John Brook Leonard

The Early Roman Liturgy

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The Roman Rite, originally celebrated only in the city of Rome and its environs, was adopted by other Western churches in an effort to introduce a fully organized and standardized liturgy.

The Roman rite was originally confined to the city of Rome and its suburbicarian dioceses. But even within the city itself, there were differences in ceremonies, prayers, chants, and melodies for the Mass and office.

(a) Ordo romanus I prescribes a stational Mass when the pope presides. The stational liturgy was celebrated only on certain days and was intended as the main liturgical celebration of the day or hour. As such, it was attended by “everyone” in the city or at least by the clergy.
(b) Ordo romanus II prescribes a different order if one of the seven “suburban” (as opposed to nearly 100 “suburbicarian”) bishops, or one of the Roman presbyters as the pope’s representative, presides at the stational liturgy.
(c) A simpler order was used by the presbyters when they presided in the titulii on stational days (no basilica was large enough for the whole city) or on ordinary Sundays when there were no stational celebrations.
(d) The presbyters—and later the monks—who had the task of supplying the daily liturgical needs of pilgrims at the cemeterial shrines combined elements of both the stational and titular celebrations.

The differences in the celebration was first recorded in different collections of libelli missarum and ordines that were later shaped into the so-called Gregorian (stational) and Gelasian (presbyterial or titular) sacramentaries and in ordines romani (collections of rubrics for nearly every kind of celebration). In the meantime, records were being kept of the cycle of feasts, the readings, and the chants of the stational celebrations that would eventually be compiled into lectionaries and antiphonaries. Once the major basilicas were staffed with their own full-time clergy and monastic communities (fifth–tenth centuries), records were kept of particular customs, chants, and reading lists for Mass and office that differed considerably from one side of the city to the other.

The order of the Mass in all these different circumstances was eventually, if not always, identical to that described in Ordo romanus I:

ENTRANCE
Entrance of ministers: Introit with psalm
Kyrie
[Gloria; at first at presbyteral masses on Easter only]
Collecta

APOSTOLUS
Gradual (Alleluia in Easter)
Alleluia (Tractus in Lent)

EVANGELIUM

OFFERTORY PROCESSION; Offertorium with psalm
Super oblata (Secreta)
Preface Dialogue
Praefatio and Sanctus
Canon missae
Lord’s Prayer and embolism
Pax
[Announcements/Dismissals]

This was the Roman liturgy that impressed the Germans and Franks long before the Carolingian era. Beginning in the seventh century, bishops or monks returning from pilgrimage or diplomatic missions to Rome were anxious to adopt Roman customs—especially those of St. Peter’s or the Lateran—in their churches and monasteries. They were the first to bring copies of libelli, sacramentaries, ordines, lectionaries, antiphonals, even relics of the Roman martyrs, and choir directors to teach the cantilena romana so they could truly replicate the “rite of the Apostolic See.”

The decision by Pepin (d. 768) and Charlemagne (d. 814) to replace the chaos of the Gallican rite with what they perceived to be a fully organized and standardized liturgy from Rome simply continued the process of Romanization. It was only partially successful, however, for two reasons: (1) the reform extended only as far as real authority was able to enforce it; and (b) the papal (stational) texts sent from Rome were incomplete and had to be supplemented with additional material drawn from the local, previously Romanized sources (i.e., the Gallicanized Gelasians of the eighth century). Even where a Roman text was complete, the Frankish copyists tended to insert Gallican elements they simply refused to do without (e.g., the paschal candle and its Exultet). The next two centuries saw the continued creation of a hybrid, Romano-Frankish or Romano-Germanic liturgy that, under the influence of the German emperors (962–1073), became the Roman rite in the city itself.

The hybridization of the rite did not mean the deletion of Roman material; it meant the addition of new material. Both the hours and the Mass became so overburdened with accretions (such as the votive offices of the dead, of all saints, and of the Blessed Virgin and the numerous apologiae already mentioned) that the public worship of the church became an unbearable burden. “Medieval monastic life suffered from sheer exhaustion, from overnutrition, and consequent spiritual indigestion” (S. J. P. Van Dijk and J. H. Walker, Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy [Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1960], 16–17). In order to get its work done, the papal court had to prune back the overgrowth and practically abandon the ancient stational system of the city, producing shorter offices and less elaborate ceremonial for celebrations in cappella (in the papal chapel).

