PART III
THE MATERIAL UPON WHICH THE HISTORY OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR IS BASED
1. The Documentary Sources in General
The sources from which the history of the ecclesiastical year and the festivals of the saints is drawn are first of all official documents, namely service-books, decrees of councils, papal constitutions and bulls; in the second place come the information derived from ecclesiastical writers of various periods and countries which must be used and brought into connection with the official sources.
Among the liturgical books of the Church, the missals and breviaries hold the first place. In earlier times these were differently arranged and had different names from those which they bear at present. The collects and psalms in particular employed at the mass were not included in one volume as they are now, but were taken from a number of books. The essential prayers of the mass were contained in the so-called Sacramentarium, in which were also to be found the collects, prefaces, and, in certain cases, even the whole canon. The lections from Holy Scripture, the Epistles and Gospels, were collected together in the Lectionaries, either all together, or the Epistles and Gospels in separate volumes; another name for this kind of book was Comes. The psalms and other portions to be sung by the choir were contained in separate books, the Antiphonaries, Graduals, and Hymnaries, etc. It was only in the Middle Ages that for the sake of convenience all the different parts of the mass were contained together in one volume, called a missale plenarium, but the separate volumes still continued in use for certain occasions.
In the course of our investigations, we have often had to refer to the so-called sacramentaries, of which the three most ancient belonging to the Roman Church are also the most important. These are:—
1. Sacramentarium Leonianum. This is a collection of older formularies which had been already drawn up by an unknown author, some of which may well be the work of Leo the Great; the title, which gives rise to the opinion that Leo was the author of the book, is due to the first editor. The only existing codex is in Verona, and is unfortunately imperfect, being deficient in all that relates to Lent and Easter. Since it contains a prayer for Pope Simplicius († 483), Rome must be regarded as the place where it was drawn up, and where it was used, while the date when it took its present shape was the pontificate of Felix II. (483-492).
2. The Gelasianum, so called after Gelasius I. (492-496). This pope did actually compose some liturgical books, but the volumen sacramentorum, ascribed to him by Gennadius, cannot have been one of them, since it contains the four festivals of our Lady which were celebrated in Rome only after Gregory the Great. On the other hand it does not contain the stations for the Thursdays in Lent introduced by Gregory II. (715-731); consequently, it represents the liturgical usages of the seventh century, i.e. of the period after St Gregory the Great, and bears the name of Gelasius incorrectly. It consists of three books: (1) De Tempore, beginning with Christmas; (2) De Sanctis, beginning with the 1st January; and (3) masses for the ordinary Sundays, votive masses, and masses for the dead. The number of prefaces contained in the sacramentary amounts to over a hundred. The Stowe Missal, which is independent of the Gelasianum, gives the canon Gelasii Papæ. This book was drawn up in Rome and was intended for local usage, but we only possess the MSS., which were meant for the churches of France; the most ancient belongs to the end of the seventh century, and was written apparently for the Abbey of St Denys (Cod. Vat. Reg. Sueciæ, 316). The other existing codices only give an edition specially adapted from the original Roman book for use in the Frankish Empire; this is shown by the prayer, “Respice propitius ad Romanum sive Francorum imperium.”
3. The Gregorianum. This represents the Roman rite of the period of Pope Adrian I. (772-795) and Charlemagne. It is entirely a compilation of Roman origin belonging to the eighth century, destined originally for the use of the popes but afterwards adapted for general use. The canon stands at the head of the work, which commences with Christmas, but Advent comes at the end of the Proprium de Tempore. The Agnus Dei, added to the text of the mass by Pope Sergius I., is given here in its place, while it is absent from Gelasianum.[739] The earliest mention of this work is in the collection of letters of the popes of the eighth century known as the Codex Carolinus, in a letter of Adrian I. to Charlemagne who received a copy of the work from Adrian between 784 and 791,[740] from which date it was introduced into the Frankish Empire, copied, and circulated, and also added to. In his letter Adrian ascribes a personal share in the production of the work to his predecessor Gregory, relying, of course, on the tradition of his Church.[741]
4. This last-named book gradually supplanted the ancient liturgies and service-books of Gaul; of these we possess the Sacramentarium Gallicanum, along with its lectionary, the Missale Gothico-Gallicanum, and the Missale Francorum;[742] the Mozarabic missal and breviary are also very important documents.