The priest's functions, including Baptism, Penance, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction, were contained in a variety of little handbooks that eventually the Roman Ritual replaced.

Through the Middle Ages a great number of handbooks for priests having the care of souls were written.

The book of Schleswig has much of the Holy Week rituals, and those for All Souls, Candlemas, and Ash Wednesday.

Albert Castellani in 1537 published a Sacerdotale of this kind; in 1579 in Venice another version appeared that Grancesco Samarino, Canon of the Lateran Archbasilica arranged and which was re-edited in 1583 by Angelo Rocca.

In 1586 Giulio Antonio Santorio, Cardinal of St. Severina, printed a handbook of rituals for the use of priests, which, according to Pope Paul V, "he had composed after long study and with much industry and labor" (Apostolicae Sedis).

On 17 June 1614, Paul V authorized the first edition of the official Rituale Romanum by the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis.

In this, he pointed out that Clement VIII had already issued a uniform text of the Pontificale Romanum and the Caeremoniale Episcoporum.

"It remained", the Pope continued, "that the sacred and authentic rites of the Church, to be observed in the administration of sacraments and other ecclesiastical functions by those who have the care of souls, should also be included in one book and published by authority of the Apostolic See; so that they should carry out their office according to a public and fixed standard, instead of following so great a multitude of Rituals".

The ceremonies also contained in the Missal (benediction of holy water, the processions of Candlemas and Palm Sunday, etc.

Very many dioceses or provinces still had their local handbooks under the name of Rituale, Ordo Administrandi Sacramenta, etc., though all of these conformed to the Roman texts in the principal elements.

[2] Pope Benedict XIV in 1752 revised the Roman Ritual, together with the Pontificale Romanum and Cærimoniale Episcoporum.

Pope Leo XIII approbated an editio typica published by Pustet in Ratisbon in 1884.

[2] In 1925, the Holy See under the authority of Pope Pius XI issued another typical edition of the Ritual, which, as the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of 10 June 1925 explained, had been adapted to the norms and guidelines of the Codex Juris Canonici of 1917, and the revised rubrics of the Missal and Breviary.

The current authoritative Latin editions are: The second section of the Ritual, the Benedictionale, was also extensively revised and published in 1987 as De Benedictionibus.