[The essay offered
here is an emendation of an earlier
version that was
published
in But One Use, the General
Seminary Library's catalogue
of
an exhibition to commemorate the
450th anniversary of the Book
of
Common Prayer. Copies of this
fine 176-page museum-quality
catalogue,
which includes
precise descriptions of 102 items
exhibited and 26 color
illustrations
as well as the earlier form of this
and other essays, are
still
available at the very reasonable
price of $45 plus $2 postage
from
the St. Mark's Library,
General Theological Seminary, 175
Ninth
Avenue, New York
10011].
THE MOST
IMPORTANT prelude to the
appearance in 1549 of the first
Book of
Common Prayer, in
addition to the repudiation of
papal jurisdiction and the
establishment
of royal supremacy, was the
appearance of the Bible in
the
English vernacular
tongue which had clearly matured
by the early decades of
the
sixteenth century. It has well
been said that the three
greatest
literary landmarks
of the English language are the
English Bible, the Book
of
Common Prayer, and the works of
William Shakespeare. Although
not much
time can be given
to that here, suffice it to say
that already William
Tyndale's
translation of the New
Testament, done in 1524 and for
which he
died at the stake
in 1535, was also the source of
the earliest English
translation
of the liturgical Epistles and
Gospels, which were retained
in
1549 more or less on the
basis of the Sarum lectionary.
The year 1535 had
seen the
first complete Bible printed in
English (largely the work
of
Coverdale), and in 1539
the Great Bible (sponsored by
Cromwell, and the work
of
Coverdale, who relied heavily
upon Tyndale) was issued by the
Crown and
set up in every
parish church by royal
injunction of Henry VIII.
Its
second edition, 1540,
contained the famous preface by
Cranmer observing that
perusal
of the Scriptures tends to
enhance, rather than undermine,
the
power of the monarch
under God. Later translations of
the Bible would
supersede,
but Coverdale's version would
remain standard for the Psalter.
The
Edwardian injunctions of July
31, 1547, required every parish
church in
England to have a
copy of the whole Bible in
English. And already for
nearly
a hundred years since the day of
Gutenberg, it was possible
for
Bibles, as well as
service books, to be printed. It
was now possible, and
maybe
even desirable, to have a Book
of Common Prayer.
The first English
Litany had already been
occasioned in 1544 by
Henry's
command for public
processions with litanies that
could be understood by the
people,
to be said or sung in English in
order to seek divine assistance
as
he prepared to invade
France. (The invasion was a
partial, if muddled,
success).
Composed by Cranmer from
materials in the Sarum
Processional,
Luther's
Litany, and the Orthodox Liturgy
of John Chrysostom, it was
revised
in 1547, omitting
the invocation of saints, and in
that form went into the
1549
Book. From its beginning,
though, it carried the clause
"From all
sedition and privy
conspiracy, from the tyranny of
the bishop of Rome and
all
his detestable enormities"
(continued in 1552 but removed
in 1559, and
never since
restored). By the death of Henry
VIII on January 28, 1547,
the
earliest stage of the
English Reformation was over,
leaving a continuity of
traditional
Catholic faith and practice, the
re-definition of past
history
in a way that
enabled changes to seem like
restorations, and the concept of
one
national commonwealth, both
state and church, with a
quasi-episcopal
king
replacing the pope.
Beginning in 1547
with Edward VI (king at the age
of nine), the second stage
commenced,
with reforms in doctrine and
liturgy but not so far-reaching
or
radical as on the
European continent, and with
English bishops continuing
to
take the lead in both
stages. Early in the new reign
there appeared "The
Order of
the Communion" [of the people],
derived both from
reformation
sources and from
medieval forms for communion
from the reserved sacrament
outside
Mass, published in English in
1548 by royal proclamation as
the
first instalment of a
program of reform which the
nation is urged to accept
from
the civil power. Just as people
were now reading and speaking in
English,
so also it seemed logical for
them to want to pray in their
own
tongue. To be inserted
into the Latin Mass after the
priest's communion and
before
the ablutions, the unusual
feature of this "Order of
Communion," in
addition to
the liturgical English and the
restoration of the chalice to
the
laity, was the
assumption that the normal
communicant could achieve
repentance
without the sacrament of
Penance, which was now optional,
and
that those who preferred
only a general confession were
not to be offended
by the
others nor vice versa. Private
auricular confession in
preparation
for receiving
communion was now to be
exceptional rather than
expected.
Back in 1545
private prayers had already been
reformed and regulated for
the
nation under Henry VIII
by the "King's Primer"; now the
time seemed ripe,
under
Edward VI, to extend such reform
and regulation to public worship
itself.
THE BOOK OF
1549
The chief author
of the first Book of Common
Prayer was not some
rebellious
and bombastic
monk but the Archbishop of
Canterbury, formerly a fellow at
Cambridge
University. Cranmer had first
experienced Lutheran worship
in
Lent of 1532 at Nuremberg
(where he secretly married the
niece of Andreas
Osiander, a
lesser figure in the German
reforms), and subsequently
he
encouraged various
continental reformers to seek
refuge in England. In 1533
he
became Archbishop of Canterbury,
and his liturgical aptitude,
linguistic
felicity, and
reforming tendencies began to be
obvious in many endeavors.
After
the death of Henry VIII in early
1547 and the accession of Edward
VI
as a minor, Cranmer's
ability to cause and direct the
course of religious
reform
was greatly strengthened. In
1548, compilation of a Book of
Common
Prayer was apparently
entrusted to a committee of six
bishops and six other
learned
men under Cranmer's presidency
(the membership stacked in favor
of
the "New Learning" over
against the "Old"). Working from
a draft previously
prepared
by the archbishop and clearly
not unanimous in their
conclusion, in
less than
five months from September of
1548 to January of 1549
(with
perhaps as little as
three weeks of actual
discussions) they produced
the
new Book. On January 21
of that year Parliament passed
the Act of
Uniformity (in
which only Cranmer is cited by
name) that made it the
official
Prayer Book of the realm.
Replacing the plurality of
medieval
usages that
included but was not limited to
the use of Salisbury or
Sarum
(but exaggerating
their minor differences), "but
one use" in the English
vernacular
was henceforth to be observed
throughout the realm, and it was
contained
within this one volume.
Hereafter the Church of England
would be
distinguished, as
the most moderate of the
churches of the Reformation, not
by
the writings of some one
theologian such as Luther or
Calvin, nor by one
confessional
document such as the Augsburg
Confession or that of
Westminster,
but by one Book of Common
Prayer. Taking pride (and
overstating
the case) that hereafter
Anglican clergy "shall need none
other
books for their public
service but this book and the
Bible," the Book's
Preface
protested that previously "many
times there was more business to
find
out what should be read, than to
read it when it was found
out."
The bishops
present in the House of Lords
voted 10 to 8 for the new
Book,
and the tally of the
Convocation's action is unknown.