There is an undeniable difference in the theology of the Eucharist, holy orders, and church between late antiquity when the Roman rite developed as an expression of the church of Rome gathered around its bishop and the Middle Ages with its piling up of Masses and its ordaining of priests to “offer the sacrifice for” a multitude of intentions. The liturgical forms and formulae, however, though suffocated by accretions, were maintained throughout the Middle Ages “as a treasured inheritance of the liturgy, guarded as the “tradition of the Apostles from the City of the Apostles” (Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to its Sources [Washington, D.C.: Pastoral Press, 1986], 158).

With so many accretions to choose from, ancient local traditions to preserve, the lack of efficient means for standardization, liturgical uniformity could hardly be attempted if even conceived. For the remainder of the Middle Ages and beyond, there were enough divergences in calendars, texts, chants, and ceremonial from one diocese to the next or from one religious congregation to the next to constitute separate “rites,” though technically there were countless variants or “uses” of the Roman rite; to list a few: the “Uses” of Sarum, York, Hereford, Aberdeen; the “liturgies” of Nidaros, Lyons, Rouen, Braga, Benevento, Hungary, and Jerusalem; and the “rites” of the Cluniacs, Carthusians, Cistercians, Praemonstratensians, Dominicans, and Franciscans. This last usage (Franciscan) is nearly identical to the abbreviated form used regularly in the papal chapel. Carrying this “papal” Mass and office on their journeys across the Alps, the friars couldn’t have realized history was repeating itself. The liturgy in this form was the direct ancestor of the Breviarium Romanum (1568) and the Missale Romanum (1570) “restored by the sacred council of Trent; published by order of the supreme pontiff Pius V,” and for the first time made binding—with some reservations—on the whole Western church.

The Early Celtic Liturgy

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Celtic liturgies show the wide-ranging influence of the Irish missionary-monks, who tended to appropriate liturgical elements from all parts of the Greek and Latin churches. The Celtic liturgy emphasizes a strong personal relationship with Christ and with the Trinity.

The term Celtic rite has been used for the ancient liturgy celebrated in Ireland, Scotland, Britain, Gallicia, and Brittany before these churches gradually adopted the calendar and liturgy of Rome (as early as 633 in Gallicia and as late as the eleventh century in Scotland). In a more restricted sense, the “Celtic rite” refers to the liturgy celebrated in the churches and monasteries of Ireland and regions heavily influenced by Irish missionary-monks from the late sixth to the early ninth century.

With regard to the Mass, the liturgy represented by the few books and fragments that are of Irish provenance do not possess a sufficient cohesion nor do they reflect a work sufficiently autonomous and original to constitute a separate rite. While all rites borrowed elements from other traditions, the Irish seem to have done very little in the way of composing original prayers or codifying texts, and arranging ceremonies. Some evidence indicates the adoption of an expanded Roman ordinary with few variable texts (exemplified in the Stowe Missal) while other sources follow a Gallican or Spanish order (as in the sacramentary fragments of Fulda and St. Gall). When the work of an Irish hand does appear, it betrays a remarkable familiarity with obscure patristic writings and liturgical formularies from all over the Christian world—Egypt, Rome, Gaul, but especially Spain and Milan—genuine “souvenirs” of the missionary activity of Irish monks.

In outline, the structure of the Mass in the Stowe Missal follows:

CONFESSION
Confession of sins and litany of saints (Roman and Irish)
[preparation of gifts at the altar]
Several collects
Gloria
Collects

EPISTLE
Psalm and collect
Diaconal litany
Collects post preem

GOSPEL
Alloir: Alleluia
Oratio super evangelium
Partial uncovering of the gifts
Creed
Full uncovering of gifts
Collect
[Names or litany]
Oratio post nomina
Additional collects
[Pax]
Preface Dialogue
Celtic preface and Sanctus

According to the “tract” that follows the Masses in the Stowe Missal, the Mass was sung in its entirety. Although no written melodies survive from the Celtic chants, the Irish are known to have taught them to the monks of Northumbria (northern England) who abandoned them when John the Archcantor from St. Peter’s was “borrowed” to teach the Roman chants (c. 675).

