The story of how the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary originated, and how it has developed and changed over the centuries, is one of the most interesting but little-known chapters of the history of our Faith. A brief look at this curious story will show that the Scriptural Rosary presented here is actually very similar to the form of Rosary that was once in universal use during the late Middle Ages.
An Outgrowth of the 150 Psalms of David
Most historians trace the origin of the Rosary as we know it today back to the so-called Dark Ages of ninth-century Ireland. In those days, as is still true today, the 150 Psalms of David were one of the most important forms of monastic prayer. Monks recited or chanted the Psalms day after day as a major source of inspiration.
The lay people who lived near the monasteries greatly admired this form of prayer but were unable to participate fully, since most could not read and did not know the Psalms by heart. As a substitute, they began reciting a fixed number of simpler prayers. These prayer forms eventually came to be known as “psalters.”
Because these various prayer forms were held in such high regard, perhaps it was inevitable that they would eventually be combined.
The Carthusians Combine Prayers and Mysteries
The first step toward the combination of these different kinds of psalters came in about 1365 A.D., when Henry of Kalkar, the Visitor of the Carthusian Order, grouped the 150 Angelic Salutations into decades and placed an Our Father before each decade. This combined the Our Father and the Hail Mary for the first time.
Next, in about 1409, another Carthusian, Dominic the Prussian, wrote a book which attached a psalter of fifty thoughts about the lives of Jesus and Mary to a Rosary of fifty Hail Marys. This was the first time that a special thought was ever provided for each Hail Mary bead.
Eventually, the fifty Hail Mary thoughts of Dominic the Prussian were divided, as Henry of Kalkar had done, into groups of ten, with an Our Father in between. Many variations of this form were composed between about 1425 and 1470, but the changes were gradual, not sudden.
HISTORIC BACKGROUND
The Dominicans Popularize the Special Hail Mary Thoughts
By 1470, when the Dominican Alan of Rupe founded the first Rosary Confraternity—and thereby launched the Dominican Order as the foremost missionaries of the Rosary—he could refer to the Rosary with a special thought for each Hail Mary bead (which was the form he favored) as the “new” Rosary. He referred to the form consisting of Hail Marys with no accompanying statements as the “old” Rosary.
Through the efforts of Alan of Rupe and the early Dominicans, this prayer form—150 Hail Marys with a special thought for each bead—spread rapidly throughout Western Christendom.
It is important to note that this form of Rosary—the form which Alan of Rupe promoted so successfully as the Rosary of St. Dominic—is the model upon which the new Scriptural Rosary is based; that is, a Rosary with a special thought for each of the 200 Hail Mary beads.