The Prayer Book Through the Ages

A Revised Edition of The Story of the Real Prayer Book

William Sydnor

• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
• Year: 1997
• Print ISBN: 9780819215093
• eBook ISBN: 9780819224743
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

An exploration of the history of the Book of Common Prayer and its revisions, beginning with the 1549 English Prayer Book and continuing up to the present.

This revised and expanded version finishes the story of the final adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Sydnor explores why each revision was necessary, what was changed, added, omitted, as well as what was retained in the "new" book.

By understanding the delicate balance between the need for change and the preservation of what is timeless, William Sydnor believes that Episcopalians will "find anew that common ground of common prayer which is our legacy, our inspiration, and our joy."

CHAPTER I

AN EXTRAORDINARY BOOK

When you put pen to paper, you expect your written word to endure long enough to carry out its intended purpose. That may be only a matter of minutes or hours for some minor note or message. It may be a matter of days or years for something more permanent. Thomas Cranmer who was Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI never dreamed that the fruit of his pen would differ from that pattern. He certainly did not foresee that the Book of Common Prayer which he and a few colleagues compiled and which first appeared in March 1549 would still be in use over 400 years later. He could not have imagined that its phrases and services would become so embedded in the minds of English-speaking folk around the globe that the celebration of life’s milestone events—baptism, marriage, burial—would naturally be expressed in his venerable words.

This extraordinary piece of liturgical history deserves to be rehearsed and known for it belongs to all of us regardless of our ecclesiastical affiliation.

Here, then, is the story of that 440 years in the life of the Book of Common Prayer. There have been eight times through the centuries when this venerable book of worship and devotion might have been retired to a dusty shelf and forgotten. But instead, it was revised, updated, and with renewed vitality leads a new generation of worshippers into God’s presence.

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST ENGLISH PRAYER BOOKS, 1549 AND 1552

The first Book of Common Prayer was published in March, 1549, and has come to be known as the First Book of Edward VI, the King of England at the time. It was not the work of one man, although Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII and Edward VI, is certainly the mastermind behind it.

There were several conditions which interacted and resulted in the creation of that 1549 Book. The first of these was the fact that the Roman Church of Cranmer’s day functioned with at least six different liturgical books which had been in regular use in the West since the eleventh, possibly the ninth century—the Missale which contained the Canon of the Mass; the Breviarium, which contained the Daily Offices or Hour Services; the Processionale, litanies which were used in procession; the Manuale, containing the occasional offices needed by a presbyter (Baptism through Burial); the Pontyicale, rites conducted by a bishop; and the Ordinale, rules for the conduct of rites. These books were not universally the same; local usage dictated their contents. And there was widespread discontent with the medieval services.

There was also the renewal of scholarship in the Renaissance and a rediscovery of the Bible. These were the parents of an attitude of mind called “the New Learning.” One indication of this “New Learning” which contributed toward subsequent liturgical reform was William Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament in 1524.

In England two political events accelerated the momentum of liturgical reform. The first was that the attitude toward Lutheranism on the continent began to change, starting about 1532-34, the time when Henry VIII decided to break with Rome. The momentum of this changing attitude toward liturgical reform is reflected in the cascade of publications during the decade and a half between 1534 and the Act of Uniformity of 1549. Marion Hatchett lists 18 documents of various kinds which influenced the creation of that Prayer Book.¹

During those same years the Bible was also caught up in the vortex of liturgical change. One of the ironies and also one of the indications of how fast events were moving is seen in what happened to Tyndale and his New Testament. When copies of his work, which was printed in Cologne in 1525, reached England, Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII sent messengers to track him down and capture him, but he escaped to the continent, where in 1535 he was arrested. In 1536, he was executed at the stake. Only one year after Tyndale had died for translating the New Testament into English, editions of the Sarum Primer appeared by order of Edward Lee, Archbishop of York, with the liturgical Epistles and Gospels in English. The translation was Tyndale’s.