It was issued under
authority
of the King in Parliament, and
may have never been submitted to
the
Convocation of the church. The
first printing was ready for
sale and
distribution by
Thursday March 7 of 1549 at the
office of the printer
Edward
Whitchurche in
London, subsequent editions
coming from his printing house
in
May and June. Richard
Grafton, the King's Printer,
also issued editions of
the
new Book, as did the printer
John Oswen in Worcester. All
told, there
seem to have
been some twelve printings of
the new book in 1549, all
in
black-letter Gothic type,
all in folio format (about
twelve inches high) and
thus
presumably for clerical use in
chancels, except for one
printing that
was smaller,
in quarto (about seven inches
high). Clearly, these early
printings
were intended for the use of
clergy in churches, not for the
laity
to carry around with
them, and in fact, by comparison
with our standards
today,
there were very few prayers
which the congregation was to
say all
together. The Act of
Uniformity made use of the new
book obligatory in
churches,
with penalty for disobedience,
beginning on Whitsunday which in
that
year fell on June 9, although it
was already being used at St.
Paul's
Cathedral in London
and elsewhere by the beginning
of Lent. Cranmer himself
officiated
at St. Paul's on June 9. Gregory
Dix in our century, with
some
degree of emotional
investment, has remarked: "With
an inexcusable
suddenness,
between a Saturday night and a
Monday morning at Pentecost
1549,
the English liturgical
tradition of nearly a thousand
years was altogether
overturned"(2).
Conservative
reaction and revolts, which had
been expected, began on
Monday
June 10, the very
next day, and continued for a
while. The following
petition
of protest, together with armed
resistance, came from Devon: "We
demand
the restoration of the Mass in
Latin without any to
communicate, and
the
Reservation of the Blessed
Sacrament: Communion in one
kind, and only at
Easter:
greater facilities for Baptism:
the restoration of the old
ceremonies--Holy
bread and Holy water, Images,
Palms, and Ashes. We will
not
receive the new service, because
it is but like a Christmas game;
but we
will have our old
service of Matins, Mass,
Evensong and processions in
Latin,
not in English." Princess Mary
refused to allow any of it in
her
chapel and simply
continued to have the old Mass
said by her chaplains.
There
was confusion about what the new
rite meant theologically, and
the way
some priests
celebrated the new English was
equally as incomprehensible
as
the old Latin. Most laity
would not have recognized that
very much had
changed,
because they would not have
known what the Latin had said in
the
first place. In London,
the Dean of St. Paul's favored
the reforms, while
the
bishop, Bonner, opposed and was
finally denounced in public,
imprisoned,
and on October 1
deprived of his see. On the
other side, about the same
time
in the fall of 1549, the Council
ordered the medieval service
books to
be defaced and
abolished. Throughout the
country there was much plunder
and
destruction of church
vestments, furniture, and
ornaments, many of them
beautiful
and precious, and frequently now
the medieval wall-paintings
of
church interiors were
limewashed and replaced with the
royal arms and texts
from
Scripture. Even more extreme,
Bishop John Hooper, a leading
English
disciple of Zwingli,
pronounced the new Book
"defective and of doubtful
construction,"
and was imprisoned for refusal
to wear the proper
vestments
at his own service
of consecration as bishop of
Gloucester. Bishop Nicholas
Ridley,
transferred to London in April
of 1550, led a drive against
kissing
the Lord's Table,
ceremonial washing of the
fingers, ringing of sanctus
bells,
blessing the eyes or crossing
the head with the paten, holding
up the
fingers, hands, or
thumbs joined towards the
temples, and other practices
of
traditional ceremonial,
which he collectively described
as a "counterfeiting
of the
popish mass."
In order to get an
overview of the changes, we now
proceed to an enumeration
and
examination of some of the
details, both in general and
also with
concentration upon
the Eucharist. The Calendar
contains no commemorations
except
of the Lord and of New Testament
saints (not, however,
called
"saints" in the
Calendar itself) and of All
Saints Day. The table of lessons
follows
the calendar year, not the
ecclesiastical year. There is no
provision
for votive Masses of any sort.
The many daily offices of
the
medieval church were
combined into two, Matins and
Evensong, and clergy with
cure
of souls were required to say
both offices daily in public
with tolling
of the bell.
Matins on Wednesdays and Fridays
was to be followed by the
Litany
and the Communion (soon reduced
to what we now call
Ante-Communion).
The two
offices were each to open with
the Lord's Prayer, and then
Matins
begins with "O Lord,
open thou my lips," and Evensong
with "O God, make
speed to
save me." Whole chapters of
Scripture were to be read at
each
service. The New
Testament (except the book of
Revelation, from which only
two
chapters were assigned) was to
be read every four months
beginning with
Matthew at
Matins and Romans at Evensong.
The Old Testament (followed
by
the Apocrypha) was to be
read through once a year (as the
Book's Preface
desired)
beginning with Genesis at Matins
and Evensong, and the Psalter
once
every month in course.
Proper lessons were provided for
holy days. The
Athanasian
Creed (from the medieval office
of Prime) is to be sung or
said
six times a year on
principal feasts. There is no
mention of any creed to
be
said in Evensong. Baptism is
normally to be a public act on
Sunday. Its
exorcisms are
reduced to one. The threefold
renunciation is no longer
from
Satan, his works, and
his pomps, but from the devil,
the world, and the
flesh. In
Baptism the child is to be
dipped in the water three times,
although
"it shall suffice to powre water
upon it" if the child is
weak.
The white garment is
retained, now to be put on
before the unction and not
after,
but the delivery of the lighted
candle is omitted. The anointing
is
retained, but there was
no requirement that the oil
should be blessed. At
the
end of the Baptismal service the
godparents are required to see
that the
child learns the
Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and
the Ten Commandments; that
is
to say, the godparents
not only make answers on behalf
of the infant but
also enter
into a contract about the
child's Christian future.
The
Catechism (new in 1549
and replacing entirely an
earlier one issued
separately
in 1548) is included along with
the Confirmation service, and
the
latter is tied closely
to the ministry of the bishop
but without the use of
chrism.
The marriage rite is linked to a
public celebration of the
Eucharist,
and the newlyweds are required
to receive communion on that
day.
In its preface, also
penned by the first Archbishop
of Canterbury to be
married,
the reasons given for matrimony
now include not only the
procreation
of children and the avoidance of
sin but also "for the
mutual
society, help, and
comfort that the one ought to
have of the other." The
ring
is no longer blessed, but there
is now a promise by the man "to
love
and to cherish" and by
the woman "to love, cherish, and
obey." Already the
1979
Book's words for both partners,
"to love and to cherish,"
are
anticipated. The burial
rite was also linked to a public
celebration of the
Eucharist,
and prayers for the departed
were retained. Special services
are
also provided for Ash
Wednesday (with a nodding
reference to the discipline
of
public penance in the early
church, but without ashes, which
had already
been abolished
by order of Privy Council in
1548), and for the
Purification
of
Women.
THE
1549 EUCHARIST
The
title for the 1549 Eucharist (as
we now call it) is "The Supper
of the
Lorde, and the Holy
Communion, commonly called the
Masse." The term "Mass,"
it
should be noted, is the third
alternative permissible title.
The terms
"altar" (less
often "Goddes borde") and
"priest" were retained, and
authority
was granted only to bishops and
priests to absolve, bless,
and
preside at Mass. A role
for a deacon is provided at the
reading of the
Gospel,
bidding the eucharistic prayer,
and administering the chalice.
Such
facts as these, coupled
with the reference in the
Preface to the role of
"the
Bishop of the Diocese" in
settling disputes, prompt the
observation
that this first
Anglican Prayer Book is in one
sense a synthesis of the
traditional
catholic doctrine of Holy
Orders, as applied to the
clergy, with
a strong
reformation doctrine of
Justification by Faith, as it
will be
applied to the
Eucharist itself.
