History of The Dominican Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The monastic order of the Dominicans offered Masses and prayers for the deceased. They recited the 150 psalms or 50 psalms
Already in A.D. 800 we learn from the compact between St. Gall and Reichenau (Mon. Germ. Hist.: Confrat. Piper, 140) that for each deceased brother all the priests should say one Mass and also fifty psalms.
Ancient Customs of Cluny (Cluny was the famous Benedictine Abbey in the South of France that began a great reform), collected by Udalrio in 1096, tell us that when the death of any brother at a distance was announced, every priest was to offer Mass, and every non-sacerdotal Choir monk or lay brother was either to say fifty psalms or to repeat fifty times the Paternoster (The Lord's Prayer).
To count these accurately pebbles, berries, or discs of bone threaded on a string were used. It is in any case certain that the Countess Godiva of Coventry (c 1075) left by will to the statue of our Lady in a certain monastery "the circlet of precious stones which she had threaded on a cord in order that by fingering them one after another she might count her prayers exactly" (Malmesbury, Gesta Pont., Rolls Series 311).
St. Rosalia (A. D. 1160)-- similar strings of beads were discovered in her tomb.
Strings of beads were known throughout the Middle Ages - known to this day - as Paternosters or "Our Fathers". The evidence for this is overwhelming and comes from every part of Europe. Those who could not read Holy Scripture and those who could not understand it often said a Hail Mary for each of the Psalms. Their simple prayer took the place of the one hundred and fifty Psalms of David that the learned ones could read.
In the times before St. Dominic Paternosters were prayed, and we know from history that during St. Dominic's time the Lord's Prayer and our Lady's Psalter, as the Rosary was then called, were prayed on pebbles, or a string of beads.
The Legend of St. Dominic and the Rosary
"St. Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people's sins was hindering the conversion of the Albigensians, the Catharist heretics who believed that marriage and child-birth was evil and sodomy and euthanasia were sacramental, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse where he prayed unceasingly for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penance in order to appease the anger of Almighty God. Tradition tells that our Lady appeared to him while he prayed and said: "My son, prayer and penance are the only way to win souls. Pray my Psalter and teach it to your people. That prayer will never fail". Our Lady said to St Dominic: "Make clear to them the mysteries of their religion, the divine truths that God has revealed but that they cannot understand. Teach them to picture in their minds the events of my Sons life". She then explained to him the 15 mysteries of the Rosary and how to meditate upon them.
Counting prayers was not new. Before the birth of Jesus, people of ancient religions had counted on knotted cords the prayers they said to their gods. Even today both Islam and Buddhism have chaplets of their own.
The Battle of Muret against the Albigensians in 1213
St Dominic and his companions prayed the Rosary at Muret on 11 and 12 September 1213 (there it is again - 9/11!) and on the latter day, Count Simon de Montfort and 700 Catholic knights sallied forth to meet the 50,000 strong Albigensian (Cathars) army under King Peter of Aragon.
They charged into the mass toward the Headquarters of the Albigensian army. King Peter was slain (over whose body Count Simon later wept to see him dead) and the Albigensian army fled.
The tiny Catholic force had overcome the heretics with the power of our Lady's chaplet, the Holy Rosary.
The Brown Scapular of our Lady of Mount Carmel
A scapular is a sleeveless outer garment falling from the shoulders worn as a sign of love and devotion to Mary the Immaculate Queen. Use of the scapular originated in the monastic orders of priests and monks, forming part of the habit or clothing of the members.
For lay people, the scapular was reduced in size to but small pieces of wool cloth suspended front and back.
According to tradition the Blessed Virgin appeared to St Simon Stock, Prior of the Carmelite Priory at Aylesford in Kent, England, in the year 1251, and, holding a scapular of the Order of Mount Carmel said, "Receive My beloved son, the Scapular of thy Order, as a distinctive sign of My Confraternity. Whoever dies invested with this Scapular shall be preserved from the eternal flames. It is a sign of salvation, a sure safeguard in danger, a pledge of peace and of My special protection until the end of the ages".
St Simon Stock receives the Brown Scapular from our Lady at the Carmelite Priory of which he was Prior in Aylesford, Kent, England. English Catholics and visitors may thus be enrolled in the Scapular at the very Priory where it was first given to St Simon by our Lady.
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