Epistles and Gospels in English were just a beginning. Within a year—1538—English Bibles were placed in every church by order of Cromwell, the King’s Vicar-General. The order cautioned that they “might be read, only without noise, or disturbance of any public service, and without any disputation or exposition” In 1539, the Crown issued the Great Bible. It was the work of Miles Coverdale, who leaned heavily on the martyred Tyndale’s translation. By 1543, the Convocation of Canterbury, the assembly of bishops and clergy,² had authorized the reading of “one chapter in English without exposition” after the Te Deum and Magnificat. This increasingly widespread substitution of English for Latin Scriptures opened the way for a similar change in the prayers.

So, as Percy Dearmer observes, the lectern from which the Bible is read reminds us of the first stage of reform which ultimately produced the Prayer Book.

The second political event which accelerated momentum toward liturgical reform occurred in 1544, Emperor Charles V of Spain sought the help of Henry VIII in forcing France to make peace. This gave new impetus to liturgical change in two ways. The first was that Henry ordered processions to be said or sung throughout the province of Canterbury—a normal practice in times of emergency. This occasioned the first Litany in English, and it was full of phrases which later appeared in the Prayer Book. (So the Litany desk reminds us of the next stage of liturgical reform.) The second was that the determination of Catholic Charles V to subdue the Protestants on the continent caused a number of prominent continental divines to flee to England from persecution at home. Notable among these scholars were Peter Martyr (in December, 1547) and Martin Bucer (in April, 1549). Cranmer, the liturgical scholar, encouraged this influx of learned men. They arrived too late to influence the 1549 Book, but they certainly contributed toward the revision in 1552.

Although all of these factors and pressures were moving the church closer to significant liturgical change, nothing further happened during the closing years of Henry’s reign. There was some experimentation with services in English but that was all.

Henry died in 1546; Edward VI came to the throne in January, 1547. He was a boy of eleven years and was being brought up in the “New Learning.” His religious inclinations were supported by the protector, Somerset, and the rest of the Council. So experimentation with services in English began almost immediately. In the spring of 1549, Compline, Matins, the Mass, and Evensong were said in English in London, and the service on the anniversary of Henry VIII’s death was sung in English at Westminster Abbey. These were probably early, perhaps experimental, drafts of the first Prayer Book services.

The work of compiling the first Prayer Book got underway officially when Convocation appointed a committee consisting of Archbishop Cranmer and certain of “the most learned and discreet bishops, and other learned men” to “consider and ponder a uniform, quiet, and godly order.” This committee of six bishops and six learned men met with the Archbishop at Chertsey Abbey on September 9, 1548. Four of them represented the “Old Learning,” two were moderates, and the rest favored the “New Learning.” Their discussions lasted only three weeks, “after which the New Order was delivered to the king at Windsor.”

The committee was supposedly unanimously in favor of the proposed Book, but in the debate in the House of Lords, it was evident that they were not, and when the final vote was taken Day, Skip, and Robertson, Bishops of Chichester, Hereford, and Westminster respectively, voted against it. Moreover, because the committee worked with such speed, they were no doubt working from a previously prepared draft. Cranmer had done a great deal of work on drafts of Matins and Evensong which were already in print. The traditional Epistles and Gospels and the Litany were already in English. “The Order of Communion,” which Parliament had authorized for use in March, 1548, needed little revision. Cranmer had been at work on the services of Baptism and Matrimony. And various primers had Burial services which pointed the way. The principal issue was the Canon of the Mass.

In December, 1548, the Houses of Parliament considered the first Prayer Book, and on January 21, 1549, they passed the Act of Uniformity making it the official Prayer Book of the realm. The bishops in the House of Lords voted 10 to 8 for it. What action Convocation took is unknown (the records of Convocation in this reign are incomplete). On January 23, the king wrote to Bishop Bonner asserting that the Book was “set forth not only by the common agreement and full assent of the nobility and commons of the last session of the late Parliament but also by the like consent of the bishops in the same Parliament and of all other learned men of this realm in their synods and convocations provincial”³ June 9, 1549, was the date fixed by the Act for the Book to be in use everywhere.