The
1549 Book assumes a choral
service will be the norm, and
the clerks sing
the Introit
(an entire psalm, not just a
portion). Dressed in a plain alb
with
chasuble or cope, the priest
begins the service at the middle
of the
altar with the Lord's
Prayer and the Collect for
Purity, all the other
private
prayers of the priest having
been eliminated. The Collect for
Purity
had been part of the daily
monastic office in England ever
since it
had been prescribed
by the "Monastic Agreement of
the Monks and Nuns of the
English
Nation" in the year 970; now,
however, it was revised
according to
reformed
doctrine and made part of the
opening of the new Mass in
English.
Its previous
conclusion ("ut te perfecte
deligere et digne laudare
mereamur"),
which would have translated
literally as "that we may merit
to
love you perfectly and
praise you worthily," was now
shorn of its reference
to
"earned merit" and given the
form that Anglicans have known
ever since.
The Kyrie
(ninefold) and Gloria follow,
although the Graduals,
Alleluias,
Sequences,
Tracts, offertory sentences and
prayers, and postcommunion
sentences
and prayers, were all omitted.
There was to be only one collect
of
the day, crafted invariably with
a superior sense of English
rhythm and
cadence, to be
followed by either of two
collects for the king (with
unmistakable
allusions to the royal
supremacy). In the Nicene Creed,
for
curious reasons, the
phrase "whose kingdom shall have
no end" was omitted
from the
end of the material about the
Holy Ghost, and the word "holy"
from
the description of the
church. Every Sunday "the sermon
or homily, or some
portion
of one of the homilies," was
required (the First Book of
Homilies
having been
released in 1547), followed by
an exhortation to worthily
receiving
the communion. A longer
exhortation commended private
confession
and absolution
(but optional, and no longer
required) for those who
could
not relieve their
consciences through private
prayer or general
confession.
There is an
Offertory but no longer any
offertory prayer. The
offertory
sentences no
longer bear any relation to the
liturgical season, but are
a
collection of biblical
texts exclusively concerned with
the offering of
alms, the
ceremony they are intended to
cover. A series of collects
is
provided to be said after
the Offertory on days where
there is no communion.
Only
five proper prefaces are
retained, those for Christmas
and Whitsunday
being freshly
written.
Although the
Sanctus is introduced by the
Sursum Corda, the 1549
"Canon"
(the name by which
it was called in that Book in
the service for "The
Communion
of the Sick") is introduced by a
bidding from the priest or
deacon
to pray for the whole
state of Christ's Church, and
much of what later
became
known as that prayer is included
here in the first of the
three
paragraphs that
constitute Cranmer's Canon. [The
medieval Sarum Canon by
contrast
had six paragraphs, each really
a prayer concluded by an "Amen,"
with
the Lord's Prayer said after the
fifth]. The Canon of 1549 is to
be
said or sung "playnly and
distinctly," not silently as in
the medieval
tradition, and
it was not to begin until the
clerks had finished singing
the
Sanctus. The King is
prayed for by name in the Canon,
as are "all Bishops,
Pastors,
and Curates" (an interesting
non-reference to the threefold
order,
which would later
become "all bishops and other
ministers"). Reference is
made
to "this congregation which is
here assembled in thy name, to
celebrate
the commemoration
of the most glorious death of
thy son," the resurrection
and
ascension only later being
"remembered," after the words of
institution.
There is a
commemoration of saints,
although only Mary is named, and
there
is a commendation of
the faithful departed. The
church is referred to as
the
"mystical body." Insertion of
the phrase "until his coming
again," not
in the Sarum
Canon, carried the implication
that, just as Christ's
passion
was a thing of the
past, so his "coming again"
would be in the future.
Exactly
what was happening "here and
now" was not precisely
specified, and
the phrase
"perpetual memory" is in fact
very close to the concept of
"vital
recall" or
"anamnesis," which means more
than a mere backward glance.
By
adding the clause "with
thy Holy Spirit and Word
vouchsafe to bless and
sanctify
these thy gifts and creatures of
bread and wine," Cranmer
inserted
an
almost-consecratory epiclesis
before the words of institution,
specifying
and even printing
two signs of the cross at "bless
and sanctify."
It was Cranmer's
conviction that humankind can do
nothing to move God to
forgiveness,
for God has already done the one
thing that was necessary.
In
place of our offering of
beauty or music or ritual,
therefore, all that we
can
plead is a spiritual remembrance
of the one perfect offering of
Christ.
In an attempt to
transform the medieval doctrine
of eucharistic sacrifice,
therefore,
whereas the old Latin Canon had
begun with a prayer offering the
unconsecrated
gifts and then after the words
of institution a further
prayer
offering the gifts
now consecrated, Cranmer's new
Canon began with the
offering
of intercessory prayers and
reference to the "one oblation
once
offered, a full,
perfect, and sufficient
sacrifice, oblation, and
satisfaction,
for the sins of the whole
world," in language reminiscent
of
the epistle to the
Hebrews. Then, after the
institution narrative, the
prayer
merely made, "with these thy
holy gifts, the memorial that
thy Son
hath willed us to
make." And whereas the old Latin
Canon had begun by
asking
God to receive "this oblation"
and later "to bless, consecrate,
and
approve this our
oblation, to perfect it and
render it well-pleasing to
thee,"
the new English one began by
merely asking God "to receive
these our
prayers." No
"gifts" are offered at all; the
one sacrifice of Calvary is
re-presented
rather than repeated, and the
only sacrifice we offer is
praise
and thanksgiving,
ourselves, our souls, and
bodies, our bounden duty
and
service. Near the end,
God is asked to bring, not the
oblation or the holy
gifts
that had just been consecrated
as in the old Canon, but "these
our
prayers and
supplications," by the ministry
of the Holy Angels up into
the
Holy Tabernacle in the
sight of the divine majesty
(with no references to
the
sacrifices of Abel, Abraham, and
Melchizedek or to God's altar on
high,
as in the old Latin
Canon). In a requirement that
tore at the heart of
medieval
devotion to the real presence in
the consecrated Host, the
central
elevations at the
words of institution, whereby
the consecrated gifts were
then
adored, frequently accompanied
by bells, incense, and candles,
are now
prohibited. Common
since the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, these were
the
only ceremonial actions of the
priest to be explicitly
forbidden. At the
words of
institution, however, the new
Book directed that the priest
"must"
take the bread into
his hands (and "shall" take the
cup), as the narration
of
the prayer itself changed from
third person to first person in
the words
of Christ coupled
with the second person of
address. In this way, the
traditional
catholic doctrine of the priest
as an image of Christ,
acting
"in persona Christi,"
was retained, as it would be in
subsequent Anglican
Prayer
Books (except for 1552), a
doctrine of priesthood that
would not have
been so clear
if the priest were allowed
merely to read Jesus' words from
the
lectern or pulpit or elsewhere.
As Canon Geoffrey Cuming
observed of the
1549 Canon,
"Its most remarkable feature is
its mere existence" for
"The
abolition of the Canon
was an article of faith with all
the continental
Reformers,"
for whom "It is normally
replaced by the Words of
Institution,
read as a
lesson" and only sometimes
facing the altar(3).