Dependence on continental sources is also discernible in the Celtic celebration of the hours, though similarities to other Western rites are not as pronounced as in the Mass. What survived of the early cathedral office in Irish monastic rules relates closely to the cathedral tradition in the rest of the West; lauds in the Antiphonary of Bangor (late seventh century) is almost identical to the office at Milan. The purely monastic hours, on the other hand, show remarkable creativity. None of the Gallican monastic rules followed Cassian’s description of Egyptian monastic practice as closely as the Irish who arranged the psalms for the horae diurnae (secunda [sic] prime, terce, sext, none, vespers), assigning three thematically appropriate psalms to each. For the night office, the Irish monastic rules are unique: Columba assigned twelve psalms to the first two night hours (initium noctis: Gallican duodecimä, medium noctis) but during the third hour (matutinum or vigilia) his monks prayed anywhere from 24 (summer weeknights) to 75 psalms (Saturdays and Sundays from November 1–January 31). The division of the night office into three hours is itself unique to the Irish.

Unlike the liturgists of the Mediterranean rites, the Irish authors had neither an ancient liturgical patrimony nor a tradition of Christian-Latin literature of their own as a basis for formulating Celtic euchology. The fact that they used a language that was not their own may explain, at least in part, the extent of their eclecticism. But the Irish monks were avid scholars, collectors, and copyists of everything they could obtain—Greek and Latin. Their particular choice of elements from so many liturgical traditions betrays, if anything, a fascination with the unusual and the obscure.

The Irish proved themselves most original in the illumination of manuscripts and the composition of hymns and collects for the office. They used the idioms, language, ideas, and forms that had grown out of the various traditions of the church and transformed them into artistic and poetic forms that clearly reflect their native genius. The Eastern influence can be discerned in their illuminations which are nevertheless filled with Gaelic serpents and dragons. Though in Latin, many of the hymns and collects in the Antiphonary of Bangor are composed in a meter that does not reflect either classical or accentual rhythmic patterns but instead follow the ancient meters of their native poetry, replete with rhyme and alliteration.

The devotional practices and original texts of the Celtic authors reflect a lifestyle that is centered more on a person than on an ecclesial relationship with Christ and the ever-present Trinity. The most obvious and influential example is the practice of private penitence which followed the missionary monks on all their journeys. This typically Irish individualism was absorbed into the “renaissance” of the Carolingian era and reflected in its reshaping of the Western liturgy. The piety which produced long lists of apologiae (prayers of unworthiness) and influenced the Romano-Frankish or Romano-Germanic liturgy for the rest of the Middle Ages was manifest quite early in the liturgical texts of Ireland.

The Ambrosian Liturgy

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The Ambrosian, or Milanese, liturgy shared common features with both Western and Eastern rites and served as a link between them. A central feature of the Ambrosian liturgy is its Christocentric nature, reflecting an ongoing struggle with Arian influence. Never suppressed by ecclesiastical authorities, the Ambrosian liturgy continues in use today.

Though usually associated with the metropolitan see once occupied by Saint Ambrose (d. 397), the Ambrosian rite includes in addition to the liturgy celebrated in the city of Milan (i.e., the Milanese liturgy), the liturgy of several other dioceses of Northern Italy (Bergamo, Ticino, Novara, Vercelli, etc.), and to a certain extent, the liturgy of Aquileia.

Unlike the other non-Roman Western rites, the Ambrosian liturgy was never officially suppressed by the emperor or pope. In spite of Carolingian and later attempts to “Romanize” everywhere, the Ambrosian liturgy survived with numerous medieval accretions (Roman and non-Roman), but underwent major restorations first under Carlo Borromeo (d. 1584) and then at the beginning of the twentieth century under Cardinals A. Ratti (later Pius XI) and I. Schuster. It was completely revised and translated into Italian in the 1970s.

