History of the Rosary

The practice of meditation during the praying of the Hail Marys was attributed to Dominic of Prussia (author of Liber experientiae 1458), a 15th-century Carthusian monk, who called it the "Life of Jesus Rosary" (vita Christi Rosarium).

In 2002 Pope John Paul II introduced the Luminous Mysteries – based on a compilation by George Preca, the first Maltese saint – as an option in an apostolic letter on the rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae.

As many of the laity and even lay monastics could not read, they substituted 150 repetitions of the Lord's Prayer (Pater noster in Ecclesiastical Latin) for the Psalms, sometimes using a cord with knots on it to keep an accurate count.

[6][7] After the First Council of Ephesus in 431, the title Theotokos and the veneration of Mary as the "Mother of God" were established and a period of growth for Marian prayers started.

This Eastern variant of the Ave Maria was apparently intended for liturgical use, just as the earliest form of the Hail Mary in the Western Church took the shape of an antiphon.

[11] While two Anglo-Saxon manuscripts at the British Museum, one of which may be as old as the year 1030, show the words "Ave Maria" and "benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui", it is not certain when these clauses were first joined to make one prayer.

[18] Around 1075 Lady Godiva refers in her will to "the circlet of precious stones which she had threaded on a cord in order that by fingering them one after another she might count her prayers exactly" (Malmesbury, "Gesta Pont.

", Rolls Series 311)[7] It is recorded by a contemporary biographer that Aibert of Crespin, who died in 1140, recited 150 Hail Marys daily, 100 with genuflexions and 50 with prostrations.

The practice of meditation during the praying of the Hail Marys is attributed to Dominic of Prussia (1382–1460), a Carthusian monk, who called it "Life of Jesus Rosary".

Alain de la Roche or Saint Alan of the Rock), a Dominican priest and theologian, is said to have received a vision from Jesus about the urgency of reinstating the rosary as a form of prayer.

It was greatly promoted by the preaching of the Dominican priest Alan de Rupe, who helped to spread the devotion in France, Flanders, and the Netherlands between 1460 and his death in 1475.

[29] In 1571 Pope Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the rosary for victory at the Battle of Lepanto, in which the Christian belligerents included the Papal States.