The 1549 Canon was
followed immediately by the
Lord's Prayer, a typically
Cranmerian
touch, and then the peace (There
is no indication that it was
to
be done manually). Next
comes the text "Christ our
paschal lamb is offered
up
for us, once for all"; the
sacrificial implications of this
can be
variously
interpreted, but one must note
that the phrase "once for all"
is
absent in the scriptural
verse of I Cor. 5:7 from which
the text is taken.
There is
no fraction or commixture,
although one of the final
rubrics
required that each
wafer be divided (it does not
say when) into at least two
parts.
The communion of priest and
people is preceded by an
invitation,
general
confession (the only place where
the congregation is directed
to
kneel), the absolution,
the "Comfortable Words," and the
Prayer of Humble
Access, all
taken from the 1548 Order of
Communion but now placed before
the
priest's communion and
not after it. The general
confession was directed to
be
said "in the name of all those
that are minded to receive the
Holy
Communion, either by
one of them, or else by one of
the ministers, or by the
priest
himself" because very few of the
congregation would yet have had
or
been able to own their
own copies of the book itself.
The rubrics directed
that
those intending to communicate
were to hand in their names on
the night
before or at
Matins on the morrow, and then
at communion-time to sit "in the
quire,
or in some convenient place nigh
the quire, the men on the one
side,
and the women on the
other side." With 1549, the
emphasis has come to be
less
upon the change effected in the
eucharistic elements during the
Canon
and more upon the act
of communion and the consequent
change in the faithful
believers
who receive. As Luther also had
taught, the Body and Blood
of
Christ are offered not to
God but to those who
communicate. "The
miraculous
working of Christ
is not in the bread, but in them
that duly eat the bread
and
drink the drink," Cranmer said.
The priest
communicates first, and then the
"other ministers."
Communion
is to be in both
kinds, and it was specified that
the bread be made
throughout
the realm in the same way,
unleavened and round and
"without all
manner of
print" and larger and thicker
than before so that it could
be
divided into several
pieces. Even though it is
acknowledged that "people
many
years past received... in their
own hands, no commandment of
Christ to
the contrary,"
people in 1549 are still to
receive the bread into
their
mouths, in order to
prevent theft and superstition.
It is specified that
"all
must attend [this service]
weekly, but need communicate but
once a
year."
Non-communicating attendance is
not forbidden, but no priest may
"solemnise
so high and holy mysteries"
unless there are at least some
who
will communicate. In the
words of administration are
found the two phrases
of the
1549 Book that are most directly
traceable to any Lutheran source
(and
already present since March of
1548 in "The Order of the
Communion"):
the words
"given for thee" and "shed for
thee," which Cranmer
derived
directly from the
catechism of the Lutheran
theologian Justus Jonas,
personally
known to him, which he
translated. The threefold Agnus
Dei is
sung during
communion, and afterward there
are some sentences from
Scripture
to be said or sung
which are called "the post
Communion." There is a
fixed
final prayer of
thanksgiving, probably adapted
from one composed by
Cranmer's
chaplain Thomas Becon in 1542
and incorporating the
understanding
that the
church, not the Eucharist, is
the "mystical body, the
blessed
company of all
faithful people." The cryptic
"Ite missa est" dismissal
of
the medieval rite is
omitted, and instead the
blessing begins with "The
peace
of God" which is probably an
adaptation of the phrase "Go in
peace."
The priest alone
gives the blessing, just as
earlier it is the
prerogative
of the priest to
preside at the Eucharistic
prayer and to give the
absolution.
A rubric allows that the Gloria,
Creed, Homily, and
Exhortation
may be omitted
at celebrations on weekdays or
in private homes. No
provision
is made for verbal repetition if
there is insufficient
sacramental
species for all
to communicate, as there had
been in the 1548 "Order of
the
Communion," the reason
presumably being the view that
the recitation of
words was
only for the benefit of the
hearers and had no effect (or
change)
upon the bread and
wine. No instructions at all are
given as to what should
be
done with any of the sacramental
elements that
remain.
OTHER MATERIAL IN
1549
The
Psalms, being part of the Bible,
were not initially printed with
the
Prayer Book. In August
of 1549 the Psalter was
published separately,
together
with the people's parts of
Matins, Evensong, Litany,
Communion, and
some of the
Occasional Offices, and all the
portions to be said or sung
by
the clerks; it was
entitled The Clerks' Book. (The
Psalter was not bound
with
the Prayer Book until later, the
translation still being that
of
Coverdale from 1539-40).
The Mass of the 1549 Book was
conceived as
essentially
choral, the clerks who led the
singing being expected to
stay
throughout the service
even if they did not
communicate. The entire
Latin
musical repertoire had
suddenly been obviated by the
switch to English,
however,
and in 1550 the first musical
setting appeared, authored by a
minor
canon who was organist
at Windsor, John Merbecke. This
was done with the
advice and
approval of Cranmer, who is
known to have desired a
simplification
of the ornate melodies. Like
plainsong yet sung in
tempo,
its composition was
based on the principle of a note
for every syllable;
there is
little evidence, however, of its
actual use. Merbecke's Book
did
restore the phrase
"whose kingdom shall have no
end" to the Nicene Creed.
The
Ordinal was not published until
March of 1550, its preface
stressing
continuity with
the time of the apostles. In it
the subdiaconate and minor
orders
were omitted, but an "Oath of
the King's Supremacy" was
required
that included
renunciation of "the Bishop of
Rome and his authority,
power,
and jurisdiction."
The Ordinal, revised, was
annexed to the next
official
Book, that of 1552,
now with the tradition of
instruments deleted and
priests
and bishops given only a Bible
and deacons the New
Testament.
Constant in both
versions, however, is the use of
the term "priest," a real
role
for deacons, and the
understanding that the church is
episcopally
governed with
ordination the prerogative of
bishops rather than a delegation
of
authority from the local
congregation.
At the end of the
1549 Book there were two
appendices. That "Of Ceremonies"
states
that an excess of ceremonies is
wrong; hence, some should
be
abolished and some
retained, although it does not
specify which or give any
clear
principle for determination.
That of "Certain Notes" states
that
ministers in parish
churches, cathedrals, and
colleges must wear a
surplice
for Matins,
Evensong, Baptism, and Burial,
the academic hood being
optional,
but "in all other
places" the surplice is not
required. Continuation of
the
customary eucharistic vestments
inherited from the Middle Ages
is
assumed for the Mass, as
well as for those services that
normally precede it
such as
Litany, Matrimony, Churching,
and Ash Wednesday, although a
cope
over a "white alb
plain" (i.e., without apparel)
is an option. The bishop
is
always to wear a rochet, a
surplice or alb, and a cope or
vestment
(chasuble), and he
or his chaplain is to carry his
pastoral staff; no
mitre is
mentioned. In wording that seems
to have been supplied by
Cranmer's
chaplain Thomas Becon, it is
also provided that
"kneeling,
crossing, holding
up of hands, knocking upon the
breast, and other gestures"
may
be "used or left" according to
individual devotional
taste.
THE
GENIUS OF
CRANMER
Cranmer's
intentions and results have been
labeled even in this century
by
their detractors as
duplicitous, inconsistent,
equivocating, and shifting,
but
he has also not been without his
admirers even among serious
scholars.