The liturgical patrimony of the Ambrosian liturgy was largely the result of strong Roman and Eastern influences. After its emergence as a distinct rite, it came to share many of its features with all the Western rites, often serving as the bridge between East and West. What distinguishes it from all the other liturgical traditions, however, can be understood only in the context of the theological and political anti-Arianism in which it arose and evolved. With the exception of the Roman liturgy, the Arian controversy had a major effect on the euchology of all the Western traditions, though in no case did this struggle perdure as at Milan. In fact in its emergence (fourth-fifth centuries), its development (sixth–seventh centuries), and in the period of its stabilization (eighth–ninth centuries) the Ambrosian liturgy had to fight constantly against this heresy in one form or another. The most obvious result is the strong Christocentricism of the Ambrosian prayers, in both original texts and in the editing of texts borrowed from Roman and Carolingian sources.

The centrality of Christ is manifest not only in the careful consideration of the Incarnation and the virginal birth but also in the veneration of the Virgin Mary. In Ambrosian iconography, it is possible to trace a progression from the Kyrios-Pantocrator to Deus-Homo, Homo-Deus, and Nobiscum-Deus, which corresponds to the various stages in the development of Ambrosian euchology. It is here that the Ambrosian influence on the other Western liturgies was most strongly felt.

In the early Middle Ages, the Ambrosian Eucharist had the following order:

INGRESSA
Kyrie
Oration super populum—collect

PROPHETIC LESSON
Psalmellus

EPISTLE
Alleluia with verse (Cantus during Lent)

GOSPEL
Homily
Dismissal of Catechumens
Kyrie and Antiphona post Evangelium
Pax
Oratio super sindonem
Offertory procession: ̧Offerenda with verses
Proper Preface and Sanctus
Invariable Canon
Fraction and Commixtio; ̧Confractorium
Lord’s Prayer and embolism

COMMUNION
̧Transitorium no psalm
Oratio post communionem
Kyrie and Dismissal

The Ambrosian office was unique in the West in spreading the psalter over two weeks. Like the Roman and Benedictine cursus, however, the Ambrosian assigned Psalms 109/110–147 to vespers. As in the cathedral office of fourth-century Jerusalem and the “Chaldean” rite, the morning office at Milan consisted of three canticles, the Laudate psalms (148–150), gospel reading, and a procession to the cross or baptistry, while vespers began with the lucernarium.

The Ambrosian chant tradition is preserved in some 300 north Italian manuscripts, most from the late twelfth century and later. Though sharing many features and texts with the Gregorian chant, the Ambrosian has a closer affinity to the Old Roman and Beneventan traditions.

The Early Spanish Liturgy

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Ecclesiastical leadership in the Iberian peninsula held the liturgy in high esteem as a means of communicating the truths of the Christian faith. Spanish liturgical creativity, therefore, was marked by a stress on doctrinal precision.

The Spanish liturgy, also known rather inaccurately as Mozarabic or Visigothic, is the autonomous liturgy that was in constant use in Spain from the beginning of the sixth century until it was suppressed by the Council of Braga (1080) at the insistence of Pope Gregory VII (1073–1085). At the time of its codification, when Visigothic rule reached its greatest extension (seventh century), the Spanish rite was celebrated throughout the Iberian peninsula and in the religion of southwestern France known as Gallia Narbonese. After its suppression, it continued to be celebrated in a few parish churches for a time, and with intermittent periods of complete abandonment, in a single chapel at the cathedral of Toledo into the twentieth century.

Among the surviving manuscripts of the Spanish liturgy, there are dittici (variable texts for the Eucharist) that may have been copied from third-century sources and constitute the major evidence of a native liturgical patrimony. In the dittici contained in the missale mixtum of Cisneros (sixteenth century), there is a resonance with both the letters of Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) and the Acta of the martyrdom of St. Fructuoso of Tarragona (d. 258) who, like Cyprian, suffered under the persecution of Valerian.

