Part 01-  The Life and Work of Fr. Adrian Fortescue

The brilliant Fr. Adrian Fortescue contributed a great deal to 20th Century Catholic understanding of the liturgy. Mr. Michael Davies discusses his life and works introducing his series on the basic or "parent" rites of the Church. 

Part 02 -The Mass in the First Three Centuries

There are intervening periods of "light" and "darkness" regarding our knowledge of the development of the liturgy of the Mass in the first three hundred years of Church History. Mr. Michael Davies speaks here of what we know, do not know, and merely speculate about at the dawn of liturgical growth.  

Part 03 - The Parent Rites - The Antiochian Rite

Syria, with the great metropolis of Antioch, from which emerged men like St. John Chrysostom, was one of the great early centers of Christianity. Mr. Michael Davies treats here of the liturgy coming from its midst. 

Part 04- The Parent Rites - The Alexandrian and Gallican Rites

Two distinct centers of liturgical importance are examined in this lecture by Mr. Michael Davies: those of Alexandria in Egypt, with its "multicultural" Greek and Coptic Church, and of Merovingian/Carolingian Gaul, the "cauldron" of western medieval culture. 

Part 05- The Parent Rites - The Roman Rite

Sources for the history of the Roman Rite of Mass are both complex and numerous. Mr. Michael Davies, a great expert on that Rite and modern distortions regarding its development, treats here of the reality of its birth and maturation.   

Part 06 - The Reform of St. Pius V Until Today

Mr. Michael Davies discusses the traditionalist character of the Tridentine reform, the liturgical movement, and modern developments and distortions of the Roman rite.



 These talks were taken from: The Church in the Early Middle Ages - 1994 VonHildebrand Institute