That first Book is described by Percy Dearmer as “an English simplification, condensation, and reform of the old Latin services, done with great care and reverence and in a genuine desire to remove the degeneracy of the Medieval rites by a return to antiquity.”⁴ It went on sale on Thursday, March 7, for 2 shillings in paperback, 3 shillings 4 pence for hard cover. It was first used in “divers parishes in London” on the first Sunday in Lent, March 10. By Whitsunday (June 9), when it was to be in general use, the price had risen to 2 shillings 2 pence for paperback and 4 shillings for hard cover.

The book was entitled THE BOOKE OF THE COMMON PRAYER AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTES, AND OTHER RITES AND CEREMONIES OF THE CHURCHE AFTER THE USE OF THE CHURCHE OF ENGLAND. That long title is saying that the book covers services previously contained in the Breviary, the Missal, the Processional, and the Manual. The Pontifical section was added about a year later.

Were you to leaf through the 1549 Book, here are some details which might catch your eye:

Matins (sometimes spelled Mattyns or Mattins) and Evensong both begin with the Lord’s Prayer and versicles. The sequence of each service is the familiar one. The first lesson is followed by the Te Deum or Benedicite omnia opera and the second by the Benedictus. In Evensong, the canticles are the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis. The Apostles’ Creed is only indicated by a rubric. The Athanasian Creed is to be “sung or said” six times a year—Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday. There is no mention of the Creed in Evensong. Each service ends with the Third Collect. These two services simplify the devotions previously found in the Breviary. Matins is a combining of medieval Matins, Lauds, and Prime. Evensong combines Vespers and Compline. The “little hours” of Terce, Sext, and None are discarded. The pattern of two lessons is a break with the traditional three lessons.

The title, “The Supper of the Lorde and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Masse,” suggests the sources. “The Supper of the Lorde” is the title Archbishop Hermann of Cologne (1536) used for the service. “The Masse” is both the medieval and Lutheran name for it. “The Holy Communion” is a vernacular name now for the first time applied to the whole service. The structure of the service is based closely on the medieval form. This is the order:

The Lord’s Prayer

Collect for Purity (“Almighty God unto whom all hearts are open . . .”)

Introit Psalm

Kyrie

Gloria in excelsis

Collect of the day

Prayers for the King

Epistle

Gospel

Nicene Creed

Sermon and/or an Exhortation

Offertory

Sursum Corda—“Lift up your hearts”

Sanctus

The Canon, beginning with the prayer for the whole state of Christ’s church and ending with the Lord’s Prayer

The Peace (“The Peace of the Lord be always with you”) “Christ our Pascall lambe is offered for us . . .”

The Invitation (“Ye who do truly and earnestly repent . . .”)

General Confession

Absolution

Comfortable Words

Prayer of Humble Access (“We do not presume to come . . .”) Communion (“In the Communion tyme the Clarkes

shall syng” the Agnus Dei)

Postcommunion Thanksgiving

“The Peace of God . . .”

The rubrics contain directives that those who intend to commune 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.” They further direct that there be “Communion in both kindes,” that the wafers are to be “without all manner of print” and be placed in the people’s mouths, and that “all must attend weekly, but need communicate but once a year.” There is a significant departure from the medieval Latin rite in the Prayer of Consecration. The Latin rite had no invocation of the Holy Spirit. The Latin rite accented the centrality of the words of institution in the Middle Ages by such new ceremonies as the Elevation of the Host. Cranmer corrected this straying from tradition by inserting the invocation of the Holy Spirit from Eastern practice (mainly the Eastern Liturgy of Saint Basil). He inserted the words, “w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Preface
• Chapter I An Extraordinary Book
• Chapter II The First English Prayer Books, 1549 and 1552
• Chapter III The Book of 1559
• Chapter IV The Book of 1604
• Chapter V The Book of 1662
• Chapter VI The First American Prayer Book, 1789
• Chapter VII The Book of 1892
• Chapter VIII The Book of 1928
• Chapter IX The Book of 1979
• Chapter X Prospective—Looking Forward
• Chapter XI A Universal Treasure
• Chapter XII What Lies Ahead
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index