E SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

i86 APPENDIX.
Solemn High Mass at St. Peter s. (See Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities, by Cheetham and Smith, p. 1,016,
London, 1875.)
When, however,
preached,
Roman Christianity was first
Latin was rapidly becoming the common
tongue of a large portion of Western Europe.
St. Augustine (353 430) in his City of God, tells us
that Rome imposed her language on the subject-races.
Latin was commonly spoken in the Roman colony of
Africa, and St. Augustine says he learnt Latin in the
nursery. Gaul and Spain after
Rome adopted Latin, and the
their subjugation by
upper classes knew
something
of it even in distant Britain. The Roman
officials are said to have spoken Latin throughout
the Western Empire. There is no evidence of vernacular
services in Britain or in Ireland, where St. Patrick
(373 4^3) and his followers preached the Gospel. It
is most natural to suppose that the missionaries would
have employed the language familiar to them in the
Liturgy of Rome. In a service so sacred as the Mass,
where every word is of importance, the missionaries
would naturally use the language in which its prayers
were learnt by heart. For Mass in
was probably said from memory.
those early times
The Canon was
probably not written before the fifth century, and it is
admitted that the Liturgies which bore the names of
SS. Peter, James, and Mark, were not written by them.
(Le Brun, Explication de la Messe, vol. ii.p. 14, Paris, 1726.)
That the Latin of the Church s Liturgy was nof under-
standed of the people," seems scarcely doubtful. If at
this day in Italy the peasantry speak several dialects
mutually unintelligible, is it likely that the Latin of
Pope Leo I. (440 460), or Gregory the Great (590
604), was understood by the uneducated classes? What