Liber Festivalis. [A book of medieval English Homilies, printed by Caxton.] Salisbury Breviary "reformed." [1st ed.] Mirror of our Lady. [A translation of and commentary on the Daily Offices of Syon and the Mass.] 1540 Hilsey's Prymer The "Great Bible" set up in Churches as the "Authorized Version" Salisbury Use further reformed, and adopted (by order of the Convocation) throughout the Province of Canterbury Committee of Convocation commissioned to revise Service-books English Litany ordered for use in Churches King Henry VIII.'s Prymer Archbishop Hermann's Consultation [German, 1543; Latin, 1545], printed in English, 1547; reprinted. Second Year English Order of Communion added to Latin Mass 1541 1542-49 June 11, 1544 1545 Received Royal Assent as part of Act of Uniformity [2 and 3 Edw. VI. c. 1]. [Probably at prorogation of Parliament on Taken into general use English Ordinal Book of Common Prayer. [Second Book of Edward VI.]— [Committee of Convocation commissioned, probably . Passed through Parliament as part of Act of Uniformity [5 and 6 Edw. VI. c. 1] Acts of Uniformity (including Prayer Books) repealed by 1 Mary, sess. ii. c. 2 Revised Tables of Lessons authorized by 34 and 35 Vict. c. 37 Shortened Order for Morning and Evening Prayer authorized by 35 and 36 Vict. c. 35 AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE PRAYER BOOK. THE HE Book of Common Prayer remained altogether unaltered for more than two centuries, the new Tables of Lessons of 1871 being the first change made since it was revised, after the great persecution of the Church by the Puritans, in 1661. But the various stages of its developement from the ancient formularies of the Church of England extended through a period of one hundred and fifty years; and the history of that developement is of the highest importance to those who wish to understand and use the Prayer Book, as well as of considerable interest to all from the fact of its being an integral part of our national history. The Church of England has had distinctive formularies of its own as far back as the details of its customs in respect to Divine Worship can be traced. The earliest history of these formularies is obscure, but there is good reason to believe that they were derived, through Lyons, from the great patriarchate of Ephesus, in which St. John spent the latter half of his life. There was an intimate connection between the Churches of France and England in the early ages of Christianity, of which we still have a memorial in the ancient French saints of our Calendar; and when St. Augustine came to England, he found the same rites used as he had observed in France, remarking upon them that they differed in many particulars from those of Rome. It is now a well-established opinion that this ancient Gallican Liturgy came from Ephesus. But there can be no doubt that several waves of Christianity, perhaps of Apostolic Christianity, passed across our island; and the Ephesine or Johannine element in the ancient Prayer Books of the Church of England probably represents but the strongest of those waves, and the predominating influence which mingled with itself others of a less powerful character. It was in the sixth century [A.D. 596] that the great and good St. Augustine undertook his missionary work among the West Saxons. The mission seems to have been sent from St. Augustine and Rome by Gregory the Great under the impression that the inhabitants of England the old English were altogether heathen; and if he or Augustine were not unacquainted with what Liturgy. St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, and others had said respecting the early evangelization of Britain, they had evidently concluded that the Church founded in Apostolic times was extinct. When Augustine arrived in England, he found that, although the West Saxons were heathen, and had driven the Church into the highlands of Wales by their persecution, yet seven bishops remained alive, and a large number of clergy, who had very strong views about the independence of the Church of England, and were unprepared to receive the Roman missionary except on terms of equality. The chief difficulty felt by St. Augustine arose from the difference just referred to between the religious system of Italy, the Church of which was the only one the missionary priests were at that time acquainted with, and the systems of France and England. This difficulty, a great one to a man so conscientious and simple-minded, he submitted to Gregory in the form of questions, and among them was the following one on the subject of Divine Worship: "Whereas the Faith is one, why are the customs of Churches various? and why is one manner of celebrating the Holy Communion used in the holy Roman Church, and 1See PALMER'S Origines Liturg. i. 153. NEALE and FORBES' Gallican Liturgies, FREEMAN's Principles of Divine Service, ii. 399. A се another in that of the Gauls?" This diversity becomes even more prominent in the words which Augustine addressed to the seven Bishops of the ancient Church of England, when they met in conference at the place afterwards called St. Augustine's Oak. "You act," said he, "in many particulars contrary to our customs, or rather, to the customs of the universal Church, and yet, if you will comply