RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Mass
were steadily adopting the Benedictine rule, which had a minute ordering of the hours after Roman models. Thereby the interest of the monks was directed to the Roman mass-liturgy, and the mixed services may have been held first in the monastery chapels. Boniface (q.v.) stood strongly for the Roman liturgy without being able to carry his reforms through in details. What Pepin did for the Roman ritual in his realm (apart from the introduction of the music) is uncertain, but Charlemagne held the Roman forms in the highest esteem and accounted it a sacred duty to introduce them and thereby to make an end of the prevailing confusion in the liturgy. At his request Pope Adrian I. sent him between 784 and 791 a copy of the sacramentary then in use in Rome; but it proved disappointing because of the many departures from the pre-Gregorian form. A compromise was attempted by providing a new mass-book with select prayers and other liturgical forms taken mostly from the pre-Gregorian mass-book (manuscripts of this sort enumerated in A. Ebner, Missale Romanum, pp. 383-384, Freiburg, 1896). The selection was probably made by Alcuin, and Amalarius of Metz advocated the Roman liturgy (cf. his De ecclesiasticis officiis, MPL, cv. 986 sqq.). In time the Roman canon attained general acceptance; but the entire Roman ritual did not become established in either France or Germany during the Middle Ages, nor was a general uniformity reached. During the entire period the mass-liturgy in Frankish-German territory was constantly changing, and, whatever the theory may have been, the practise was far removed from a slavish following of Rome. There was a vigorous liturgical life north of the Alps, having its center in the monasteries, which even reacted on the later Roman development.
4. The Development of the Soman Mass after Gregory I. : The mass of Rome in the time of Innocent III. (d. 1216) is known from that pope's writing De sacro altaris mysterio (MPL, ccxvii. 773 sqq.). No great changes have taken place in the
six hundred years since Gregory I.; 1. Certain certain additions have been made, Additions, some of them brought in from outside
and some devised in Rome. The most noteworthy are a rather elaborate preparation of the priest in the sacristy, the insertion of the credo after the Gospel in what was formerly the mass of the catechumens, and ceremonial amplifications — washing of hands, burning of incense, etc. — to fill the gap left by the transposition of the kiss of peace and the commemoration into the canon. The most striking characteristic is the endeavor to treat the holy elements as something superearthly. That the doctrine of the sacrificial character of the mass influenced the development can not be asserted; but the tendency to restrict the active participation of the congregation is much stronger than it is north of the Alps. After Innocent the preparation was simplified, and the old offertory prayers in shorter form and the epiklesis were restored after the offertory — a conformity to German usage. A superstitious practise, the reading of the prologue to John's Gospel, found entrance. This prologue was much used as an amulet during the Middle
Ages, and a synod at Seligenstadt in 1022 condemned the reading of it in the mass. Nevertheless the custom spread and Pope Pius V. in 1570 officially sanctioned it in the conclusion after the last salutation. It thus appears that the development after the year 600 brought far fewer and much less important changes than did the first five centuries. Moreover, the changes for the most part were a concession on the part of Rome to extra- Roman usage. That the result is an artistic unity, a well-ordered liturgical structure, can hardly be asserted.
The present Roman missal dates from 1634, all earlier efforts to secure uniformity in the mass of the Church having proved fruitless. The Council of Trent in its session of Dec. 4, 1563, left the issuing of a common mass-book to the pope, a commission entrusted with the task not 2. The having completed its work. In con- Roman sequence the missal of Pius V. appeared Missal. on juiy i4; 1570, with the decree that it alone should be used wherever the Roman rite was followed and there was no local mass-book 200 years old. But differences crept in, and in 1604 Clement VIII. issued a new book thoroughly revised by a commission. Urban VIII. did the like, and the final revision appeared Sept. 2, 1634. This pope made the present division of the entire mass into forty-one rubrics, the first eighteen being counted to the ordinary and the last twentythree to the canon. The Congregation of Rites, established by Sixtus V. in 1587, safeguards the purity of the ritual (see Curia). The missal falls into three main divisions: (1) The " Proper of Masses of the Season " (Proprium missarum de tempore) contains (a) the services for each day from the First Sunday in Advent to Holy Saturday;
(b) the "Ordinary of the Mass" (Ordo missce);
(c) the prefaces for the entire year; (d) the " Canon of the Mass " (Canon missae) ; and (e) the services from Easter to the end of the church year. (2) The " Proper of Masses of the Saints " (Proprium missarum de Sanctis) gives the services for saints' days and for festivals of mysteries and important events (such as the Transfiguration, the Invention and Elevation of the Cross, etc.), arranged according to months of the civil year. (3) The " Common of Saints " (Commune sanctorum) contains the masses for those saints' days which have no mass of their own; it is divided into masses of the apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and women. A sort of supplement gives the mass for church consecrations and their anniversaries, the votive masses in honor of mysteries and for various occasions, the orationes diversce, i.e., prayers for different occasions, and finally the masses for the dead.
[The modern missal begins with a table of movable feasts and the calendar. Then follow the " General Rubrics of the Mass," the " Rite to be Followed in the Celebration of the Mass," and " Defects which may Occur in the Celebration of the Mass," explaining the various kinds of masses, the component parts, the hours of celebration, the kind and color of vestments, the conduct of the priest, and the like. The " Preparation for the Mass," a brief devotional manual, and a collection of prayers and
Mass