How did the traditional Catholic Mass start? I thought this would be an easy question to Google, but it appears to be difficult to find an answer.
Probably because your question isn’t well-defined?
“Traditional Catholic Mass” means different things to different people.
Even in the Roman Catholic Church, there are different rites for Mass.
Try googling “history of the mass” (with quotes).
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Liturgy of the Mass is the first result, and seems a good start. But there’s no simple answer 
Jesus. The night before He was crucified.
That’s not quite as flip as it sounds. The traditional prayer of consecration is known to date back to 110 A.D. by documentary evidence (the “Didache”), and has been adapted by various churches but keeping the same general theme, which is to offer bread and wine to God, giving Him thanks for all of Creation and for sending Jesus in particular, then recall the original setting and the words that Jesus spoke then, then an invocation of the Holy Spirit to make the elements into the Body and Blood of Christ suitable for communing His people, and finally a prayer that offers those who celebrate the Eucharist together as His people in the world (occasionally invoking saints who have gone before as a remembrance of the Communion of Saints) and a concluding doxology of praise. This formulary underlies the structure of the Orthodox Liturgies of St. James of Jerusalem, St. Basil, and St. John Chrystostom, the Catholic Gregorian, Tridentine, and Paul VI Masses, the Eucharistic Liturgies in the Anglican Books of Common Prayer, the Lutheran Eucharistic liturgies, John Wesley’s Communion Service, and practically every other liturgical Communion service you can identify.
The present Catholic Mass is based on the Sacramentary of Paul VI, which was a modernization and adaptation into the vernacular of the Tridentine Mass adopted at the Council of Trent. That in turn is a modification of one promulgated by Pope Gregory the Great, who based his on earlier liturgies that were in turn based on the oldest ones we have records of.
You’ll see strong similarities in format and language with other Christian services, including Anglican, Lutheran and Orthodox, so the general structure has been established for centuries.
The Catholic mass also has strong similarities to some Jewish ceremonies.
kunilou, since the CoE and Lutheran church have been around less than 500 years it’s just a bit more fair to say their liturgy is similar to RC, not the other way around. Luther was a RC priest and wanted to reform the church rather than break away from it so no suprise the liturgy would have a similar structure.
Not to be a smartalec, Padeye, but it’s a matter of strong feeling to us Anglicans to get rid of the old “Henry VIII started the CoE” canard. The Church of England dates back to at least the time of Pope Gregory the Great, who sent St. Augustine of Canterbury to organize the British and English churches. It has been indepentent of Rome since Tudor times, but the transition to autonomy was that of an already-existing church organization, not one started from scratch. And yes, Cranmer’s Eucharistic liturgy drew heavily on pre-Tridentine Catholic services, notably the “Sarum rite” used widely in England and owing its origins to medieval Salisbury Cathedral Masses (hence the name). Your point with regard to Luther is well made, though.
Thanks for the correction Polycarp. All the references I found on a google search said 1534.
Well, but as Padeye says, that’s similar to the other early reformation churches. There was certainly a church in England since Augustine of Canterbury, but the English church didn’t have any special status…talking of the Church of England before Henry’s schism, it’s no different than if you say “the Church of France” or “the Church of Poland”.
I said “strong similarities with” not implying that one came before the other. In fact, the Lutherans, Anglicans and Orthodox would argue that it’s not the “Roman Catholic” Mass per se. Instead, it’s the Christian worship service – which they each drew from.
It’s debatable whether the original anaphorae had the words of institution, as neither the Didache nor the Nestorian Syriac liturgies have them. Lots of trouble for Latin theology if they weren’t originally there (though they’ve tried to get around that by saying they were implied :rolleyes: ), but no problem at all for Eastern theology, which holds that the epiclesis is the key moment, not the words of institution.