Although inspired by the Roman libelli of variable texts, neither the Spanish nor the Gallican authors renounced the order of the Mass they had received as part of their ancient liturgical patrimony. The Spanish left the prayer of the faithful and the kiss of peace where they had been after the liturgy of the Word and composed a series of variable texts for them (ad orationem; ad pacem) in addition to the variable inlatio, post sanctus and post pridie which formed their eucharistic prayer. Thus, in contrast to the Roman system, which spread variable texts throughout the Mass but maintained a fixed canon, the Spanish concentrated their variable texts at the center of the celebration.

In spite of the relative independence of individual pieces, the Spanish used brief formulas (remnants of the old improvisational structure?) to make a transition from one piece to the next. With this system it was possible to achieve innumerable variations on the same theme, and at the same time give a sense of unity and cohesion to the whole euchological complex. The aim for unity and cohesion with great variety is a distinguishing trait of the Spanish authors and one that was maintained throughout the evolution of the rite.

This characteristic is apparent as well in the richness, harmony, and refinement of the chants and orations of the office books and in the Liber Ordinum (ritual/pontifical for other sacramental celebrations). The coordination of the Mass and hours with the other sacramental celebrations is also worthy of note; for example, there was not only a votive Mass for marriage, for the sick, for the dead, but a votive office in each case as well. The ritual/pastoral care extended beyond the actual exchange of rings, anointing, or burial to include the entire liturgical life of the community and the role of the individual in that life. The introduction to the Lord’s Prayer in the votive Mass for the sick illustrates the strong ecclesial sense in the Spanish rite; it ends: “so that when the sickness of body and soul has been driven out, these who are ill may pray with us, saying, ‘Our Father … ’ ” (Férotin, Liber Ordinum, col. 377).

Several historical factors contributed to the systematic codification of the Spanish rite. From the times of its invasion by the Arian Visigoths in 414 until the invitation of the Moors in 711, the Iberian peninsula was politically united. With the conversion to Catholicism of the entire kingdom in 589, political unity was reinforced by religious unity. The resulting climate favored the collection, codification, and eventual standardization of liturgical texts and practices.

In addition, because their greatest liturgical creativity postdates that of the other Western rites, the Spanish could incorporate the “teaching” of liturgical texts from other rites, the canons of the Christological councils, and the liturgical theology in the patristic sermons of such as Augustine and Leo. As in Milan, the liturgy in Spain was considered the most efficient means for planting the truths of the faith in the minds and hearts of the Christian people and was purposely formulated with orthodox precision. In part, this explains why the Spanish authors of this era applied themselves to the composition of liturgical texts instead of the production of ascetical or dogmatic treatises, exegetical commentaries on the Scriptures, or long homiletic sermons.

A clear example of their high esteem for the liturgy is the De ecclesiasticis officiis of Isidore of Seville (d. 636), the first treatise on the liturgy which not only describes the local rite but contains much useful information about Milanese and African uses as well. Complementing Isidore’s treatise are the invaluable liturgical canons of the synods and councils, especially the “national” Councils of Toledo IV–X (633–656). Knowing their own rite to be in a state of flux, the council fathers enumerated and illustrated the ancient liturgical uses which they felt should be maintained by all but simultaneously provided a forum for exchanging the innovations of the liturgical creativity which flourished in the various provinces. As a result, the Spanish rite represented euchological schools from several provinces: Tarragona —St. Eugenius (d. 657); Seville—Sts. Leander (d. c. 600) and Isadore (d. 636); Braga-Profuturus (fl. c. 538) and St. Martin (d. 580); Toledo—Sts. Eugenio II (d. 657), Ildefonso (d. 667), and Juliano (d. 690). The saintly bishops of Toledo were responsible for the definitive form of the liturgical books that survived the subsequent onslaughts of the Moslem invasion, Carolingian expansion, and theological controversies that would reach a climax in the Gregorian suppression of 1080.

