How to handle history is a major problem for liturgical study – not least because there is so much history to contend with! It is easy to fall into an approach that imagines a past; which may or may not have much to do with what really happened, and may or may not be heavily shaped by the ideology of the historian. In this paper, what I will offer is mostly some initial thoughts in development as to a theological use of history in liturgical study, based on the theology of Edward Schillebeeckx. I will begin by pointing to some problematic approaches to history in liturgical theology. I will then offer in outline some pointers on how to engage history theologically from the systematic and sacramental theology of Schillebeeckx. Finally, I will start to consider how such principles can be applied to the liturgy, so we remember rightly how we got to where we are, but are not overly tied to sets of historical data.