INTRODUCTION AMONG the few service-books of the Western Church which have come down to us from a time before the days of Charles the Great, one of the most important is the manuscript commonly called the Gelasian Sacramentary. It was written most probably in the seventh, or in the early years of the eighth century, evidently for use in some church in the Frankish dominions, possibly for the abbey of S. Denis1. It is now in the Library of the Vatican, where it is known as MS. Reginae 316, being part of the collection formed by Queen Christina of Sweden. Before it came into her possession, it was for some time in the collection of the Senator Paul Petau, at Paris, where it was examined by Morinus and by Cardinal Bona. Both of these writers regarded it as a representative of the Sacramentary attributed to S. Gelasius 2. This view was adopted by the first editor of the Sacramentary, Joseph Maria Tommasi3, who argued in his preface in support of the Gelasian origin of the book: but he did not give to it in his edition any other title than that which the manuscript itself supplied; and it therefore appeared under 1 This is the view of Abbé Duchesne (Origines du Culte Chrétien, p. 124), and is supported by the fact that the names of the three patron saints of S. Denis are mentioned in the Canon Actionis of the manuscript, before the names of S. Hilary and S. Martin. The three names have, however, been erased; and this may suggest that the codex, even if written for S. Denis, was afterwards used elsewhere. Mabillon, in the preface to his treatise, De Liturgia Gallicana, remarks that the greater part of the liturgical MSS. of b Petau's collection came from the abbey of Fleury. 2 Morinus, Commentarius Historicus de disciplina in administratione sacramenti Poenitentiae, App., pp. 51, 52; Bona, De Rebus Liturgicis, Lib. II, c. v, § 4 (vol. iii, p. 99, ed. Sala). 3 Afterwards Cardinal of S. Martin in montibus. He was beatified by Pius VII. The Sacramentary was first published in his collection entitled Codices Sacramentorum nongentis annis vetustiores (4to, Romae, 1680). the title Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Ecclesiae. The name of Sacramentarium Gelasianum was assigned to it, when it next appeared in print, by Muratori, who included in his Liturgia Romana Vetus a reprint of Tommasi's text, preface, and notes. Muratori added but little of his own: but in the preface to his whole book he declared his adhesion to Tommasi's view of the origin of the Sacramentary, and supported that opinion by some further arguments. The Sacramentary was published once more, a few years later, under its former title, in the sixth volume of Vezzosi's edition of the collected works of Cardinal Tommasi, which appeared at Rome in 1751. This edition was more than a mere reprint. It reproduced Tommasi's text, with corrections of typographical errors, and with additional notes. These gave the results of a new collation of the manuscript, and of a comparison not only with the Gregorian texts edited by Pamelius and by Ménard, which Tommasi had himself frequently cited, but also with the Gregorian text published by Rocca, and with the Codex Ottobonianus. This last authority, a Gregorian Sacramentary, had been partly made known by Muratori, and had been examined by Tommasi, after the publication of his Codices Sacramentorum. Another source of additional notes was found in a copy of Tommasi's work in which the editor had himself made manuscript additions and corrections (including observations as to the readings of the Codex Ottobonianus), possibly with a view to a new edition. The more important of these memoranda were incorporated by Vezzosi with the notes of Tommasi's own edition, being distinguished by asterisks from the earlier notes. Thus Vezzosi's edition is the most complete of those which have hitherto appeared 2; but since its publication some further means have become available for the critical study of the text. When Tommasi published his editio princeps, the Vatican manuscript stood by itself. It was, professedly, a Roman Sacramentary but while it contained a good many things in common with the Roman Sacramentaries of the 'Gregorian' type, it differed very widely from these later books not only in date, 1 2 vols. fol. (Venice, 1748). 2 The edition contained in the seventyfourth volume of Migne's Patrologia Latina is merely an incorrect repro duction of Muratori's reprint of the first edition. It is the only edition which can easily be obtained; but it has no other recommendation. |