6

I

Preface.

CHAPTER I.

N the admonition entitled Concerning the Service of the Church which succeeds if indeed it does not rather form a part of the preface to the present book of Common Prayer of the reformed church of England, we find the following:

"And whereas heretofore there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in churches within this realm; some following Salisbury use, some Hereford use, and some the use of Bangor, some of York, some of Lincoln; now from henceforth all the whole realm shall have but one use."

In this passage the word heretofore does not relate to the time immediately preceding the last review of the common Prayer book in 1662, for during more than one hundred years (with the exception of the period of the rebellion and the ascendancy of presbyterians and independents) there had been only one use of saying and singing in English parish churches. We must go back to the beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth, and beyond that again to the year 1549, when the first book of king Edward the sixth having been approved by convocation was put forth and enjoined by the authority of the parliament and the crown. We find in the preface to that book almost word for word the same injunction or admonition.

b

So, the "Act for the uniformity of publick prayers, and administering the sacraments and other rites and ceremonies, &c. in the church of England" (14 Car. II.) begins: "Whereas in the first year of the late queen Elizabeth, there was one uniform order of common service and prayer, and of the administration of the sacraments, rites, and ceremonies of the church of England." And the act alluded to, the first of Elizabeth, refers in like manner to the last year of Edward the sixth, declaring that then also there was "one uniform order." These statutes, we may therefore say, recognise the previous existence of various allowed forms or uses.

There are certainly some who very imperfectly understand what is meant by these old uses of the church of England; they have often remarked the passage which I have quoted from the preface to the Prayer book, and would be glad to learn something about it.' Wheatley and Shepherd, authors generally appealed to, pass over without remark "the Preface:" the latter however 2 in his introduction does say that "it is deserving of notice, that hitherto there had not been in England any one service established by public authority for the general use of the church. In the southern parts of the island the offices according to the use of Sarum, and in the northern those of York, were generally followed. In south Wales the offices of Hereford were adopted, and in north Wales those of Bangor," &c. and so he passes on. Nor does Dr. Nicholls in his commentary make any remark

1 I leave this passage as it stood in the second edition of this book, in 1846; since that time a good deal has been written and published about the English

common Prayer book, giving much evidence of research and enquiry.

2 Introduction, p. xxxvii.

upon the passage. Bishop Mant in his selection of what he calls "notes" upon the common Prayer has referred to Sparrow and Dr. Burn, who give no further information upon the subject; except indeed that Osmund, bishop of Salisbury about the year 1070, was the compiler of the use of Sarum.

There are many, again, who are better informed but yet have never had an opportunity of examining any copies of the old service books which still exist, whether from living at a distance from public libraries or from some other cause. Nearly forty years ago [1844] in the preface to the first edition of this volume I said my hope was, upon a consideration of the circumstances which I have briefly spoken of above, that an attempt to render accessible these books or portions of them would not be unacceptable. Let me now add [1882], I trust without presumption, that my expectations have been amply realised.

I have alluded to the difficulty of obtaining access to these old books. So rare are they that except in the libraries of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the British museum, it is almost hopeless to expect to find them. Occasionally, in a few instances, we may meet with a single volume, a horæ, or a manual, or it may be even a missal : but one book only will do but little for the student; if he wishes to understand the subject, and to obtain more than a mere smattering of knowledge about it, it can be only after a careful examination and comparison of the many volumes among which anciently the offices of the church of England were distributed.

There are better reasons even than the fact of rarity for making an effort to republish, in some form or other, either all or parts of the old books.

Of late years the demand for them has increased tenfold, and their price has naturally increased with the demand; so as to put them, when they do occur, beyond the reach of men who are nevertheless the most anxious to obtain them. This has been one result of a return to a more sound theological study than had characterised the clergy of an age, which has been emphatically and most justly styled by a late bishop of the diocese of Salisbury3 in his visitation charge "an unlearned age." And it could not but be so for a chief object of enquiry, when men began to awake to the need of knowing something of the history, doctrines, and ritual of the middle ages, certainly would be into the faith and practice, into the observances and the worship of their church, before as well as since the sixteenth century. In the pursuit of this, they would be no longer content to rely upon garbled extracts or the unfounded representations of ignorant and prejudiced or slanderous historians.1

Before the reformation the public offices of the church of England were not contained, as they now are, in one volume but in many: they were perfectly distinct from each other, and intended for different purposes. There seems to be no necessity to supply here a description of these numerous books, as I have examined at considerable length the whole subject in a dissertation prefixed to another work, the Monumenta ritualia. It must therefore be suf

3 Bishop Denison, in his primary charge.

• Attached to this passage in the first edition of "the ancient liturgy" was a note, specifying as an example a writer at that time still living, Mr. Hallam; and I allude to it because I

see no reason for altering the opinion which I then expressed, though I do not think it necessary to repeat it. The place referred to is the second chapter of his Constitutional history of England.