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A sacramentary (Latin: sacramentarium or liber sacramentorum) is an ancient liturgical book intended for the celebrant and containing the texts of the prayers he recited. It is among the oldest liturgical books of the Western Church. Sacramentaries contained prayers for the entire year and for specific feasts. Along with the ancient ceremonials (especially the Ordines Romani) and other liturgical books, such as chant books for the choir, they formed the core of later Missals.
The oldest surviving sacramentaries date from the turn of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The most important of these are bearers of the Roman tradition, and historians associate their creation with the great pontificates of Popes Leo the Great (440-461), Gelasius I (492-496), and Gregory the Great (590-604). These books, witnesses to both the papal liturgy and the Roman liturgy in general, are a testament to both the prayerful praxis and the profound faith of the Church of that time. They constitute a valuable source for contemporary scholars in theological, historical, liturgical, and linguistic research.
The three most well-known and historically important sacramentaries are: the Sacramentarium Leonianum, also known as the Sacramentary of Verona (Sacramentarium Veronense), after its discovery and preservation; the Sacramentarium Gelasianum; and the Sacramentarium Gregorianum, also known as the Sacramentarium Hadrianum (after Pope Hadrian 772-795, who sent a copy of the sacramentary to Charlemagne). Together, they constitute a corpus of sources for research on the development and adaptation of the Roman liturgy throughout Europe.
SACRAMENTARIUM VERONENSE (LEONIANUM)
SACRAMENTARIUM GELASIANUM
SACRAMENTARIUM GREGORIANUM (HADRIANUM)
RECOMMENDED READINGS
- Henry A. Wilson, A classified index to the Leonine, Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries. According to the text of Muratori’s Liturgia Romana vetus, Cambridge 1892.
- Adrian Fortescue, Liturgical Books, in: The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9, New York 1910.
- David M. Hope, The Leonine Sacramentary. A Reassessment of its Nature and Purpose, London 1971.
- Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy. An Introduction to the Sources, Washington, D.C. 1986.
- Antoine Chavasse, La liturgie de la ville de Rome du Ve au VIIIe siècle. Une liturgie conditionnée par l’organisation de la vie in Urbe et extra muros, Rome 1993.
- Eric Palazzo, A History of Liturgical Books. From the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century, Collegeville 1998.
- Manlio Sodi, Alessandro Toniolo, Giacomo Baroffio, Sacramentarium gregorianum concordantia, Roma 2012.
- Manlio Sodi, Giacomo Baroffio, Alessandro Toniolo, The Concordantia of the three great sacramentaries: Gregorian, Veronese and Gelasian, „Saeculum Christianum”, vol. XXII (2015), pp. 256-274.
- Andrzej Suski, Sakramentarze. Przewodnik po rękopisach, Toruń 2016.