With regard to the office, the Spanish and Gallican churches maintained a strict distinction between “cathedral” and “monastic” hours. Iberian councils directed that monastic and ecclesiastical customs should not be mixed (Braga 563, canon 1); and that monks were not permitted to use the public churches for anything but cathedral services: matins, vespers, and Mass (II Toledo 675, canon 3). One of the earliest books produced in the Spanish rite is the Liber psalmographus, an office book filled with several series of psalm prayers that constituted a veritable commentary on the Psalms, most of which have been given a Christological and ecclesiological interpretation.

The Spanish order is outlined as follows:

PREGENDUM with psalm
Trisagion
Greeting

LESSON (PROPHETIC)
Psallendum/Psallmo (Trenos in Lent)
[*Clamor on certain days]

EPISTLE

GOSPEL
Laudes
Dismissal of catechumens
Sacrificium with verses for offertory procession
Missa (bidding)
Alia oratio
Nomina Offerentium
Diptychs
Post Nomina
Ad Pacem
Pax
Preface Dialogue (“Aures ad dominum” … “Sursum corda” … “Deo ac Domino nostro, Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto, dignas laudes et gratias referamus” … )
Inlatio and *Sanctus
Post Sanctus
Missa Secreta (Institution Narrative)
Post Pridie
Laudes ad Confractionem
[Creed on Sundays and Feasts]
Ad orationem Dominicam
Lord’s Prayer and variable embolism
Commixtio and Trisagion
Benedictio (Three-fold Blessing of the people)

COMMUNION
Invitation to communion
Ad Accedentes (variable, often beginning with Pss. 33–34)
Communion
Completuria post-communion prayer (after tenth century)

DISMISSAL

The Early Gallican Liturgy

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Great diversity evidently existed in the liturgies used in southern Gaul. Lack of documentation, however, makes it difficult to reconstruct some parts of the liturgy. By the ninth century, the Gallican liturgy had become fused with the Roman rite. The spread of Roman influence is clearly shown by early Gallican sources.

Properly speaking, the Gallican rite refers exclusively to the liturgical tradition which emerged in the southern part of Gaul at the beginning of the sixth century, and which remained in use throughout the province until it was replaced (fused) with the Roman rite under the Carolingians (late eighth–ninth centuries).

The study of the Gallican rite is hampered by the sparsity of its liturgical books, and some major elements of the liturgy remain completely deprived of any documentation. There are euchological texts for the celebration of the Eucharist and for the administration of the sacraments (Missale Gothicum, Missale Bobbiense, Missale Francorum, and several Mass-fragments; benedictionals: collections of episcopal blessings given before communion; diptychs: tables of names for the commemoration of the living and dead; and ordines scrutiniorum: formulas for the celebration of the scrutinies). The system of readings has left fragmentary evidence in lectionaries, capitularia (lists of first and last words of the pericopes), and passionaria (lives of the saints read both at Mass and the office of their feasts). No Gallican antiphonary for the Mass or hours has been preserved, though the hymns of the Gallican hours and a few genuine Gallican chants may have survived in the Gregorian chant tradition. To complicate matters further, most of the sources already mentioned include Roman material; for example, the Bobbio missal preserves the structure of the Gallican Mass only as far as the preface where it abandons the variable Gallican prayer for the Roman canon.

In contrast with the Spanish, Milanese, and Roman rites, the Gallican sources indicate an enormous diversity, even between neighboring dioceses; for example, the church at Auxerre—as evidenced in the collection of Masses published by Mone in 1850—used very different formularies but followed basically the same order of service as the church of Autun where the Missale Gothicum was compiled. At the same time, other rites were being codified and standardized to some extent, the churches of Gaul and Septimania suffered the successive invasions and ensuing political divisions of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Franks—all in the first half of the sixth century. Codification was far from systematic or uniform in spite of the attempts of local councils to regulate church life and worship.

The following outline of the Gallican order of the Mass has been reconstructed from letters of Pseudo-Germanus of Paris (Expositio antiquae liturgiae gallicanae, ed. by E. C. Ratcliff [London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1971]) and the sacramentaries mentioned above:

[Preparation of Offerings at side altar or in sacristy]
Antiphona ad praelegendum with Psalm
Call for silence and Greeting
Trisagion and Kyrie
Prophetica (Benedictus; or a hymn in Lent)
Collectio post Prophetiam

LECTIO PROPHETICA
Responsorium (?)

