History of the Rosary

9th Century - Ireland

Monks recited or chanted Psalms. Lay people could see the beauty of this devotion, but few people outside of the monasteries knew how to read. 150 Psalms was too much to memorize.

800 A. D. Irish Monk suggested to lay people that they recite 150 Our Fathers. In order to count 150 Our Fathers some used leather pouches with 150 pebbles, later others used rope with 150 or 50 Knots. Eventually folks used strings with 50 pieces of wood.

Clergy and lay people in other parts of Europe began to recite the Angelic Salutation which makes up the first part of the Hail Mary. This was suggested by St. Peter Damian who died in 1072. Some people prayed 50 Our Fathers and others prayed 50 Angelic Salutations.

Origin of the Mysteries

In the 13th Century a new prayer form was introduced. Many medieval theologians considered the 150 Psalms to be veiled prophecies about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. These men began to compose Psalters of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. These were Series of 150 praises in honor of Jesus, based upon interpretations of the 150 Psalms. Soon Psalters devoted to 150 praises of Mary were also composed. When a Psalter of Marian praises numbered 50 instead of 150 it was commonly called a rosarium or bouquet.

During the 13th century four distinct Psalters in use at the same time were: 150 Our Fathers, 150 Angelic Salutations, 150 Praises of Jesus, and 150 Praises of Mary.

1365 A. D. - Henry of Kalkar, the Visitator of the Carthusian Order grouped 150 Angelic Salutations into decades and an Our Father between each decade.

1409 A. D. - Another Carthusian, Dominic the Prussion wrote a book attaching a psalter of 50 thoughts about the lives of Jesus and Mary to a Rosary of 50 Hail Mary's. Eventually the 50 Hail Mary thoughts were divided into groups of 10.

1500 A. D. - Woodcut picture prints were made inexpensively for the first time. The vast majority of people still could not read. These picture rosaryies became immediately popular. It was hard to develop 150 different pictures, so there developed sets of 15 pictures, one for each of the Our Father beads.

During the 16th and 17th centuries the Hail Mary thoughts gradually died out and there remained only the 15 Our Father thoughts. These are the 15 Mysteries we knew until Pope John Paul II added the Mysteries of Light, so we now have 20 mysteries.