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.