with me in these three points, viz. to keep Easter at the due time; to perform the administration of baptism, by which we are born again to God, according to the custom of the holy Roman and Apostolic Church; and jointly with us to preach the Word of God to the English nation, we will readily tolerate all your other customs, though contrary to our own." The answer of St. Gregory contained wise and Catholic advice; and to it we owe, under Providence, the continued usé of an independent form of Divine Worship in the Church of England from that day to the present. "You, my brother," said Gregory, "are acquainted with the customs of the Roman Church in which you were brought up. But it is my pleasure that if you have found anything either in the Roman or the Gallican or any other Church which may be more acceptable to Almighty God, you carefully make choice of the same; and sedulously teach the Church of the English, which is at present new in the Faith, whatsoever you can gather from the several Churches. For things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things. Select, therefore, from each Church those things that are pious, religious, and correct; and when you have made these up into one body, instil this into the minds of the English for their Use." [GREG. Opera, ii. 1151, Bened. ed.; BEDE'S Eccl. Hist. i. 27.] The Liturgy of the Roman Church spoken of in this reply is represented by the ancient Sacramentary of St. Gregory, to which such frequent references are given in the following pages: that of the Gallican Church is also partly extant,1 and has been shewn (as was mentioned before) to be derived from the Liturgy of the Church of Ephesus. The words "any other Church" might be supposed to refer to an independent English Liturgy, but there is no reference to any in the question to which Gregory is replying, and he evidently knew nothing of England except through Augustine. From other writers it seems that the Liturgy of England or Britain before this time had been the same with that of France; but the native Clergy always alleged that their distinctive customs were derived from St. John. Being thus advised by St. Gregory, the holy missionary endeavoured to deal as gently as possible with those whose customs of Divine Worship differed from his own; but his prepossessions in favour of the Roman system were very strong, and he used all his influence to get it universally adopted throughout the country. Uniformity in all details was not, however, attainable. The national feeling of the ancient Church steadily adhered to the ancient rite for many years; while the feeling of the Church founded by St. Augustine was in favour of a rite more closely in agreement with that of Rome. As collision was the first natural consequence of this state of things, so some degree of amalgamation as naturally followed in course of time; that which was local, or national, mingling with that which was foreign in the English devotional system, as it did in the English race itself. Some attempts were made, as in the Council of Cloveshoo [A.D. 747], to enforce the Roman Liturgy upon all the dioceses of the country, but it is certain that the previous devotional customs of the land had an exceedingly tenacious hold upon the Clergy and the people, and that no efforts could ever wholly extirpate them.2 bury. At the time of the Conquest another vigorous attempt was made to secure uniformity of Divine Service throughout the country, and with the most pious intentions. St. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, The "Use" of Salis- and Chancellor of England, collecting together a large body of skilled clergy, remodelled the Offices of the Church, and left behind him the famous Portiforium or Breviary of Sarum, containing the Daily Services; together with the Sarum Missal, containing the Communion Service; and, probably, the Sarum Manual, containing the Baptismal and other "occasional" Offices. These, and some other Service-books, constituted the "Sarum Use," that is, the Prayer Book of the diocese of Salisbury. It was first adopted for that diocese in A.D. 1085, and 1 See the names Menard, Muratori, and Mabillon, in the List of Authorities. The Gregorian and Gallican Liturgies are also printed in HAMMOND'S Liturgies, Eastern and Western, Oxford, 1878. 2 See MASKELL's Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England, Preface, p. liv. 3 St. Osmund, who was canonized in A.D. 1456, was a nephew of William the Conqueror, being the son of the king's sister Isabella and Henry, Count of Séez. He was the second Bishop of Salisbury [A.D. 1078-1099] after the foundation of that diocese by the consolidation of the Sees of Ramsbury and Sherborne in A. D. 1058 and 1075. St. Osmund was the principal builder of the Cathedral of Old Sarum, a small fortified hill a few miles distant from the present city. This cathedral was taken down, and that of New Sarum, or Salisbury, the existing cathedral, built in the place of it, in A.D. 1225: the remains of St. Osmund being removed thither. was introduced into other parts of England so generally that it became the principal devotional Rule of the Church of England, and continued so for more than four centuries and a half: "the Church of Salisbury," says a writer of the year 