Читать книгу Prayer Book Through the Ages - William Sydnor - Страница 11

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, “with thy Holy Spirit and Word vouchsafe to bless and sanctify these thy gifts of the bread and wine,” before the words of institution. In that way he attempted to bring together Eastern and Western ideas.

The Litany is the same as the 1547 revision of Cranmer’s 1544 Litany.

The services here are those which in varying degrees were based on the Manuale— Baptism, Confirmation, Matrimony, Visitation of the Sick, Burial, Purification, and Commination (the Ash Wednesday service). In Baptism, the child is dipped “discretly and warely” in the water three times. If, however, the child is weak, “it shall suffice to powre water upon it.” The water is ordered to be changed once a month (imagine the dusty scum and sediment!) and new water blessed. The catechism is included along with the Confirmation service. Here is the reason both for its placement and for its contents: “All the Reformers laid great stress on education, and particularly on religious education . . . Their Catechisms were not usually connected with Confirmation, but were intended to cover the whole field of doctrine.” Cranmer’s aim was different. He confined himself to the requirements of godparents at the end of the Baptismal service, namely, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. It was the duty of godparents to teach their godchildren these formulas, and by ancient tradition the children could not be confirmed until they could repeat them.⁵

At the end of the book are two appendices with self-explanatory titles: “Of Ceremonies” and “Certain Notes.” The former states that excess of ceremonies is wrong; meaningful ceremonies are profitable; so “some be abolished and some retained.” It does not detail which ceremonies. “Certain Notes” states that the minister shall wear a surplice for Matins, Evensong, Baptism, and Burial. But this is modified. The surplice is not an absolute requirement save in colleges and cathedrals and for archdeacons, deans, provosts, and the like. A country vicar is at liberty to use a surplice or not. The Litany, Matrimony, Churching, and Ash Wednesday are not mentioned, but as each of these is normally followed by the Communion, it may be assumed that the Mass vestments will be worn for them also. The bishop always wears a rochet and carries his pastoral staff, unless it is held by his chaplain; but no mitre is mentioned. The Communion service is conceived as essentially musical, and the “clerks” who lead the singing are directed to stay throughout the service even if they are not intending to commune. (The musical setting of John Merbecke, a minor canon of Windsor, came out in 1550.)

The Ordinal was not a part of the 1549 Book. It was prepared the next year, published in March, 1551, and was annexed to the 1552 Book.

With Parliament’s Act of Uniformity in January, 1549, and the actual use of the Book beginning in March of that year, the good ship Book of Common Prayer was launched on its stormy voyage and as of now has logged some 440 years. During that time it has been overhauled and refitted for service eight times. For each of those eight times, as well as for the issuing of this first Book, the occasion has been one of joy or anguish, relief or disgust, pride or dismay, dedication or revolt. In 1549, such strong feelings as these poured over the Book almost before the ink was dry.

In producing the 1549 Book, Cranmer and his colleagues were sincerely and honestly seeking to lead the Church of England into a genuine revival of its worship practices. They aspired to help worshippers find greater meaning and significance in practices which were grounded in the rich heritage of Christendom. “Cranmer was trying to edge a nation notorious for its conservatism into accepting a reformed service, though, for all its comprehensiveness, the Book turned out to have gone almost too far. He hoped to satisfy the reforming zealots by suppressing all mention of oblation, to pacify the conservatives by keeping the time-hallowed framework, and to supply a positive, reformist-Catholic statement of what all had in common. This would provide the basis for further advance. For the moment, the more doctrinal positions that could be read out of it, the better.” The attempt failed from every point of view. The conservatives disliked its innovations and the omission of old services; the reformers thought it retained too much of the old and did not go far enough in innovation.⁶ The law required that the Book be used everywhere beginning with Whitsunday, June 9, 1549. By Monday, ominous, open revolt against the government had erupted in many parts of England. While much of this was smoldering opposition to “the miserable government of the Protector and Council,” some of it at least was due to worshippers’ violent resentment of the new Prayer Book. Because of the danger of insurrection and the fear that France would find the widespread unrest an inviting opportunity to attack its old foe, the government was forced to secure its safety by foreign mercenaries.

