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The Rosary was traditionally "dedicated" to one of three sets of "mysteries" to be said in sequence, one per night; the Joyful Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries and the Glorious Mysteries. In an unprecedented break with tradition, Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Rosarium Virginis Mariae (October 2002) introduced a fourth set, called the Luminous Mysteries. Each set has within it five different themes to be meditated on, one for each decade of ten Hail Marys.
(The list of mysteries below corresponds to moments in the life and death of Jesus and Mary chronologically.)
(To be recited on Mondays and Saturdays)
(To be recited on Thursdays)
(To be recited on Tuesdays and Fridays)
(To be recited on Wednesdays and Sundays)
The Rosary is consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary. According to tradition, in 1214, St. Dominic received the first Rosary from the Blessed Virgin, in the first of a series of apparitions, as a means of converting the Albigensians and other so-called "sinners". However, the historical record indicates that similar bead-prayers predate St. Dominic's time by centuries (indeed, similar prayer beads are found in many religions, and some have been found dating back to the antiquity). Before St. Dominic's time, a common practice was to prayer on "Pater Noster beads", where one would pray the "Our Father" according to the number of beads on the necklace. Before St. Dominic, the "Hail Mary" did not exist, although similar prayers to Mary were said since the early church.
In her apparition at Fatima ( 1917), the Virgin Mary revealed that every time a Hail Mary is recited, is like a rose was offered Her, so a complete Rosary is like a crown of roses. (This idea of a Rosary being a crown predates Fatima by centuries, and was expressed on several occasions by mediaeval Catholics, notably St. Louis de Montfort in his promotional book Secrets of the Rosary.)
Some national variations in terms of prayers used and structure occur as to the form of Rosary recited.
A Rosary Beads usually contains 50 beads in groups of ten (the decades), with an additional large bead before each decade. Some beads have been known to have one hundred or one hundred and fifty are also known. These numbers were chosen to match the number of psalms, or a third or two-thirds of them. This was because in ancient times monks and clergy used to recite the entire psalter every day; the practice of saying one hundred and fifty Pater Nosters developed as an alternative for those who were illiterate or who could not afford a psalter. It was only in the Middle Ages, however, when prayer to Mary became common among Catholics, that the use of Ave Marias instead of Pater Nosters came about. The beads were traditionally made from the seeds of the Bead tree, but are now more usually made of artificial materials.
Traditionally, 15 decades used to be said in total, a total increased to 20 with the addition in 2002 of a fourth set of "Mysteries". Each decade traditionally corresponds to a mystery of Redemption, although the mysteries did not originate until the 15th or 16th centuries, and even then there was not universal agreement on what they were.
In a common form beads are true olive seeds; in past times there was a respectable trade in Rosaries made with olive seeds supposedly from the Garden of Gethsemane. Beads are sometimes made with sacred relics.