There is no information before the 5th century and very little then; and throughout the whole period there was, to judge by existing documents and descriptions, so much diversity that, though the general outlines of the rite were of the same pattern, the name must not be taken to imply more than a very moderate amount of homogeneity.
[1] The Ephesine theory, first put forward by William Palmer in Origines Liturgicae, was once very popular among Anglican scholars.
According to it the Gallican Rite went back to one brought to Lyon from Ephesus by St. Pothinus and Irenaeus, who had received it through Polycarp from John of Patmos.
In order to state it clearly it will be necessary to point out first certain details in which all the Latin liturgical rites agree with one another in differing from the Eastern, and in this we speak only of the Mass, which is of far more importance than either the canonical hours or the occasional services in determining origins.
The principal Eastern liturgies follow Paul the Apostle's words in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (11:23–25) and date the Institution by the betrayal, and of the less important anaphoras, most either use the same expression or paraphrase it.
The Western liturgies date from the Passion, Qui pridie quam pateretur, for which, though of course the fact is found there, there is no verbal Scriptural warrant.
[1] These variations from the Eastern usages are of an early date, and it is inferred from them, and from other considerations more historical than liturgical, that a liturgy with these peculiarities was the common property of Gaul, Hispania, and Italy.
During the 4th century – it has been conjectured that it was in the papacy of Pope Damasus I (366–384) – liturgical reforms were made at Rome: the position of the Great Intercession and of the Pax were altered, the latter perhaps because the form of the dismissal of the catechumens was disused, and the distinction between the first part, the Mass of the Catechumens, and second part, the Mass of the Faithful, was no longer needed, and therefore the want was felt of a position with some meaning to it for the sign of Christian unity.
[1] The Latin liturgical rites have been described as undergoing three phases, which may be called for want of better names the Gallican, the Ambrosian, and the Roman stages.
France had no clear capital; Toledo occasionally tried to impose liturgical law, but only over Visigothic areas, and without much success.
The Councils of Vannes (465), Agde (506), Vaison (529), Tours (567), Auxerre (578), and Mâcon (581, 623) made attempts at imposing liturgical consistency, but only at a local level.
Pope Adrian I between 784 and 791 sent to Charlemagne at his own request a copy of what was considered to be the Gregorian Sacramentary, but which certainly represented the Roman use of the end of the 8th century.
More than half a century later, when Charles the Bald wished to see what the ancient Gallican Rite had been like, it was necessary to import Hispanic priests to celebrate it in his presence.
[1] The known manuscripts are: The Reichenau Fragments are described in Léopold Victor Delisle's Mémoire sur d'anciens Sacramentaires.
The name is due to a 15th-century note at the beginning of the book, and hence it has been attributed by Tommasi and Jean Mabillon to Narbonne, which was in the Visigothic Kingdom.
The manuscript has not been printed in its entirety, but Mabillon, in De Liturgia Gallicana, gives references to all the lessons and the beginnings and endings of the text.
There are also liturgical allusions in certain 5th and 6th century writers: Hilary of Poitiers, Sulpicius Severus, Caesarius of Arles, and especially Gregory of Tours, and some information may be gathered from the decrees of the Gallican councils mentioned above.
[1] It is probable that there were many variations in different times and places, and that the influence of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum brought about gradual assimilation to Rome.
There is a not very intelligible passage in the canons of the Council of Tours to the effect that all through August there were "festivitates et missae sanctorum", but this is not borne out by the existing sacramentaries or the Lectionary.
[1] There is curiously little information on this point, and it is not possible to reconstruct the Gallican Divine Office from the scanty allusions that exist.
The Council of Tours orders six psalms at Sext and twelve ad Duodecimam, with Alleluia (presumably as Antiphon).
[1] Caesarius mentions a blessing given by the bishop at the end of Lucernarium, "cumque expleto Lucernario benedictionem populo dedisset".
[1] Agobard, in the 9th century, mentions that at Lyon there were no canticles except from the Psalms, no hymns written by poets, and no lessons except from Scripture.
Though the Psalter of the second recension of Jerome, now used in all the churches of the Roman Rite except St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, is known as the "Gallican", while the older,[1] a revision of the Vetus Itala now used in St. Peter's Basilica only,[citation needed] is known as the "Roman", it does not seem that the Gallican Psalter was used even in Gaul until a comparatively later date, though it spread thence over nearly all the West.
One may arrive at a fairly clear and general idea of the service, though there exists no Gallican Ordinary of the Mass and no Antiphoner.
[1][d] Jenner's analysis shows that the Gallican Mass contained a very small number of fixed elements and that nearly the whole service was variable according to the day.
[1] The authorities for the Gallican Baptismal Service are Gothicum and Gallicanum, both of which are incomplete, along with a few details in the second Letter of Germanus of Paris.
Moreover, extracts relating to ceremonial are given with them from the Statuta Ecclesia Antiqua, formerly attributed to the Fourth Council of Carthage, but now known to be a Gallican decree "promulgated in the province of Arles towards the end of the 5th century" (Duchesne).
The address, with a varied end, and the collect (but not the Bidding Prayer), and the anointing of the hands with its formula are in the modern Roman Pontifical, but with very large additions.
[1] The Consecration of a church does not occur in the recognized Gallican books and from prayers in the Gelasian Sacramentary and Missale Francorum.