In the origins of the Catholic rosary, ancient traditions of Christian Eastern and Western prayer are intertwined.The rosary has its roots in the 9th century, when the way of honoring Mary (mother of Jesus) in the East begins to be known in The West is the repetition of acclamations and praises that appear in the Gospel of Luke (the greeting of the angel Gabriel to Mary in Lk 1, 26-28, and the greeting of Elizabeth to Mary in Luke 1:42) to conform the Hail Mary along with a rich set of hymns and prayers of the Eastern liturgies. Among the most prominent influences is the translation into Latin of the Akáthistos to the mother of God, a hymn of the Greek Eastern liturgy of the late sixth century that meditates on the mystery of the divine motherhood of Mary.

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    André Duval quoted Thomas Esser, who referred to the existence of a manuscript of 1501 preserved in the library of Munich, which states that the rosary had its origin first in the Order of St. Benedict, and that later was consolidated by work of the Order of the Carthusians, and expanded by the action of the Dominicans In the monasteries they used to recite the 150 psalms (the psaltery of David, already recited by the Jews) 4 in the monastic Breviary, but to the faithful or brothers who were not priests or monks, not being able to follow this devotion (because most of them did not know how to read) were taught a simpler practice: that of reciting 150 Hail Marys.5 This devotion took the name «Psalter of the Virgin »

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    The popularity and development of the rosary occurred in the thirteenth century, during the opposition to the Albigensian movement or Catharism. The Cathars or Albigensians did not recognize any dogma related to the Virgin Mary and refused to venerate her. In the face of clashes between Catholics and Albigensians, Domingo de Guzmán, founder of the order of the Preachers (better known as Dominicans), seems to have promoted in his missions the prayer of a primitive form of the rosary. Since the Dominicans were an order of preachers and always in the midst of the people, their devotion became popular, generating the appearance of brotherhoods and groups of devotees everywhere, together with stories of miracles that increased their fame. Although devotion declined during the fourteenth century, the order of the Preachers continued to foster it.

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    Blessed Alano de la Roca was responsible for making it resurface, a task followed by Jacobo Sprenger, prior of the convent of the Dominicans in Cologne (Germany). By the 16th century, it was already in its present form: Contemplation of the "mysteries", creed, Our Father and Hail Mary as main prayers and the beads or beads as a means of carrying the prayer.

On the Hail Mary it should be noted that the second half of the prayer was added to the first in the fourteenth century, but its use became universal when Pope Pius V promulgated the Roman Breviary and ordered that it be recited at the beginning of each hour of the Office Divine, after the Our Father.

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    It was the battle of Lepanto that caused the Catholic Church to celebrate an annual feast of the rosary, since Pope Pius V attributed the victory of Christians over the Turks to the intercession of the Virgin Mary by praying the rosary. The party was instituted on October. First it was called "Our Lady of Victories", but Pope Gregory XIII changed the name of the solemnity to "Our Lady of the Rosary".

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    In this fresco located in the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán in San Cristobal de La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain), the Virgin of the Rosary is represented by delivering the Holy Rosary to Domingo de Guzmán. In the scene also appear Pedro de Santa María de Ulloa, Catalina de Siena and the servant of God María de Jesús de León y Delgado.

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    According to the Catholic tradition, in Fatima (Portugal), in 1917, the Virgin Mary appeared to three little shepherds, who revealed to them that each time a Hail Mary is prayed it is as if a rose were offered to her, in such a way that each complete rosary would be a crown of roses (a concept that had been mentioned some time ago by Luis María Grignion de Montfort in his work Secreto admirable del Santo Rosario).

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    On October 16, 2002, Pope John Paul II promulgated the Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, in which he considered timely the addition of five new mysteries to the rosary, the luminous mysteries.