HISTORY OF THE HOLY ROSARY

There are differing views on the history of the Rosary. The exact origin of the Rosary as a
prayer is less than clear and subject to debate among scholars.
Prayer beads may have their origins in the Eastern religions in India in the 3rd century
BC. The use of knotted prayer ropes in Christianity goes back to the Desert Fathers in the 3rd
and early 4th centuries. These counting devices were used for prayers such as the Jesus prayer in
Christian monasticism. The period after the First Council of Ephesus in 431 witnessed a gradual
growth in the use of Marian prayers during the Middle Ages.
According to some Catholic traditions, the Rosary was given to Saint Dominic in a vision
of the Blessed Virgin Mary and it was then promoted by Alanus de Rupe. However, not all
Catholics agree with that tradition. Some historians see a more gradual development for the
Rosary, in that the repetition of Marian prayers which form the basis of the Rosary needed
counting devices, which resulted in the modern form of the Rosary prayed on beads.
The practice of meditation during the praying of the Hail Marys is attributed to Dominic
of Prussia, a 15th Carthusian monk, who called it "Life of Jesus Rosary". The Christian victory at
the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 was attributed to the praying of the Rosary by masses of Europeans
based on the request of Pope Pius V and eventually resulted in the Feast of Our Lady of the
Rosary. In 1569, the papal bull Consueverunt Romani Pontifices established the devotion to the
rosary in the Catholic Church. In 2002 Pope John Paul II introduced the Luminous Mysteries as
an option in an Apostolic Letter on the Rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae.
There are differing views on the history of the rosary. The exact origin of the Rosary as a
prayer is less than clear and subject to debate among scholars.
Prayers with beads like the rosary may have begun as a practice by the laity to imitate the
monastic Liturgy of the Hours, during the course of which the monks prayed the 150 Psalms
daily. As many of the laity and even lay monastics could not read, they substituted 150
repetitions of the Our Father (Pater noster in Latin) for the Psalms, sometimes using a cord with
knots on it to keep an accurate count.
According to tradition, the rosary was given to Saint Dominic in an apparition by the
Blessed Virgin Mary in the year 1214 in the church of Prouille. This Marian apparition received
the title of Our Lady of the Rosary. In the 15th century Blessed Alanus de Rupe (aka Alain de la
Roche or Saint Alan of the Rock), who was a learned Dominican priest and theologian, is said to
have received a vision from Jesus about the urgency of reinstating the rosary as a form of prayer.
Blessed Alanus de Rupe also received the Blessed Mother's "15 Promises". Before his death on
Sept. 8, 1475 he reinstituted the rosary in many countries and established many rosary
confraternities. Despite the popularity of Blessed Alanus's story about the origins of the rosary,
there has never been found any historical evidence positively linking St. Dominic to the rosary.

The story of St. Dominic's devotion to the rosary and supposed apparition of Our Lady of the
Rosary does not appear in any documents of the Church or Dominican Order prior to the writings
of Blessed Alanus. St. Dominic and Blessed Alanus are separated by 251 years.