Pre-Tridentine Mass refers to the evolving and regional forms of the Catholic Mass in the West from antiquity to 1570. The basic structure solidified early and has been preserved, as well as important prayers such as the Roman Canon.

Following the Council of Trent's desire for standardization, Pope Pius V, with his bull Quo primum, made the Roman Missal obligatory throughout the Latin Church, except for those places and congregations whose distinct rites could demonstrate an antiquity of two hundred years or more.

And this food is called among us Eukharistia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.

A surviving account of the celebration of the Eucharist or the Mass in Rome is that of Saint Justin Martyr (died c. 165), in chapter 67 of his First Apology:

On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.

In chapter 65, Justin Martyr says that the kiss of peace was given before the bread and the wine mixed with water were brought to "the president of the brethren". The initial liturgical language used was Greek, before approximately the year 190 under Pope Victor, when the Church in Rome changed from Greek to Latin, except in particular for the Hebrew word "Amen", whose meaning Justin explains in Greek (γένοιτο), saying that by it "all the people present express their assent" when the president of the brethren "has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings".

According to some scholars, the early Christian liturgy was a continuation of the liturgy of contemporary Jewish synagogues (as distinct from the temple liturgy): Catholic historian Louis Duschesne commented "the only permanent element, on the whole, which Christianity added to the liturgy of the synagogue was [...] the sacred meal instituted by Jesus Christ as a perpetual commemoration of himself." This tradition included unaccompanied psalms, cantillation (half-way between recitation and singing), and chant. According to Catholic historian Mark Kirby "By the fourth century, the fully sung liturgy, with its roots in Semitic chant, had become normative in both East and West. According to Orthodox historian Alexander Schmemann every word pronounced in church had a “singing quality": the "entire service, which was thought of in all its parts as a singing of praise to God." This sung liturgy was held to be an imitation of, participation in, and foretaste of the divine liturgy. Congregations could sing responses to versicles, antiphons and hymns.

It is unclear when the language of the celebration finished changing from Greek to Latin. Pope Victor I (190–202), may have been the first to use Latin in the liturgy in Rome. Others think Latin was finally adopted nearly a century later. The change was probably gradual, with both languages being used for a while.