The Ave Mary, for instance, is made up of the Angel's salutation, "Hail, thou," &c. Elizabeth's "Blessed art thou among women," &c., and the words "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death." The last clause "now and," &c. was confessedly added by the Franciscans in the beginning of the sixteenth century; and the words preceding it, "Holy Mary," &c. which Gavanti, after Baronius, wishes to attribute to the Council of Ephesus (a.d. 431.) are acknowledged by the later critics, Grancolas and Merari, to have had no place in any form of prayer till the year 1508. Even the Scripture portion of the Ave Mary, which, as Merari observes, is an Antiphon rather than Prayer, and which occurs as such in the lesser Office of the Blessed Virgin, and in St. Gregory's Sacraraentary in the Mass Service for the fourth Sunday in Advent, is not mentioned by any devotional writer, nor by Councils nor Fathers, up to the eleventh century, though they do enjoin the universal and daily use of the Creed and Lord's Prayer, which are in the present Breviary used with it. It first occurs among forms of prayer prescribed for the people in the statutes of Otho, Bishop of Paris, a.d. 1195, who was followed after the interval of a hundred years, by the regulations of Councils at Oxford and elsewhere. Another space of at least fifty years intervenes before the introduction of rosaries and crowns in honour of the Virgin. As to the Roman Breviary, it did not contain any part of the Ave Mary, till the promulgation of it by Pope Pius V., after the Tridentine Council, a.d. 1550.
The four Antiphons to the Blessed Virgin, used at the termination of the offices, are known respectively by their first words; the Alma Redemptoris, the Ave Regina, the Regina cœli, and the Salve Regina. Gavanti and Merari plainly tell us they are not to be found in ancient authors. The Alma Redemptoris is the composition of Hermannus Contractus, who died a.d. 1054. The author of the Ave Regina is unknown, as is that of the Regina cœli. The Salve Regina is to be attributed either to Hermannus, or to Peter of Compostella. Gavanti would ascribe the last words "O clemens, O pia, O dulcis," &c. to St. Bernard, but Merari corrects him, the work in which they are contained being supposititious. These Antiphons seem to have