Thomas Cranmer,
even more than Richard Hooker,
has been called
thedefinitive
Anglican
theologian(4) as well as "the
virtual founder of the Church of
England"
(and Richard Hooker its
"defender")(5). My own view is
that the
foundations of what
has since the nineteenth century
been called
"Anglicanism" go
well back into the early church,
even the early third
century(6),
nor is it my purpose here to
extol the relative merits
of
Cranmer over Hooker, but
rather in this essay to assess
the achievement that
the
first Book of Common Prayer does
represent. Just one example
of
Cranmer's adroit
subtlety, his genius really, in
compilation of the 1549
Book
can be seen in his alterations
to the traditional collect for
Palm
Sunday as seen in light
of what was, in many ways, the
central issue of the
Reformation,
namely the doctrine of
Justification by Faith. It has
well
been said that Cranmer
in the first Prayer Book blended
the "catholic"
doctrine of
Holy Orders with the reformed
doctrine of justification.
The
context is the Anglican
position on justification that
would emerge in
writing over
the years 1563-71 and was
summarized in number 11 of the
39
Articles of Religion: "We
are accounted righteous before
God, only for the
merit of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ by Faith, and not for our
own
works or deservings.
Wherefore, that we are justified
by Faith only, is a
most
wholesome Doctrine, and very
full of comfort." Cranmer,
already in
1549, took this
Anglican middle way that was
emerging between 1) what
was
perceived to be the
Roman over-emphasis upon good
works as a means of
earning
forgiveness and God's merit, and
2) the rejection, attributed
to
Luther, of any
significant role for good works
in the life of faith. An
example
of Cranmer's craftsmanship to
this purpose, which has
been
highlighted by
Professor Louis Weil(7), can be
seen in what Anglicans know
as
their traditional collect for
Palm Sunday at the beginning of
Holy Week,
which will
celebrate the Lord's suffering,
death, and resurrection in
the
last days of his life on
earth: "Almighty and everlasting
God, who, of thy
tender love
towards mankind hast sent thy
Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ,
to
take upon him our flesh,
and to suffer death upon the
cross, that all
mankind
should follow the example of his
great humility; Mercifully
grant,
that we may both
follow the example of his
patience, and also be made
partakers
of his resurrection; through the
same Jesus Christ our
Lord."
First Cranmer
inserted the phrase "of thy
tender love," thus indicating
that
it was God's love that
was the motivating energy behind
both the incarnation
and the
crucifixion as well as behind
the response that is called from
us.
Then, in a bold but
felicitous stroke Cranmer
altered the medieval
conclusion
that we might "merit to be
partakers of his resurrection"
by
removing the concept of
earned merit and instead
substituting the petition
that
by following Christ's example we
might be made partakers [not
merit to
be made partakers]
of his resurrection. [The Latin
phrase that he altered
was
"resurrectionis consortia
mereamur"]. Of the 101 collects
in the Prayer
Book of 1549,
some 66 are based upon their
Latin originals, and in the
latter
group the only references to
"merit" that Cranmer did not
remove were
those to "the
merits of Jesus
Christ."
Overall then,
the new Book of 1549, Cranmer's
Book, seems to have been an
honest
attempt to produce a single
volume in the magnificent
English prose
of that era
that was intended to purge the
church in that land of what were
perceived
to be medieval corruptions in
doctrine and practice and
would
return to what was
thought to be a more primitive
and scriptural usage. It
was
to be enforced by a centralized
monarchy in full alliance with
an
established church. It
was to be done in a way that
synthesized the
perceived
imperatives of the new reform
with the old religion that had
been
recently familiar, all
within a context both
governmental and
ecclesiastical
that was
highly politicized. There were
severe penalties for
non-compliance
by priests,
and some bishops were deprived
of their sees for obstructing
its
enforcement. In the
astonishing ambiguity of this
brave new world, the
conservative
and catholic Stephen Gardiner,
bishop of Winchester, who
was
not even allowed to see
the new Book from the time he
was imprisoned in 1547
until
the middle of 1550, could
describe the new Mass as "not
distant from
the Catholic
Faith," whereas the reformer
Latimer could later say that
he
discerned no great
difference between the Communion
service of 1552 and that
of
1549. The Book was clearly
capable of differing
doctrinal
interpretations,
and this is especially
interesting since no
specific
reformed doctrines
other than the removal of "some
things untrue, some
uncertain,
some vain and superstitious"
were given in the Preface as the
reasons
for introducing the 1549 Book in
the first place.
Nevertheless,
howsoever
mixed this Book's intentions may
have been, howsoever subject
to
continuing development
its author's theological
convictions were, everyone
was
now expected to follow "but one
use" and certain of its legacies
were
now fixed and would
remain. These may be counted as
five in number: 1)
prayer in
the English vernacular, 2)
prayer in a language both
contemporary
and dignified
without being commonplace or
sentimental, 3) prayer from
one
book for all the
services of the church and all
occasions of life, 4)
prayer
that could be
doctrinally comprehensive
without causing overmuch
offense,
and 5) prayer in
common with both clergy and
laity as members of the
same
one mystical body
receiving in both
kinds.
THE
BOOK OF
1552
Let
us now look briefly at the
aftermath of 1549. Detailed
consideration
to all the
changes introduced in 1552 and
later can not be given
here,
although a survey of
some of them will help the Book
of 1549 to be better
understood.
The Book of 1549 did not go far
enough for many reformers,
and
John Calvin, writing
from Geneva, remarked that it
contained "many tolerable
absurdities"
and had already urged removal of
holy oil and prayers for
the
dead. The extreme
reformers were especially upset
when the conservative and
catholic
Bishop Stephen Gardiner, writing
in December of 1550 his
"Explication
and Assertion of the true
Catholic Faith" as a response to
Cranmer's
"Defence of the True and
Catholic Doctrine of the
Sacrament of
the Body and
Blood of our Saviour Christ,"
cleverly picked out and affirmed
a
number of passages in the 1549
Book that supported medieval
catholic
doctrine over
against the assertions of
Cranmer. Demand for a more
extensive,
more radical, more protestant
revision was accelerated,
and
Cranmer's replies to
Gardiner show that he already
had the second Book, of
1552,
beginning in his mind. With the
conservative opposition fairly
well
suppressed, and the
more moderate bishops all
imprisoned in the Tower,
Parliament
(not Convocation) passed the
Second Act of Uniformity on
April
14, 1552, that ushered
in the second Book of Common
Prayer, asserting that
it
had become necessary only
because of misinterpretations
and doubts, at
the same time
gratuitously commending the
first Book as having been "a
very
godly order...
agreeable to the Word of God and
the primitive Church, very
comfortable
to all good people." The 1552
Book, also prepared under
Cranmer's
aegis but less a matter of his
direct responsibility, was
to
become official on All
Saints Day, November 1.
Penalties of imprisonment
were
stipulated for worshiping
otherwise than with this new
Book.
