Missal

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(LatinMissale fromMissa, Mass), the book which contains theprayers said by thepriest at the altar as well as all that is officially read or sung in connection with the offering of theholy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout theecclesiastical year.

The present Roman Missal, now almost universally used in theCatholicChurch wherever theLatin Rite prevails, consists essentially of two parts of very unequal length. The smaller of these divisions containing that portion of the liturgy which is said in every Mass, the "Ordo Missae" with the prefaces and the Canon, is placed, probably with a view to the more convenient opening of the book, near the centre of the volume immediately before the proper Mass forEaster Sunday. The remainder of the book is devoted to those portions of the liturgy which vary from day to day according to feast and season. Each Mass consists usually ofIntroit, Collect, Epistle, Gradual andAlleluia or Tract, Gospel,Offertory, Secret, Communion, and Post-Communion, the passages orprayers corresponding to each of these titles being commonly printed in full. The beginning of the volume to the "Ordo Missae" is devoted to the Masses of the season (Proprium de Tempore) fromAdvent to the end ofLent, including theChristmas cycle. After the "Ordo Missae" and Canon follow immediately the Masses of the season fromEaster to the last Sunday after Pentecost. Then come the proper Masses of the separate festivals (Proprium Sanctorum) for theecclesiastical year; while these are often printed in full, it may also happen that only a reference is given, indicating that the larger portion of each Mass (sometimes everything except the collect) is to be sought in the Common of Saints (Commune Sanctorum), printed at the conclusion of theProprium Sanctorum (Proper of Saints). This is supplemented by a certain number of votive Masses, among the rest Masses for the dead, and a collection of sets of collects, secrets and post-communions for special occasions. Here also are inserted certain benedictions and other miscellaneous matter, while appendixes of varying bulk supply a number of Masses conceded for use in certain localities or in certainreligious orders, and arranged according to the order of the calendar. To the whole book is prefixed an elaborate calendar and a systematized collection ofrubrics for the guidance ofpriests in high and lowMass, as alsoprayers for the private use of the celebrant in making his preparation and thanksgiving. It may be mentioned here once for all that the collection ofrubrics now printed under the respective headings "Rubricae generales Missalis", "Ritus celebrandi Missam", and "De Defectibus circa Missam occurrentibus" are founded upon a tractate entitled "Ordo Missae" by John Burchard, master of ceremonies toInnocent VIII andAlexander VI, at the close of the fifteenth century. They are consequently absent from the first printed edition of the "Missale Romanum" (1474).

Origin of the missal

The printed Missal of the present day, reproducing in substance themanuscript forms of the latter part of theMiddle Ages, has resulted from the amalgamation of a number of separate service books. In the early centuries, owing to the lack of competent scribes, the scarcity of writing materials, and various other causes, economy had greatly to be studied in the production of books. The book used by thepriest at the altar for theprayers of the Mass usually contained no more than it belonged to him to say. It was known commonly as a "Sacramentary" (Sacramentarium) because all its contents centred round the great act of theconsecration of the sacrifice. On the other hand those portions of the service which, like theIntroit and the Gradual, theOffertory and the Communion, were rendered by the choir, were inscribed in a separate book, the "Antiphonarium Missae" or "Graduale" (q.v.). So again the passages to be read to the people by thedeacons or rectors in theambo (pulpit) — the Epistle and Gospel, with lessons from theOld Testament on particular occasions — were collected in the "Epistolarium" or "Apostolus", the "Evangeliarium", and other lectionaries. Besides this an "Ordo" or "Directorium" (q.v.) was required to determine the proper service. Only by a slow process of development were the contents of the sacramentary, the gradual, the various lectionaries, and the "Ordo" amalgamated so that all that was needed for the celebration of Mass was to be found within the covers of one volume. The first step in this evolution seems to have been furnished by the introduction of certain smaller volumes called "Libelli Missae" intended for the private celebration of Masses of devotion on ordinary days. In these only one, or at most two or three Masses, were written; but as they were not used with choir and sacredministers, all the service had to be said by thepriest and all was consequently included in the one small booklet. A typical example of such a volume is probably furnished by the famous "Stowe Missal". This little book ofIrish origin of which the leaves measure only five and a half by four inches, is nevertheless one of our most pricelessliturgical treasures. The greater part is devoted to a single Mass of theBlessed Sacrament, in which the Epistle and Gospel are inserted entire as well as a number of communion anthems, the private preparation of thepriest, and other matter includingrubrical directions inIrish. Thus, so far as Mass was concerned, it was in itself a complete book and is prolix ably the type of numberless others — fragments of similarIrish "libelli Missae" are preserved among themanuscripts of St. Gall — which were used by missionaries in their journeys among peoples as yet only half christianized.

