History of The Roman Canon - Later Variations

Later Variations

After the 9th century the Roman Mass, now quite fixed in all its essential parts (though the Proper Masses for various feasts constantly change), quickly became the universal use throughout the Western patriarchate. Except for three small exceptions, the Ambrosian Rite at Milan, the Mozarabic Rite at Toledo, and the Byzantine Rite among the Italo-Greeks in Calabria and Sicily, this has been the case ever since.

The local medieval rites of which we hear, such as those of Lyons, Paris, Rouen, Salisbury, York, etc., are in no sense different liturgies. They are all simply the Roman use with slight local variations—variations, moreover, that hardly ever affect the Canon. The Sarum Rite, for instance, which Anglicans have sometimes tried to set up as a sort of rival to the Roman Rite, does not contain in its Canon a single word that differs from the parent-rite as used by the Catholic Church, with the exception of a commemoration for the king. But some changes were made in medieval times, changes that have since been removed by the conservative tendency of Roman legislation.

From the 10th century people took all manner of liberties with the text of the Missal. It was the time of farced Kyries and Glorias, of dramatic and even theatrical ritual, of endlessly varying and lengthy prefaces, into which interminable accounts of stories from Bible history and lives of saints were introduced. This tendency did not even spare the Canon; although the specially sacred character of this part tended to prevent people from tampering with it as recklessly as they did with other parts of the Missal. There were, however, additions made to the "Communicantes" so as to introduce special allusions on certain feasts; the two lists of saints, in the "Communicantes" and "Nobis quoque peccatoribus", were enlarged so as to include various local people, and even the "Hanc igitur" and the "Qui pridie" were modified on certain days.

The Council of Trent (1545–63) restrained this tendency and ordered that "the holy Canon composed many centuries ago" should be kept pure and unchanged; it also condemned those who say that the "Canon of the Mass contains errors and should be abolished" (Sess. XXII., cap. iv. can. vi; Denzinger, 819, 830). Pope Pius V (1566–72) published an authentic edition of the Roman Missal in 1570, and accompanied it with a Bull forbidding anyone to either add, or in any way change any part of it. This Missal was to be the only one used in the West and everyone was to conform to it, except that local uses which can be proved to have existed for more than 200 years were kept.

This exception saved the Ambrosian Rite, the Mozarabic Rite, as well as a few ancient modified forms of the Roman Rite, such as the Dominican, Carmelite, and Carthusian Missals. The differences in these Missals, however, hardly affect the Canon, except in one or two unimportant rubrics. Since Pius V, the Canon, then, with the very slight retouches under Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI, has been brought back to its original simplicity and remains unchanged throughout the year, except that on a few of the very greatest feasts slight additions are made to the "Communicantes" and the "Hanc igitur", and on one day to the "Qui pridie quam pateretur".

After Pope Pius V, Pope Clement VIII (1592–1605), Pope Urban VIII (1623–44), and Pope Leo XIII (1878–1903) each re-edited the Missal, and a great number of additional Masses for new feasts or for local calendars have been added to it. But none of these changes affected the Roman Canon until Pope John XXIII inserted the name of Saint Joseph and Pope Paul VI made some changes, nearly all of which were rubrical, not textual.