kalkar, Visitator of the Carthusian Order grouped the salutations into decades and an Our Father was put before each decade. This combined the Our Father and the Angelic Salutation for the first time.

To use 10 beads or a decade was not an outlandish decision since ancients used 10 fingers to count prayers. Ten is also the ancient symbol of perfection of the divine order of God (i.e. the Ten Commandments).

The word bead comes from the Anglo-Saxon root word, ‘bede’ and it means ‘prayer.’ ‘Bidden’ means ‘to pray.’

1409AD
Dominic the Prussian, another Carthusian wrote a book that grouped special thoughts or meditations attaching one for each Hail Mary bead.

1470AD
The ORDER OF PREACHERS spread the form of the "new rosary" throughout Western Christendom. Fr. Alain de la Roche and Fr. Jakob Sprenger were instrumental to this devotion with the foundation of the famous Confraternities of the Rosary.
It was also during this time that the devotion became intimately united to the Order of Preachers and the the legend that it was their founder St Dominic de Guzman who received the beads from the Virgin.

1400 – 1500AD
The thoughts or meditations on the 150 Hail Mary beads took the form of woodcuts (graphic pictures). This exhausted the practice easily because of the volume of pictures. Picture rosaries were shortened to one picture/thought for each Our Father as it is today.

After he famous victory of Lepanto in 1571, the form of the rosary which we know to today was fixed: the five decade chaplet was introduced. A more catechetical format was also introduced for the Christian faithful: with the recitation of the Apostles' Creed and the introductory prayers was popularized.

Hymns and melodies were also introduced to the recitation of the rosary especially in Southern Europe and were later popularized in the Western Hemisphere.

1600 AD
The exemplary courage and holiness of many confraternity members as well as other members of the Dominican family at the height of the persecutions in Japan gave further glory to this marian devotion.

1700’sAD
St. Louis de Montfort wrote the most common set of meditations for the rosary used today.

Early 1900’sAD
A movement was begun attempting to return to a form of the medieval rosary – one thought for each Hail Mary.

Rosary devotion received heavenly confirmation during the apparitions of the Virgin at Lourdes France. Rosary devotion began to experience a comeback.

This was promoted further as the devotion par excellence during many encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII.

St Antony Maria Claret and St Francis Coll became great rosarian apostles and made the beads their efficacious instrument for Christian renewal in Northwestern Spain.

Bl. Bartolo Longo begins to propagate the Rosary devotion in southern Italy with the construction of the famous Shrine of the Virgin in Pompeii.He begins the traditional suplica to the Virgin.

1917 The Virgin appears at the Cova da Iria in Portugal. At the end of the apparitions she declared herself as the Lady of the Rosary. Renewed devotion to the beads was witnessed throughout Christendom.

Servant of God Fr. Patrick Peyton CSC begins his Family Rosary Crusade.

New and creative forms of the rosary devotion began to appear, differing from the medieval version, is composed almost entirely of direct quotations from the Bible. It is appropriately called "the Scriptural Rosary."

Paul VI publishes Marialis cultus: giving a new impetus to the rosary devotion.

Blessed John Paul II published Rosarium Virginis Mariae, introducing the luminous mysteries. This encyclical is his own contribution as a devotee as a Pontiff to the long legacy of the rosary.