The first, and
very significant, difference
appears when the title of
the
1552 Book is compared to
that of 1549. Whereas the 1549
title had read "The
Booke of
the Common Prayer and
Administracion of the
Sacramentes, and other
Rites
and Ceremonies [of the Churche:
after the Use of the Churche
of
England]," in 1552 the
words here set in brackets and
italics were omitted
and the
new title simply concluded "in
the Churche of England" thus
removing
any indication of
responsibility to the wider
church catholic of which
the
English church was a
part. Again, in the title of the
1552 Eucharist one
may also
note the dropping of the term
"Masse." The Book of 1552
also
witnessed the
introduction, by order of the
Council and against the wish
of
Archbishop Cranmer, of
the so-called "Black Rubric"
(added in black after
the
book had already been printed
with the other "rubrics" in
red). This
rubric explained
that the requirement for
kneeling to receive communion
was
"not meant thereby that
any adoration is done or ought
to be done, either
unto the
sacramental bread and wine there
bodily received or unto any real
or
essential presence there being
of Christ's natural flesh and
blood."
[This rubric was
deleted in 1559 and 1604, but
restored and changed to
"any
corporal presence" in
1662]. Matins and Evensong are
now called Morning and
Evening
Prayer, and in 1552 they are
supplied penitential
introductions
because the
Communion, which included
confession and absolution, was
now
celebrated less
frequently. The Athanasian Creed
was now to be said
thirteen
times a year, not just six. On a
positive note, the obligation to
pray
the daily offices was now laid
upon all clergy and not just
those with
cure of souls,
and the latter were still to do
so in their own churches
accompanied
by the tolling of the bell.
Whereas
in 1549 the priest was to begin
the "Mass" at the middle of
the
"altar" dressed in a
plain alb with chasuble or cope,
in the "Holy
Communion"
service of 1552 the priest was
to begin standing at the
"north
side" of the "table"
vested in "a surplice only."
Although the word
"priest"
is still retained in 1552, the
word "altar" is nowhere used.
"The
table" is to stand in
the body of the church or in the
chancel, covered with
a fair
linen cloth; most of the old
stone altars by then had been
destroyed.
The Introits have
been omitted, the Lord's Prayer
and Collect for Purity to
be
said aloud. The Decalogue was
introduced, its English
Kyrie-like
response
replacing the ninefold English
Kyrie of 1549. The first
two
commandments were
divided in the tradition of
Zwingli and Tyndale, which
subsequent
Anglican usage would also follow
rather than the medieval
usage
of Luther that added
the second to the end of the
first and split the tenth
into
two. [The Summary of the Law is
not found in either 1549 or
1552,
but came later]. The
Gloria in Excelsis Deo was moved
from its ancient
position
following the Kyrie to the
conclusion of the rite, which
did add an
exuberant and
even eschatological note of joy
at the end. The Prayer for
the
Whole State of Christ's Church
was separated from the former
Canon and
moved much
earlier, to a point just after
the Offertory. All the 1549
Canon's
references to the saints and
prayer for the departed were
removed,
the beneficiaries
of its intercession now being
limited to the living
portion
of the church specified at the
end of its new bidding,
here
italicized: "Let us
pray for the whole state of
Christ's Church militant
here
in earth." The Prayer of Humble
Access was moved from its
pre-communion
location to an
earlier position just after the
Sanctus, and its 1548-1549
reference
to eating the Flesh and drinking
the Blood "in these holy
mysteries"
was removed.
The former
Canon, which now followed, was
drastically abbreviated and
redistributed
in 1552, with the epiclesis
entirely removed, leaving only a
thanksgiving
for Christ's finished work on
Calvary followed by the words of
institution.
The Strasburg reformer Bucer
(who had come to England at
Cranmer's
invitation) had objected to the
outward reverence still shown by
some
priests as they recited the
Canon, and to the presence of
the two signs
of the cross
within the Canon of 1549, which
were now removed. The
priest
was also no longer
directed to take the bread and
cup at the words of the
Lord,
and the prayer did not even end
with an "Amen." The oblation and
final
doxology are moved to a position
after communion is over. [As
early as
1523 Zwingli had
urged that the most
objectionable feature of the
medieval
Canon was that
communion did not immediately
follow consecration]. The
Peace
and "Christ our Paschal Lamb"
were omitted, and the Lord's
Prayer
delayed to a position
after the communion. To avoid
any suggestion of
transubstantiation,
instead of praying that the
bread and wine "may be unto
us"
[the medieval Latin "fiat
nobis"] the body and blood, the
prayer now
merely asks that
we "may be partakers of his most
blessed body and blood."
Both
Benedictus and Agnus Dei were
omitted for the same reason and
also such
manual acts as the
elevation and fraction. [Earlier
on this point, Cranmer
in
1550 had replied to Gardiner:
"We do not pray absolutely that
the bread
and wine may be
made the body and blood of
Christ, but that unto us in that
holy
mystery they may be so, that is,
that we may be partakers..."].
The
words of administration
from the 1549 Book, "The body of
our Lord Jesus Chri
st which
was given for thee, preserve thy
body and soul unto
everlasting
life," were now
dropped (as they might be taken
to imply transubstantiation
or
at least a doctrine of the real
presence) and superseded by
"Take and eat
this, in
remembrance that Christ died for
thee, and feed on him in thy
heart
by faith, with
thanksgiving." [The two sets of
words were fused in the
1559
Book]. Bread "such as
is usual to be eaten at the
table" is to be used,
and
now to be placed into the
communicants' hands. Communion
is now
required three times
a year rather than once. The
Curate is to have what
remains
of the bread and wine "to his
own use." With all the changes
made,
in the rite of 1552
there is no offertory, no
consecration, and no
fraction;
only the communion
remained.
In the
Baptismal service of 1552, the
sign of the cross was retained
over
the objections of
reformers, but the exorcism,
chrismation, and triple
immersion
were all removed. The doctrine
of baptismal regeneration was
more
clearly expressed. In
the Confirmation service of
1552, there appears for
the
first time the beautiful prayer
that begins "Defend, O Lord,
this child
with thy heavenly
grace." In the Burial Office,
there are no prayers for
the
dead, the provision for the
Eucharist at funerals omitted,
and the
minister no longer
directed to cast the earth's
dust into the grave. The
sole
vestments permitted in the 1552
Book are a rochet for bishops
and "a
surplice only" for
priests and deacons; even a hood
or scarf is forbidden,
and
references to chasuble, alb,
tunicle, and cope, and candles
on the
altar, are all gone.
The 1549 service for Ash
Wednesday, with its many
public
cursings, is now transformed
into an even longer "Commination
against
Sinners" to be used
at "divers times in the year"
following Morning Prayer
and
the Litany. The 1549 appendix
entitled "Certain Notes," which
provided
for a fuller use of
vestments and allowed many
individual devotional
practices
on an optional basis, is now
omitted entirely. Music was
virtually
abolished in the 1552 Communion
service, with the Introit,
Psalms,
Kyrie, Creed and
Sanctus all said and only the
Gloria allowed to be sung
as
an alternative. Already
by the time the 1552 Book
appeared, the organ at
St.
Paul's London had ceased to be
used.