The convenience of such books for the private celebration of Mass where sacredministers and choir were wanting, must soon have made itself felt. When one thinks of the many hundreds and even thousands of Masses which in the eighth and ninth centuries every largemonastery was called upon to say for deceased brethren in virtue of its compacts with otherabbeys (see details in Ebner, "Gebets — Verbrudernugen", Ratisbon, 1890), it appears obvious that there must have been great need of private Mass-books. Consequently it soon became common to adapt even the largersacramentaries to the use ofpriests celebrating privately by inserting in some of the "missae quotidianae votivae et diversae", or sometimes again in the "commune sanctorum" such extracts from the "Graduale", "Epistolare", and "Evangeliarium" as made these particular Masses complete in themselves. Examples of Sacramentaries thus adapted may be found as early as the ninth century. Ebner for instance, appeals to amanuscript of this date in the capitularlibrary ofVerona (No. 86) where in the"Missae votivae et diversae" the choral passages are written as well as theprayers. Whether the wordMissalis liber was specially employed for service books thus completed for private use there seems no evidence to determine.Alcuin writing in 801 certainly seems to contrast the term "Missalis libellus" with what he calls "libelli sacratorii" and with "sacramentaria maiora" (see Mon. Germ. Hist. Epist., IV, 370); but the phrase was older thanAlcuin, for ArchbishopEgbert of York in his "Dialogus" speaks of the dispositions made bySt. Gregory for the observance of the ember-days in "Antiphonaria cum missalibus suis" which he had consulted atRome (Haddan and Stubbs, "Councils", III, 421), where certainly the language used seems to suggest that the "Missalia" and "Antiphonaria" were companion volumes separately incomplete. Certainly it may be affirmed with confidence that what was afterwards known as the "Missale plenum", a book like our present Missal, containing all the Epistles, Gospels, and the choralantiphons as well as the Massprayers, did not come into existence before the year 900. Dr. Adalbert Ebner, who spent immense labour in examining theliturgicalmanuscripts of thelibraries ofItaly, reports that the earliest example known to him was one of the tenth century in theAmbrosian Library atMilan; but although such books are of more frequent occurrence from the eleventh century onwards, the majority of the Mass-books met with at this period have still only an imperfect claim to be regarded as "Missalia plena".

We find instead a great variety of transition forms belonging to the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries which may be referred in particular to two distinct types. In the first place the sacramentary, lectionary, andantiphonary were sometimes simply bound up together in one volume as a matter of convenience. Codex lot in thelibrary of Monza offers an example of this kind in which the three component elements are all of the ninth or tenth century, but even earlier than this in an extant notice of the visitation of theChurch of Vicus (Vieil-St-Remy) in 859 byBishop Hincmar of Reims we find mention of a "Missale cum evangeliis et lectionibus seu antiphonario volumen 1". As a rule, however, the fusion between the original sacramentary and the books used by the readers and the choir was of a more intrinsic nature and the process of amalgamation was a very gradual one. Sometimes we findsacramentaries in which a later hand has added in the margin, or on any available blank space, the bare indication, consisting of a few initial words, of the Antiphons, the Epistles, and the Gospels belonging to the particular Mass. Sometimes the "Commune Sanctorum" and the votive Masses have from the beginning included the passages to be sung and read written out in full, though the "Proprium de Tempore" and "de Sanctis" show nothing but the Massprayers. Sometimes again, as in the case of the celebrated Leofric Missal in the Bodleian, the original sacramentary has had extensive later supplements bound up with it containing new Masses which include the parts to be read and sung. In one remarkable example, the Canterbury Missal (manuscript 270 ofCorpus Christi, Cambridge), a number of the old prefaces of the Gregorian type have been erased throughout the volume and upon the blank spaces thus created the proper Antiphons from the Graduale, and sometimes also the Epistles and Gospels for each Mass, have been written entire. In not a few instances the Gospels may be found included in the Mass-book but not the Epistles, the reason probably being that the latter could be read by any clerk, whereas a properlyordaineddeacon was not always available, in which case thepriest at the altar had himself to read the Gospel. Regarding however this development as a whole it may be said that nearly all the Mass-books written from the latter half of the thirteenth century onwards were in the strict senseMissalia plenaria conforming to our modern type. The determining influence which established the arrangement of parts, the selection of Masses, etc., with which we are familiar in the "Missale Romanum" today, seems to have been the book produced during the latter half of the thirteenth century underFranciscan auspices and soon made popular inItaly under the name "Missale secundum consuetudinem Romanae curiae" (see Radulphus de Rivo, "De Canonum Observatione", inLa Bigne, "Bib. Max. PP.", XI, 455).

