Its date and origin, like the date and origin of all existing
liturgies, are uncertain, and enveloped in the mists of antiquity. It
is not derived from the present Roman liturgy. Its whole structure, as
well as separate details disprove such a parentage, and therefore it
is strange to find St Isidore of Seville (_Lib. de Eccles. Offic_. i.
15) attributing it to St Peter. No proof is adduced, and the only
value which can be placed upon such an unsupported assertion is that
it shows that a very high and even apostolic antiquity was claimed for
it. A theory, originating with Pinius, that it may have been brought
by the Goths from Constantinople when they invaded Spain, is as
improbable as it is unproven. It may have been derived from Gaul. The
Gallican sister stood to it in the relation of twin-sister, if it
could not claim that of mother. The resemblance was so great that when
Charles the Bald (843-877) wished to get some idea of the character of
the already obsolete Gallican rite, he sent to Toledo for some Spanish
priests to perform Mass according to the Mozarabic rite in his
presence. But there is no record of the conversion of Spain by
Gallican missionaries. Christianity existed in Spain from the earliest
times. Probably St Paul travelled there (Rom. xv. 24). It may be at
least conjectured that its liturgy was Pauline rather than Petrine or
Johannine.
2. _Gallican Liturgy._--This was the ancient and national liturgy of the
church in France till the commencement of the 9th century, when it was
suppressed by order of Charlemagne, who directed the Roman missal to be
everywhere substituted in its place. All traces of it seemed for some
time to have been lost until three Gallican sacramentaries were
discovered and published by Thomasius in 1680 under the titles of
_Missale Gothicum_, _Missale Gallicum_ and _Missale Francorum_, and a
fourth was discovered and published by Mabillon in 1687 under the title
of _Missale Gallicanum_. Fragmentary discoveries have been made since.
Mone discovered fragments of eleven Gallican masses and published them
at Carlsruhe in 1850. Other fragments from the library at St Gall have
been published by Bunsen (_Analecta Ante-Nicaena_, iii. 263-266), and
from the Ambrosian library at Milan by Cardinal Mai (_Scriptt. Vet. Vat.
Coll._ iii. 2. 247). A single page was discovered in Gonville and Caius
College, Cambridge, published in _Zeitschrift für Kath. Theologie_, vi.
370.
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