1676 Jean Vincent Bernard (ROSIER MYSTIQUE DE LA TRES SAINTE VIERGE) Toulouse

Very Rare !!!

MYSTICAL ROSIERE OF THE VERY HOLY VIRGIN and THE TRIPLE MENTAL PRAYER and FIFTEEN SECRETS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

Dedicated to Madame Elisabeth Angelique Foucquet [Fouquet], Mother Superior of the Monastery of the Visitation in Toulouse.

The Rosary consists of praying 150 Ave Maria.

It is one of the most notable Marian devotion.

The Rosary Confraternity appear at the end of the fifteenth century.

Thanks to the Order of Saint Dominic, the devotion was propagated quickly, particularly since the Council of Trent.

It was initially a community of prayers.

Thanks to the development of printing, the Rosary literature is incorporated into the book trade.

This devotion demonstrates the devotional practice of the faithful during the modern period in France.

The 2nd Century AD saw many early Christians coming together under the leadership of Rome, capital of the Empire and Papal See.

But many Christians did not join, especially those following Gnostic-leaning traditions; they were scattered all over the Empire, in Asia Minor, Northern Africa, Eastern Europe, Italy and France, without a central authority.

They mostly had in common a mystical, anti-worldly, anti-materialistic, anti-authoritarian attitude, and a striving for perfection; also, they all rejected swearing oaths and saw man and woman as equal.

Fast forwarding a thousand years to around 1200, the French cities of Lyon (Waldensians) and Toulouse (Cathars, Albigenses) had become their centers in France, as they were rejecting the authority of Rome and French royalty.

Thus, both Pope Innocent III (1160 - 1216) and the King of France saw them as dangerous heretics.

In the early 1200s a French/papal army slaughtered some 20,000 Cathars near Toulouse and many thousands of Waldensians in the Lyon region. In 1215, when Innocent III realized he was going to die soon, he doubted that his successor would continue his strict policies.

So, he encouraged the founding of the anti-materialistic, semi-mystical Ordo Praedicatorum (Dominicans), a mendicant order under the leadership of the person now known as Saint Dominique. Innocent expected that this order could win over for Rome the souls of the former anti-worldly Cathars and Waldensians.

The Dominicans introduced the Rosier Mystique de la Tres Sainte Vierge concept, with at its center the Monastere de la Visitation in Toulouse. Toulouse for many centuries was known as one of the most mystical-pious cities in France.

Was this the end of the Cathars and Waldenses?

No, we now know them as Quakers, Mennonites, Anabaptists, Hussites, etc.

From the 16th Century on most of them joint the Protestant movements as separate Protestant sects because Protestants were officially recognized in many European states.

ROSIER MYSTIQUE DE LA TRES SAINTE VIERGE and LA TRIPLE ORAISON MENTALE & QUINZE SECRETS DE LA VIE SPIRITUELLE, Bernard Bosc, Tolose [Toulouse] 1676