Varieties of missals

Although the "Missale secundum consuetudinem Romanae curiae" obtained great vogue and was destined eventually to be officially adopted and to supplant all others, throughout theMiddle Ages every province, indeed almost everydiocese, had its local use, and while the Canon of the Mass was everywhere the same, theprayers in the "Ordo Missae", and still more the "Proprium Sanctorum" and the "Proprium de Tempore", were apt to differ widely in the service books. InEngland especially the Uses of Sarum andYork showed many distinctive characteristics, and the Ordinary of the Mass in its external features resembled more the rite at present followed by theDominicans than that ofRome. After the invention of printing a great number of Missals were produced both inEngland itself and especially atParis and other French cities for use inEngland. Of the Sarum Missal alone nearly seventy different editions were issued between that of 1487 (printed for Caxton inParis), and that of 1557 (London). After Elizabeth's accession no more Missals were published, but a little book entitled "Missale parvum pro Sacerdotibus in Anglia, Scotia, et Ibernia itinerantibus" was printed two or three times towards the beginning of the seventeenth century for the use of missionarypriests. Its size allowed it to be carried about easily without attracting observation, and as it contained relatively few Masses, only those for theSundays and the principal feasts, it recalled in a measure the "libelli Missae" of the Anglo-Saxon andIrish missionaries nine centuries earlier. Even at thisdate the peculiarities of theSarum Rite were not retained and the Canon and Masses of this "Missale parvum" were all Roman with the exception of one special Mass of the Holy Name of Jesus which is described in the 1616 edition as "taken from the Missal according to the Use of Sarum". Moreover, just as the Roman liturgy came in this way to prevail InEngland, so inFrance and throughout the rest ofEurope the local uses have for the most part been surrendered by degrees, two of the principal influences at work being nodoubt the advantage of uniformity and the authority and relative purity of the Roman Missal, as authoritatively revised and improved after theCouncil of Trent.

The first printed edition of the "Missale Romanum" lately republished by the Henry Bradshaw Society in two volumes (1899 and 1907), was produced atMilan in 1474. Numerous editions followed, but nothing authoritative appeared until theCouncil of Trent left in the hands of thepope the charge of seeing to the revision of a Catechism,Breviary, and Missal. This last, committed to the care of Cardinals Scotti and Sirlet withThomas Goldwell (an Englishman,Bishop ofSt. Asaph, deprived of hissee upon the accession of Elizabeth), and Julius Poggio, was published in 1570.St. Pius V published aBull on the occasion, still printed at the beginning of the Missal, in which he enjoined that alldioceses andreligious orders of theLatin Rite should use the new revision and no other, excepting only such bodies as could prove a prescription of two hundred years. In this way the older orders like theCarthusians and theDominicans were enabled to retain their ancientliturgical usages, but the new book was accepted throughout the greater part ofEurope. A revised edition of the "Missale Romanum" appeared in 1604 accompanied by a brief ofClement VIII in which the pontiff complained among other things that thevetus Itala version of the Scripture which had been retained in the antiphonal passages of the Pian Missal had been replaced, through the unauthorized action of certain printers, by the text of the newly editedVulgate. Another revision bearing more especially upon therubrics followed underUrban VIII in 1634. In the early part of the nineteenth century, owing largely to the exertions ofDom Guéranger, theBenedictine liturgist, a number of thedioceses ofFrance which had up to this persistently adhered to their own distinctive uses upon a more or less valid plea of immemorial antiquity, made a sacrifice to uniformity and accepted the "Missale Romanum". The last authoritative revision of the Missal took place in 1884 underLeo XIII. It should be noticed finally that the term Missal has been applied by a loose popular usage to a number of books which, strictly speaking, have noright to the name. The "Missale Francorum", the "Missale Gothicum", the "Missal of Robert of Jumièges", etc., are all, properly speaking, Sacramentaries.

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