BENEDIZIONALE. — A book containing the formularies to be used for the various blessings. An initial collection of these is found in the East in the Sacramentary of s. Serapione of Thmuis (F.X. Funk, Didascolia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, II, Paderborn 1905, pp. 163 ff.), and subsequently in the Euchologion of the Greeks. In the West, the oldest is probably that of Cod. 6430, used in the church of Frisinga, and compiled at Autun in the 7th century (G. Morin, in Revue Bénédictine, 29 (1912), pp. 168–94). Alcuin’s appendix to the Gregorian provides further formulas, and in many ancient sacramentaries, after the preface, there is a collection of blessings (L. Delisle, Anciens Sacramentaires, p. 87). Among the best-known collections are the B. di s. Gregorio Magno (F. A. Zaccaria, Bibliotheca Ritualis, I, Rome 1776, p. 158), the B. Aethelwoldi, bishop of Winchester (983–984), which contains formulas for 116 feasts (ed. G. F. Warner and H. Wilson, Oxford 1911), that of Archbishop Roberto (10th century; ed. H. A. Wilson, London 1903), which also contains other sacred functions to be celebrated by the bishop, that of Canterbury (11th century), formerly joined to the pontifical (ed. R. M. Wooley, London 1917), the B. iuxta ritum Ecclesiae Aurelianensis (Orléans 1696), the Obsequiale sive B. Pragense (Prague 1585); likewise, the extract from the pontifical of the church of Reims containing the Benedictiones Episcopales (U. Chevalier, Sacramentaire et Martyrologe de l'Abbaye de St-Remy, Paris 1900, pp. 306–15). The b. were often adorned with precious miniatures depicting the corresponding rite of blessing. Today the b. are contained in the
ritual, pontifical, and missal, and are no longer printed separately.