The Derived Liturgies

From these four types -- of Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, and the so-called Gallican Rite -- all liturgies still used are derived. This does not mean that the actual liturgies we still have under those names are the parents; once more we must conceive the sources as vaguer, they are rather types subject always to local modification, but represented to us now in one form, such as, for instance, the Greek St. James or the Greek St. Mark Liturgy. The Antiochene type, apparently the most archaic, has been also the most prolific of daughter liturgies. Antioch first absorbed the Rite of Jerusalem (St. James), itself derived from the primitive Antiochene use shown in the "Apostolic Constitutions" ( see JERUSALEM, LITURGY OF). In this form it was used throughout the patriarchate till about the thirteenth century (see ANTIOCHENE LITURGY). A local modification was the Use of Cappadocia. About the fourth century the great Byzantine Rite was derived from this (see CONSTANTINOPLE, RITE OF). The Armenian Rite is derived from an early stage of that of Byzantium. The Nestorian Rite is also Antiochene in its origin, whether derived directly from Antioch, or Edessa, or from Byzantium at an early stage. The Liturgy of Malabar is Nestorian. The Maronite Use is that of Antioch considerably romanized. The other Eastern parent rite, of Alexandria, produced the numerous Coptic Liturgies and those of the daughter Church of Abyssinia.

In the West the later history of the Liturgy is that of the gradual supplanting of the Gallican by the Roman, which, however, became considerably gallicanized in the process. Since about the sixth century conformity with Rome becomes an ideal in most Western Churches. The old Roman Use is represented by the "Gelasian Sacramentary". This book came to Gaul in the sixth century, possibly by way of Arles and through the influence of St. Cæsarius of Arles (d. 542-cf. Bäumer, "Ueber das sogen. Sacram. Gelas." in the "Histor. Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft", 1893, 241-301). It then spread throughout Gaul and received Gallican modifications. In some parts it completely supplanted the old Gallican books. Charles the Great (768-814) was anxious for uniformity throughout his kingdom in the Roman use only. He therefore procured from Pope Adrian I (772-795) a copy of the "Roman Sacramentary". The book sent by the pope was a later form of the Roman Rite (the "Sacramentarium Gregorianum"). Charles imposed this book on all the clergy of his kingdom. But it was not easy to carry out his orders. The people were attached to their own customs. So someone (possibly Alcuin -- cf. Bäumer, loc. cit.) added to Adrian's book a supplement containing selections from both the older Gelasian book and the original Gallican sources. This composition became then the service-book of the Frankish Kingdom and eventually, as we shall see, the Liturgy of the whole Roman Church.

In Spain Bishop Profuturus of Braga wrote in 538 to Pope Vigilius (537-55) asking his advice about certain liturgical matters. The pope's answer (in Jaffé, "Regest. Rom. Pont.", no. 907) shows the first influence of the Roman Rite in Spain. In 561 the national Synod of Braga imposed Vigilius's ritual on all the kingdom of the Suevi. From this time we have the "mixed" Rite (Roman and Gallican) of Spain. Later, when the Visigoths had conquered the Suevi (577-584), the Church of Toledo rejected the Roman elements and insisted on uniformity in the pure Gallican Rite. Nevertheless Roman additions were made later; eventually all Spain accepted the Roman Rite (in the eleventh century) except the one corner, at Toledo and Salamanca, where the mixed (Mozarabic) Rite is still used. The great Church of Milan, apparently the starting-point of the whole Gallican Use, was able to resist the influence of the Roman Liturgy. But here too, in later centuries the local rite became considerably romanized (St. Charles Borromeo, died 1584), so that the present Milanese (Ambrosian) use is only a shadow of the old Gallican Liturgy. In Britain St. Augustine of Canterbury (597-605) naturally brought with him the Roman Liturgy. It received a new impetus from St. Theodore of Canterbury when he came from Rome (668), and gradually drove out the Gallican Use of Lindisfarne.

The English Church was very definitely Roman in its Liturgy. There was even a great enthusiasm for the rite of the mother Church. So Alcuin writes to Eanbald of York in 796: "Let your clergy not fail to study the Roman order; so that, imitating the Head of the Churches of Christ, they may receive the blessing of Peter, prince of the Apostles, whom our Lord Jesus Christ made the chief of his flock"; and again: "Have you not plenty of books written according to the Roman use?" (quoted in Cabrol, "L'Angleterre terre chrétienne avant les Normans", Paris, 1909, p. 297). Before the Conquest the Roman service-books in England received a few Gallican additions from the old rite of the country (op. cit., 297-298)

So we see that at the latest by the tenth or eleventh century the Roman Rite has driven out the Gallican, except in two sees (Milan and Toledo), and is used alone throughout the West, thus at last verifying here too the principle that rite follows patriarchate. But in the long and gradual supplanting of the Gallican Rite the Roman was itself affected by its rival, so that when at last it emerges as sole possessor it is no longer the old pure Roman Rite, but has become the gallicanized Roman Use that we now follow. These Gallican additions are all of the nature of ceremonial ornament, symbolic practices, ritual adornment. Our blessings of candles, ashes, palms, much of the ritual of Holy Week, sequences, and so on are Gallican additions. The original Roman Rite was very plain, simple, practical. Mr. Edmund Bishop says that its characteristics were "essentially soberness and sense" (" The Genius of the Roman Rite", p. 307; see the whole essay). Once these additions were accepted at Rome they became part of the (new) Roman Rite and were used as part of that rite everywhere.

When was the older simpler use so enriched? We have two extreme dates. The additions were not made in the eighth century when Pope Adrian sent his "Gregorian Sacramentary" to Charlemagne. The original part of that book (in Muratori's edition; "Liturgia romana vetus", II, Venice, 1748) contains still the old Roman Mass. They were made by the eleventh century, as is shown by the "Missale Romanum Lateranense" of that time, edited by Azevedo (Rome, 1752). Dom Suitbert Bäumer suggests that the additions made to Adrian's book (by Alcuin) in the Frankish Kingdom came back to Rome (after they had become mixed up with the original book) under the influence of the successors of Charlemagne, and there supplanted the older pure form (Ueber das sogen. Sacr. Gelas., ibid.).

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX
Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor
Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York