The Rosary, as we know it today, began evolving in Ireland in the eighth or ninth century. Those days in the monasteries the 150 Psalms were said or sung every day. The people living in the neighborhood of the monasteries recognized the excellence of this practice. But very few persons other than the monks could read. Besides, it was not easy to memorize the 150 Psalms. Therefore this prayer did not become popular. Then, around the year 800, a monk invited lay people to pray 150 Our Fathers in place of 150 Psalms. Thus began the development of the Rosary. When a man has set himself to recite a certain number of prayers, he will naturally look for a method of counting. Some of the Desert Fathers used pebbles, others pegs stuck into a board. But very soon the string of beads appears: at first chiefly used to count psalms, later Our Fathers, or Paternosters. These strings or chains of beads were called paternoster. In the Middle Ages, we find, people recited Hail Mary’s in sets of fifty like the Psalms, especially in England, where mediaeval devotion to Our Lady was intense.

​

It was in the year 1214, that Holy Mother Church received the Rosary in its present form and according to the method we use today. It was given to the Church by St Dominic, who had received it from the Blessed Virgin as a powerful means of converting Albigensians and other sinners. This incident is found in the very well known book 'De Diginitate Psalteri’ by Blessed Alan de la Roche. St. Dominic, seeing that the gravity of people's sins, which was hindering the conversion of Albegensians, withdrew into a forest near Toulouse where he prayed unceasingly for three days and three nights. During this time he did nothing but weep and do harsh penances in order to pacify the anger of God. He used his discipline so much that his body was lacerated and finally he fell into a comma. At this point Our Lady appeared to him, accompanied by three angels, and she said, Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world? Oh, my Lady, answered St. Dominic, You know far better than I do because next to your Son Jesus Christ you have been always the chief instrument of our salvation. Then Our Lady replied: I want you to know that, in this kind of warfare, the battering ram has always been the Angelic Psalter which is the foundation stone of the New Testament. Therefore if you want to reach these hardened souls and win them over to God, preach my Psalter. He got up and burning with zeal for the conversion of the people in that district, he ran to the Cathedral. At once unseen angels rang the bells to gather the people together and Dominic began to preach. At the very beginning of his sermon a terrible storm broke out, the earth shook, the sun darkened, and there was so much thunder and lightning that all were very much afraid. Even greater was their fear when looking at a picture of Our Lady exposed in a prominent place, they saw her raising her arms to heaven three times to call down God's vengeance upon them if they failed to be converted, to amend their lives, and seek the protection of Holy Mother of God. At last, at the prayer of St. Dominic, the storm came to an end, and he went on preaching. He explained fervently the importance and value of the Holy Rosary and compelled everyone that almost all the people of Toulouse embraced it and renounced their false beliefs. In a very short time a great improvement was seen in the town; people began leading Christian lives and gave up their former bad habits.