"In many ancient books...many beautiful stories and accounts of miracles related to the Rosary are read. From these facts one deduces that preaching the Rosary and convincing others to pray it, or becoming a member of the Fraternity that bears its name, does not constitute something new but is merely the renewal of an ancient devotion, temporarily abolished in some places."
From Alanus de Rupe sponsus novellus beatissime Virginis Mariae, 1458

St. Dominic and the Rosary

We owe the Rosary in its present form to St. Dominic, its author. This great Saint, much afflicted in seeing entire regions of Southern France infested by the Albigensian heresies, had recourse to the Most Holy Virgin, who revealed to him this very same devotion in 1206, also assuring him that she would prove to be the efficacious remedy for all these ills. (Taken from the SSPX publication "Christian Warfare")

15 Promises made by Our Lady to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan

1. To those who faithfully recite my Rosary, I promise my special protection and very great graces.
2. Those who persevere in recitating my Rosary shall receive signal graces.
3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell; it shall destroy vice, free from sin, and dispel heresy.
4. It shall make virtue and good works flourish, and shall obtain for souls abundant divine mercies; it will lift our hearts to desire heavenly and eternal things. Oh, that souls would sanctify themselves by this means!
5. Those who trust themselves to me through reciting the Rosary, shall not perish.
6. Those who will recite my Rosary piously, devoutly considering its Mysteries, shall not be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise the sinner who is converted; he shall grow in grace and become worthy of eternal life.
7. Those truly devoted to my Rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church, or without grace.
8. Those who faithfully recite my Rosary shall find during their life and at their death the light of God, the fullness of His grace, and shall share in the merits of the blessed in paradise.
9. I shall quickly deliver from purgatory those souls who have been devoted to reciting my Rosary.
10. The true children of my Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in heaven.
11. You shall obtain all you ask for for while reciting my Rosary.
12. I shall help all those who will propagate the Rosary.
13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death.
14. All who recite my Rosary faithfully are my beloved children, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.
15. Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination

The Rosary in Britain

 

Long before the time of St. Dominic, there existed in Britain a form of the Rosary remarkably similar to our Rosary of today, at least in its main elements. Two means of devotion to Our Lady were popular; that of frequent repetition of the Angelic Salutation by the use of counting-beads, and that of the Ave-Psalter with its hundred-and-fifty prayers and meditations.

            As early as Saxon times, strings of beads were used as prayer aids, upon which devotees would count a varying number of Hail Marys. They were not yet called “Rosaries”, but “Ave Beads” or “Paternosters”. In fact, it is due to this Saxon devotion that the word “bead” has its meaning today. Fr. Bridgett in his work “Our Lady’s Dowry” that “it is the past participle of the Saxon verb biddan, to bid, to invite, to pray…to “bid the beads” was merely to say one’s prayers…but as a custom was introduced in the very early times of counting prayers said by use of little grains or pebbles strung together, the name of prayer got attached to the instrument used for saying prayers.”[1]

            The Marian scholar Edmund Waterton makes a convincing case for the belief that the Psalter of Our Lady originated in England. He points out that, before the Rosary as taught by St. Dominic, there was the English tradition of praying one hundred and fifty Aves to represent the one hundred and fifty psalms, and that, in the West, there is strong evidence to suggest this was begun by either St. Anselm or St. Thomas of Canterbury.

            St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, remarked in one of his letters that he had composed a long prayer in three parts to Our Lady, although he did not elaborate upon its content. St. Anselm died in 1109; a manuscript dated 1200 includes a Lady-Psalter with his name, and a second manuscript of the same date contains one that was left uninscribed. Despite this, however, the Saga of St. Thomas of Canterbury says of the martyr:

            “He was of all men the first to find…how to draw some meditation out of every Psalm in the Psalter, out of which meditation he afterwards made verses of praise to Our Layde.”[2]

            The seeming contradiction between the two sources is explained thus by Waterton: St. Thomas frequently used a book containing prayers composed by his predecessor St. Anselm, and it is most likely that he had written the verses he himself had composed on Our Lady into this book. Over the course of time, later scholars had mistakenly attributed St. Thomas’s work to St. Anselm, explaining the two manuscripts of 1200. “The evidence…goes to show that the composition and use of these Psalm-Psalters and Ave-Psalters originated in England; and therefore that the original seed of the Beads of the Rosary germinated in the Dower of Our Lady long anterior to the days of St. Dominic.”[3] 

            English zeal for the Rosary continued even when Continental fervour waned severely. Waterton comments that it had “fallen into almost total disuse on the Continent, prior to the revival of the Confraternity at Cologne in the year 1475; whereas in England it was the popular devotion to Our Lady, and its use universal with all classes. This is satisfactorily proved by numberless wills and inventories of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.”[4]