AFTERMATH
AND
CONCLUSIONS
The
1552 Book was clearly much more
protestant, but if the 1549 Book
had
been unpopular with the
reformers because it did not go
far enough, there
was even
more dissatisfaction from others
with the Book of 1552,
which
seemed to go entirely
too far in the protestant
direction. That Book lasted
officially
for only a matter of months, as
Edward VI died on July 6,
1553,
as Cranmer's influence
waned, and as the Latin Mass was
restored (by means
of the
same royal supremacy of Crown in
Parliament, not of
Convocation)
under Queen
Mary on December 20, 1553. The
late King Edward, we may
observe,
was buried by Cranmer from
Westminster Abbey using the 1552
reformed
English rite on August 8, with
the new queen not in attendance,
while
(in the spirit of Anglican
comprehensiveness?) at the same
time Bishop
Gardiner
celebrated a Requiem Mass of the
old Latin rite for the dead King
at
the Tower of London in the
presence of the new Queen Mary
and her
Council. Cranmer was
finally burnt at the stake for
heresy under Queen
Mary, at
Oxford on March 21, 1556. Time
hardly permits more than passing
notice
of some of the later Prayer
Books -- the subsequent Books of
1559
(Elizabeth I, who
ascended the throne on November
17, 1558), the first Latin
Book
in 1560 (Liber Precum
Publicarum), 1604 (James I), and
1662 (Charles
II at the
Restoration, the book that is
still legally definitive in
England),
the first Scottish Book of 1637
(representing the liturgical
aims
of the Caroline
Divines, which influenced many
rubrical changes in the
English
Book of 1662 and introduced the
term "Prayer of Consecration"),
the
first American Book of
1789 (which inherited, by the
pledge of Bishop
Seabury,
significant elements of the
Scottish 1637 Book as revised in
1764,
such as the epiclesis
and a prayer of consecration
which in shape and
contents
looked back to 1549), and the
subsequent American Books of
1892,
1928, and the present
one of 1979. The first American
Book of 1789 was
produced by
the first General Convention of
the Episcopal Church, which
met
in Philadelphia in
September the same year, an
earlier Proposed Book of
1786
having in its
latitudinarian doctrine seemed
too radical a departure
from
the English Book of
1662. In 1805, soon after the
appearance of the first
American
Book, it would be a young priest
named John Henry Hobart,
later
bishop of New York and
founder of the General
Theological Seminary, who
published
what is arguably the first
American Prayer Book commentary.
In
conclusion let us return to the
beginning of the Preface to the
1549
Book: "There was never
any thing by the wit of man so
well devised, or so
surely
established, which (in
continuance of time) hath not
been corrupted:
as (among
other things) it may plainly
appear by the common prayers in
the
Church, commonly called
divine service." If this was
indeed the case, it is
also
true that the first Act of
Uniformity in 1549 and the first
Book of
Common Prayer that
it imposed, marked the first
time in English history
that
liturgical uniformity
had been imposed by royal
supremacy. It has been
doubted
whether "the people" of
sixteenth-century England, if
they could
have been offered
a process of "trial use" such as
the Episcopal Church
pursued
in developing its Book of 1979,
would have ever voted for a
uniform
vernacular liturgy
in one single Book. It was
certainly the case that the
plurality
of late medieval service books
so disparaged in the Preface
of
1549 was hardly many more
than the six or so that now
became necessary in
1549:
the Book of Common Prayer
itself, the Bible, the Psalter,
the Ordinal,
the Book of
Homilies, and the musical
notation. [Today, by comparison,
an
even greater plethora is
needed in the Episcopal Church:
Book of Common
Prayer,
Bible, usually a Book of the
Gospels, Hymnal, a couple of
hymnal
supplements, Lesser
Feasts and Fasts, Book of
Occasional Services,
Enriching
our Worship,
Revised Common Lectionary, and a
current church calendar].
Likewise
in retrospect the plurality of
medieval usages that the
original
Preface cites does
not seem to have been any great
problem then, for Sarum
was
used nearly everywhere, and, by
comparison, today a plurality of
local
usages is accepted in
most parts of the Anglican
world. Nor did the new
Book
of 1549 itself constitute a
"people's edition for pew or
pocket," for
nearly all of
its first printings were of
altar size (almost a foot
high)
for the clergy, and
most laity at that time could
not yet read so well
anyway.
In spite of the corruption,
confusion, and plurality of
medieval
books and usages
cited in the first Preface, the
imposition of reformed
doctrine
upon the Eucharist, especially
of the new understanding of
justification
by faith and of changed concepts
of sacrifice and real
presence
in the Canon, not cited there,
seems to have been the principal
aim
of the new Book itself.
Even this intention can be
questioned in its
results,
for as the eucharistic emphasis
shifted from an offering
focussed
towards God to a
change desired in the faithful
who received, the
foundations
were certainly laid for a
worship that could seem
more
subjective and less
objective, more people- centered
and less God-centered.
Here
then was a liturgical uniformity
that was also aimed at doctrinal
control,
at the measured introduction of
reformed doctrine while at the
same
time regulating its
limits, even though that purpose
was not indicated nor
those
doctrines specified in the new
Book's Preface (which,
curiously, was
not written
with reference to the
eucharistic service anyway, or
with
reference to the
doctrine of Justification by
Faith). The situation thus
became
almost the reverse of the dictum
of Prosper of Aquitaine that
prayer
establishes belief,
for now there was a new and
reformed lex credendi, even
if
not always clear or consistent,
that by numerous verbal changes
both
subtle and clever was
giving birth to a new lex
orandi. This new approach,
treating
liturgy as a matter of uniform
positive law rather than of
diverse
traditions regulated
by benevolent oversight, was
followed only two decades
later
by a similar development in the
Roman Church, the Quo Primum of
Pope
Pius V, which imposed a
new uniform Missal, the
Tridentine, upon the entire
Roman
Church in 1570 and must be
linked with similar impositions
of one
uniform Breviary in
1568, of the Roman Pontifical in
1596, and of the Roman
Ritual
of 1614. There is a striking
parallel between the English
Prayer
Books, which in
several copies of the 1552 and
later editions display the
pertinent
Act of Uniformity within the
books themselves, and the
Roman
Missals and
Breviaries, which similarly
print the bulls authorizing
them.
In many churches of
the west a new era of centrally
regulated worship,
clearly
prizing unity in doctrine more
than unbounded pluralism
and
individual conscience,
was beginning.
Was such
a liturgical unity any more
desirable for the English Church
of
1549 in its isolated
island location at that time
than it is for
Anglicans/Episcopalians
in the diverse, confusing, and
exciting ecumenical
world of
today? Even if liturgical
uniformity enforced by royal
supremacy
has never been an
adequate or credible definition
of Anglicanism, is there
yet
some lasting value for us in the
unity that the Book of Common
Prayer
has come to
symbolize? For some Anglicans in
1999, the situation at the
third
millennium calls for a renewed
appreciation of the goal of
unity, now
symbolized for
Episcopalians in the Prayer Book
of 1979 and possible
revision
thereof, while for others the
brave new world of 2000 calls
for an
embrace of worship
without binding or
boundaries.
BOOKS
CONSULTED
TEXTS AND
FACSIMILES:
Colin Buchanan,
ed. Eucharistic Liturgies of
Edward VI: A Text for Students.
(Bramcote, Notts.,
England:
Grove Books, 1983; Grove
Liturgical Study no. 34).Colin
Buchanan, ed. Background
Documents to Liturgical Revision
1547-1549. (Bramcote,
Notts.,
England: Grove
Books, 1983; Grove Liturgical
Study no.
