«ASPERGES ME». — Formula with which ritual sprinklings of holy water are performed (v. ASPERSIONE). It is not easy to determine whether the use of the formula always coincided with that of the water. In the 9th century it was certainly used for the sprinkling of the sick (Theodulf of Orléans [d. 815], *Capitulare alterum*, 105, 220; Synod of Nantes, can. 4, in Mansi, XI, 658, falsely attributed to 658). It was probably also used in the Sunday sprinkling of the people (in which perhaps each person sprinkled themselves without being sprinkled by others), which Hincmar of Reims (*Capitula Synod.*, I, 5; PL 125, 774) prescribes in 852, while it seems that initially the sprinkling of places and objects was done with the singing of psalms (S. Baluze, *Capit. Regum Francor.*, I, Paris 1677, p. 903) or perhaps only with the recitation of a collect. The use of the *Asperges me* in the Sunday sprinkling is certainly attested in the 11th century by the *Consuetudines cas-sines* of Abbot Oderisio (E. Martène, *De ant. Eccl. ritibus*, Antwerp ed. 1738, lib. IV, p. 134).
During Eastertide, the *Vidi aquam* is sung in its place, a composition inspired by *Ez. 47, 1*, with an evident allusion to Baptism, whose memory is celebrated at Easter. Indeed, during the evening Easter procession of the neophytes, this same antiphon was sung in Rome (Ordo Roman., I, cap. 13: PL 78, 966). The baptismal sense, which in the Middle Ages supplanted the primitive sense of purification and exorcism in the rite and formula of sprinkling, as well as the traditional practice of not singing Psalm 50 during Eastertide, may have given rise, more than the historical Roman reminiscence, to the introduction of the *Vidi aquam* in the same liturgical period.