LECTIO EX APOSTOLO
Canticle from Daniel (Benedictiones on feasts)
Trisagion ante evangelium

EVANGELIUM
Sanctus post evangelium
Homilia
Preces
Collectio post precem
Dismissal of catechumens
Solemn presentation of the Gifts with Sonus
Praefatio missa and collectio
Names and collectio post nomina
Collectia ad pacem and Pax
Contestatio (Immolatio missae) and *Sanctus
Vere sanctus—institution narrative—post mysterium
Confractionem
Lord’s Prayer
Episcopal Benediction
Communion and Trecanum
Post-Eucharisticam and Collectio post communionem

DISMISSAL

A distinguishing characteristic of the Gallican rite lies in its use of variable texts in the eucharistic prayer before and after the institution narrative (post sanctus and post mysterium). In this, it contrasted with the fixed canon in the Roman and Milanese rites but also to some degree with the Spanish rite, which also used variable pieces in the eucharistic prayer. The Gallican provides no system but simply a repertoire of texts for the three pieces—contestatio (preface), post sanctus, post mysterium—without coordination or connection among them. This is all the more noteworthy given the fact that there was an attempt to match “proper” orations for the other parts of the Mass to the feast or season.

With regard to the euchology for other ritual and sacramental celebrations, the typically Gallican approach included an introductory invitation directed to the faithful (bidding) which anticipated and sometimes contained the blessing which followed. In the case of ordinations, the unit included three elements: the instruction of the candidates, the invitation to prayer, and the blessing/ordination prayer. This form was an expansion of the ancient and universal liturgical prayer unit (which is best known in the Solemn Intercessions on Good Friday in the Roman rite): an invitation to prayer—silent prayer—concluding oration. The practice is so characteristic of the Gallican rite that a number of the variable texts for each Mass originally assumed this form of an instructive invitation to prayer (Praefatio missa, Post eucharisticam). The combination of instruction, invitation, and prayer in the compilation of texts for other ritual and sacramental celebrations was amply employed by the liturgical compilers of the Carolingian period and served as one of several ways in which the ancient Roman liturgy was “Gallicanized.”

Given the heterogeneity of the Gallican repertoire, it is almost impossible to make an evaluation of style and content that is universally applicable. However, those texts which actually originate with the Gallican rite betray a conservative tendency in using the traditional vocabulary, phrasing, and syntax that are found in the oldest Gallican sources. Although the same phenomenon has been noted in a few Ambrosian and Spanish prayers, it is a veritable characteristic of Gallican euchology. An important indication of the adherence to the tradition appears in the Gallican equivalent to the anamnēsis in the post mysterium: only the death of the Lord is recalled, as in the Pauline gloss of 1 Corinthians 11:26, and as seems to have been the case in North Africa at the time of Cyprian. In this, the Gallican rite stands alone; even the Spanish include at least the death and the resurrection in the post pridie.

It has often been suggested that the Gallican style is one of exuberance and prolixity, elaborate ceremonial and splendor. Such an evaluation is not justified and neither does it take into account the varied origin of the Gallican repertoire of prayers and practices. In reality, at least among the texts which are genuinely Gallican, one finds extreme conciseness and density of content, reflecting the prose style of the time and region. The fact that so much was so readily borrowed and adapted from Eastern and Spanish sources—another Gallican characteristic in itself—contributes to the impression that Gallican means long-winded.

On the other hand, the later Gallican compilers did add extra prayers to the rites. The so-called apologiae and “accompanying prayers” first make their appearance in Gallican sources, though it is difficult to say whether or not they were inspired by the Irish. The apologies were private prayers in which the priest acknowledged his sinfulness and unworthiness; the others include private prayers for vesting, for the offertory, and for before and after communion. Many of these made their way into the Gallicanized-Roman books of the eighth and ninth centuries, but the famous Missa Illyrica (sacramentary of Sigebert of Minden nth century]) includes nearly 200 of the newly composed or compiled from several sources.