35).John Edward
Field. The English Liturgies of
1549 and 1661. (London:
S.P.C.K., 1920).E.C.S. Gibson,
ed. The First and Second Prayer
Books of Edward VI. (London:
J.M. Dent &
Sons, 1910;
Everyman's Library no. 448).John
Henry Hobart. Commentary on the
Book of Common Prayer. (New
York, 1805).Stephen A. Hurlbut.
The Liturgy of the Church of
England before and after the
Reformation.
(Washington
D.C.: The St. Albans Press,
1941).Joseph Ketley, ed. The Two
Liturgies, A.D. 1549, and A.D.
1552: with Other Documents
Set
Forth by Authority in the Reign
of King Edward VI. (Cambridge:
University Press, 1844; Parker
Society).Vernon Staley, ed. The
First Prayer Book of King Edward
VI. (London: De La More
Press,
1903; Library of
Liturgiology & Ecclesiology
for English Readers).The ‘Book
of Common Prayer' as Issued in
the Year 1549, in the Reign of
King Edward the
Sixth,
being The Original Edition of
The Prayer Book. Privately
Reproduced in Facsimile
from
a Copy of the Original
Edition for Mr. G. Moreton, Seal
Chart, near Sevenoaks, Kent.
1896.
The Book of Common
Prayer Printed by Whitchurch
March 1549 Commonly Called The
First
Book of Edward VI.
(London: William Pickering,
1844; facsimile). The Supper of
the Lord
and the Holy
Communion Commonly Called The
Mass according to the English
Rite of 1549
with
Additional Prayers and Prefaces.
(London: Society of SS. Peter
& Paul, 1912).
SECONDARY STUDIES:
John
E. Booty, ed. The Godly Kingdom
of Tudor England. (Wilton, CT:
Morehouse-Barlow, 1981)F.E.
Brightman and K.D. Mackenzie,
"The History of the Book of
Common Prayer down to
1662,"
pp. 130-197 of
Liturgy and Worship: A Companion
to the Prayer Books of the
Anglican Communion,
ed.
W.K. Lowther Clarke and Charles
Harris. (London: S.P.C.K.,
1932).G.W. Bromily. Thomas
Cranmer Theologian. (New York:
Oxford University Press,
1956).Stella Brook. The Language
of the Book of Common Prayer.
(New York: Oxford
University
Press, 1965).Peter Brooks.
Thomas Cranmer's Doctrine of the
Eucharist: An Essay in
Historical
Development. (New York: Seabury
Press, 1965).Catalogue of an
Exhibition commemorating the
Four Hundredth Anniversary
of
the Introduction of the
Book of Common Prayer. (London:
Trustees of the
British
Museum, 1949).A.H. Couratin. The
Service of Holy Communion
1549-1662. (London:
S.P.C.K.,
1963).G.J. Cuming.
A History of Anglican Liturgy.
(London: Macmillan and Co.,
2nd
ed., 1982).Horton Davies.
Worship and Theology in England:
From Cranmer to Hooker,
1534-1603.
(Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1970).James A. Devereux,
S. J., "The Collects of the
First Book of Common Prayer
as
Works of Translation," Studies
in Philology 66 (5 October
1969), 719-738.James A.
Devereux, S.J., "Reformed
Doctrine in the Collects of the
first
Book of Common
Prayer." Harvard Theological
Review 58 (1965), 49-68.
Gregory
Dix. The Shape of the Liturgy.
(Westminster: Dacre Press, 2nd
ed.,
1945).Martin Dudley.
The Collect in Anglican Liturgy.
(Collegeville: Liturgical
Press,
1994).Eamon Duffy. The Stripping
of the Altars: Traditional
Religion in England
c.
1400-c. 1580. (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1992).C.W.
Dugmore. "The First Ten Years,
1549-59," pp. 6-30 of The
English
Prayer Book
1549-1662. (London: S.P.C.K. for
the Alcuin Club, 1963).C.W.
Dugmore. The Mass and the
English Reformers. (London:
Macmillan and
Co.,
1958).Marion J. Hatchett.
Commentary on the American
Prayer Book. (New York:
Seabury
Press, 1980).Cheslyn Jones,
Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward
Yarnold, and Paul Bradshaw, eds.
The
Study of Liturgy. (London:
S.P.C.K., rev. 1992).D.
Broughton Knox. The Lord's
Supper from Wycliffe to Cranmer.
(Exeter:
Paternoster Press,
1983).Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Thomas Cranmer: A Life. (New
Haven: Yale University
Press,
1996).Judith Maltby. Prayer Book
and People in Elizabethan and
Early Stuart
England.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998).Edward C. Ratcliff.
The Booke of Common Prayer of
the Churche of England:
Its
Making and Revisions
MDXLIX-MDCLXI set forth in
Eighty Illustrations,
with
Introduction and Notes. (London:
S.P.C.K., 1949).Edward C.
Ratcliff. "The Liturgical Work
of Archbishop Cranmer."
Journal
of Ecclesiastical
History 7:2 (October 1956),
189-203.Cyril C. Richardson.
"Cranmer and the Analysis of
Eucharistic Doctrine."
Journal
of Theological Studies n.s. 16
(1965), 421-437.Thaddeus A.
Schnitker. The Church's Worship.
(Frankfurt am Main: Peter
Lang,
1989; European University
Studies, series 23, vol.
351).Massey H. Shepherd, Jr. The
Oxford American Prayer Book
Commentary. (New
York:
Oxford University Press,
1950).William Sydnor. The Story
of the Real Prayer Book.
(Wilton, CT: Morehouse
Publishing,
1989).
Stephen Sykes,
John Booty, and Jonathan Knight,
eds. The Study of
Anglicanism.
(London: S.P.C.K., rev.
1998).
ENDNOTES
(1)
My own copy in my personal
collection of Prayer Books,
which I have
examined for
this purpose, is the June 1549
printing by Whitchurche of
London.
(2)
Gregory Dix. The Shape of the
Liturgy. (Westminster: Dacre
Press, 2nd
ed., 1945), p.
686. One marvels at the thought
of the abrupt change at St.
Paul's,
where for years on Whitsunday
there had been the custom for "a
great
censer, emitting
clouds of sweet smoke and
sparks, to be swung from
the
roof," according to
Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of
the Altars: Traditional
Religion
in England c. 1400-c. 1580 (New
Haven: Yale University
Press,
1992), p. 459.
(3)
Geoffrey Cuming. A History of
Anglican Liturgy. (London:
Macmillan and
Co., 1969), p.
77.
(4) W. Taylor Stevenson,
"Lex Orandi Lex Credendi" in
Stephen Sykes, John
Booty,
and Jonathan Knight, eds., The
Study of Anglicanism.
(London:
S.P.C.K., rev.
1998), p. 189.
(5) Horton
Davies. Worship and Theology in
England: From Cranmer to Hooker,
1534-1603.
(Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1970), p. xv.
(6) J.
Robert Wright, "Anglicanism,
Ecclesia Anglicana, and
Anglican: An
Essay on
Terminology," pp. 477-483 of The
Study of Anglicanism, ed.
Stephen
Sykes, John Booty, and Jonathan
Knight (London: S.P.C.K.,
rev.
1998).
(7) Louis
Weil, "The Gospel in
Anglicanism" in Stephen Sykes,
John Booty,
and Jonathan
Knight, eds., The Study of
Anglicanism (London: S.P.C.K.,
rev.
1998), p. 64.
