4. The Feast of the Holy Rosary (_Sollemnitas SS. Rosarii B.M.V._). Towards the end of the twelfth century we find it had become usual to use the angelic salutation (St Luke i. 28), along with the salutation of Elizabeth (St Luke i. 41), as a prayer. This prayer was authorised and imposed by many councils. We have evidence to this effect from a synod of Paris under Bishop Odo de Sully (1196-1208),[575] and, in the period immediately following, from the synods of Orleans, Durham (1217), Treves (1237), and elsewhere.[576] The new prayer was joined to the “Our Father” in such a way that ten “Hail Marys” were recited after one “Our Father” fifteen times, each prayer being counted on a string of beads. The originator of this form of prayer, called the Rosary, is generally, but without foundation, considered to have been St Dominic. The custom of using a string of beads on which to count a stated number of prayers had already been in existence for a long time, and only became general when the custom grew up of reciting one hundred and fifty “Hail Marys” to correspond to the number of the psalms. This was called the “Mary Psalter,” the Rosary, or the “Psalter of the Laity.”[577] When this form of prayer took shape is not exactly known, but it has quite recently been maintained that St Dominic did not originate it, as is often affirmed. His biographer and other contemporaries do not ascribe the invention of the rosary to him. It is only at the end of the fifteenth century that a Dominican, Alanus de Rupe (de la Roche), produced this story,[578] which unfortunately has found its way into the breviary. A notable improvement was made in this devotion in the fifteenth century, by adding after the name Jesus in each Hail Mary the mention of some event in the lives of Jesus and Mary bearing on the work of salvation, beginning with the message of the angel and concluding with the descent of the Holy Ghost and the Assumption. Among these, the five points taken from the Passion of Christ—the so-called “sorrowful Mysteries”—form the centre, and thus the entire rosary now falls into three parts, each complete in itself.[579] By this means the devotion gained a more definite meaning. The mere recitation of the prayers is closely connected with meditation, and each mystery has more or less reference to some feast of our Lord or of our Lady, and so is brought into relation with the different liturgical seasons. It can thus to a certain extent be connected with the whole cycle of festivals of which indeed it was a sort of summary.