1256, "being conspicuous above all other Churches like the sun in the heavens, diffusing its light everywhere, and supplying their defects."1 Other Uses continued to hold their place in the dioceses of Lincoln, Hereford, and Bangor, and through the greater part of the Province of York; though in the diocese of Durham the Salisbury system was followed. At St. Paul's Cathedral, and perhaps throughout the diocese of London, there was an independent Use until A.D. 1414. For about a hundred and fifty years before the Prayer Book era there was some displacement of the Sarum Use by Roman customs in Monasteries, Monastic Churches (though not at Durham), and perhaps in Parish Churches served by Monastic clergy: but the "Use" itself was not superseded to any great extent even in these. The Salisbury Use, that of York, and that of Hereford, are well known to modern ritualists.2 They appear to be traceable to a common origin; but they differ in so many respects from the Roman Breviary, and even from the Missal (with which a closer agreement might have been expected), that they clearly derive their common origin from a source independent of the Roman Church. And, whatever quarter they may have been derived from in the first instance, it is equally clear that the forms of Divine Service now known to us under these names represent a system which was naturalized so many ages ago, that it had been entitled to the name of an independent English rite for at least a thousand years. 3 During all this time the public Services of the Church were said in Latin, for Latin had been auring some ages the most generally understood language in the world, and was spoken vernacularly in France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy (the modern languages of all which countries were formed from it) down to a comparatively late time, as it is now spoken in Hungary. In England the Latin language was almost as familiar to educated persons as it was upon the Continent; but the poor and uneducated knew no other tongue than their native English, and for these the Church did the best that could be done to provide some means by which they might make an intelligent use of Divine Service. From the earliest periods we find injunctions imposed upon the Clergy that they should be careful to teach the people the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in their own tongue. Thus, in A.D. 740 there was a canon of Egbert, Archbishop of York, to the effect, "that every priest do with great exactness instil the Lord's Prayer and Creed into the people committed to him, and shew them to endeavour after the knowledge of the whole of religion, and the practice of Christianity." About the same time, in the Southern Province, it is ordered "that they instil the Creed into them, that they may know what to believe, and what to hope for." Two centuries later there is a canon of Elfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, enjoining the clergy to "speak the sense of the Gospel to the people in English, and of the Pater noster, and the Creed, as often as he can, for the inciting of the people to know their belief, and retaining their Christianity."5 Similar injunctions are to be found in the laws of Canute in the eleventh century, the constitutions of Archbishop Peckham in the thirteenth, and in the canons of many diocesan synods, of various dates in the mediaval period. Many expositions of the Creed, Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, and other principal formulæ, are also to be found in English, and these give testimony to the same anxious desire of the Church to make the most use possible of the language spoken by the poor of the day. Interlinear translations of some, at least, of the Offices were also provided, especially of the Litany, just as the English and Welsh Prayer Book, or the Latin and English Missal of the Roman Catholics, are printed in parallel columns in modern times. But in days when books were scarce, and when few could read, little could be done towards giving to the people at large this intelligent acquaintance with the Services except by oral instruction of the kind indicated. Yet the writing-rooms of the Monasteries did what they could towards multiplying books for the purpose; and some provision was made, even for the poorest, by means of horn-books, on which the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Angelic Salutation were written. The following is an 1 At an even earlier date [A. D. 1200] the chronicler Brompton says that the Custom-book of Salisbury was used almost all over England, Wales, and Ireland. [BROMPTON's Chron. 977.] These three English Uses alone were of sufficient importance to ensure the dignity of appearing in print while they were living rites. Hereford barely secured that honour, while Salisbury is represented by at least a hundred editions; the Sarum Breviary alone having been printed some forty or fifty | times between 1483 and 1557. 3 JOHNSON'S Eng. Canons, i. 186. 4 Ibid. 248. 5 Ibid. 398. It must be remembered that English was not spoken universally by the upper classes for some centuries after the Conquest. In 1362 an Act of Parliament was passed enjoining all schoolmasters to teach their scholars to translate into English instead of French. |