The most violent of the revolts was in the West Country and was clearly a revolt by ordinary worshippers against the new changes in religion. They were adamant. “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 Holywater, 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 Mattins, Mass, Evensong and processions in Latin, not in English.”⁷ They also demanded the recall of the English Bible “as tending to encourage heresy.”

Parliament’s Act of Uniformity had anticipated opposition to the Book, for it contained a penal statute regarding the enforcement of its use. Extreme measures by the government were therefore legally justified. By the end of August, the uprising had been suppressed. Lord Russell and his foreign mercenaries stamped out all traces of it, distributed rewards, pardons, punishments, and, by the special direction of the Council, pulled down the bells out of the steeples in Devonshire and Cornwall, leaving only one, “the least of the ryng that now is in the same,” to prevent their being used again in the cause of sedition. These were the elaborate steps the government had to take in order to enforce the adoption of the new Book.

All of that violent opposition was “due to the stiffest conservatism of men who did not wish even their least justifiable usage to be disturbed This comment of Proctor and Frere is equally applicable to the reaction against almost every successive revision of the Book of Common Prayer. A characteristic of some Prayer Book worshippers seems to be that often their attachment to the services and ceremonies with which they are familiar is so great that they consider them the ultimate and final expression of Prayer Book worship, the end of liturgical history.

The less violent reactions to the 1549 Book ranged from one end of the ecclesiastical spectrum to the other. Princess Mary simply continued to have the old Mass said by her chaplains. Bishop Bonner took no steps to introduce the new book into the diocese of London until ordered to do so by the Council in August, after which he “did the office . . . sadly and discreetly.” Indeed, the divided sympathies of the country were graphically mirrored in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. While Dean May was eagerly in favor of the reforms, Bishop Bonner was steadfast against them. Consequently, innovations were rapidly made, but old customs lingered on much longer than the reformers liked. Bishop Bonner persisted in his opposition and was finally publicly denounced, imprisoned, and on October 1 deprived of his see.

The conservatives grasped at any pretext to avoid change. “The fall of the Protector, Somerset, in the autumn of 1549 gave rise to the rumor that the Book would be withdrawn, and some of the Oxford colleges actually reintroduced the Mass. The Council, now led by Warwick, reacted vigorously, and issued an Order calling in all copies of the medieval servicebooks (with the exception of the pontificals, which had not yet been superseded), to be defaced and abolished.”⁸

In the forefront of church leaders who were pushing for even greater reform were Bishops Hooper and Ridley. John Hooper, a leading English disciple of Zwingli, the continental reformer, pronounced the book “defective, and of doubtful construction, and, in some respects indeed, manifestly impious.” He was thrown into prison for refusing to wear the proper vestments at his own service of consecration as Bishop of Gloucester. Eventually, he “agreed to wear the vestments for the occasion, so long as he was not expected to wear them in his diocese.” Ridley, transferred to London in April, 1550, led a drive against those practices which remotely suggested perpetuation of the Mass, such as the priest’s kissing the Lord’s Table, washing his fingers, ringing of sacring bells. He urged incumbents and churchwardens to replace their high altar with a table set in the place “thought most meet by their discretion and agreement” This was done in St. Paul’s in June. The table was placed in a diversity of positions. Bishop Ridley had it standing east and west “in the midst of the upper quire,” with the minister on the south side. At the same time, he had the iron grates of the quire bricked up, to prevent anyone from watching the Communion without communicating.

The 1549 Book expressly referred to “the Altar,” never a holy table. Ridley, along with Hooper, was a prime mover in the widespread destruction of “the altars of Baal.” This was both high-handed and illegal. Rich hangings, jewels, gold and silver plate were removed and destroyed, or simply disappeared. Some courtiers desired their destruction because they hoped to enrich themselves. So there was plunder of valuable furniture, and in its stead “an honest table.” Throughout the country, church walls were being limewashed and the Royal Arms and Scripture texts replaced medieval wall paintings. By the end of young King Edward’s reign, there had been a clean sweep of all that was worth stealing: the churches, their chests, their treasures had been ransacked. It was a tragic time. The Edwardian robbers were not genuine reformers, but they certainly helped destroy the manner of worship which had gone on under the 1549 Prayer Book by their looting of the ornaments. The work of destruction which they began was to be continued by the Puritans in the next century. In an attempt to reconcile parishioners to the loss of their ornaments and altars, the Council stepped in after the fact with an order to bishops on November 4, 1550, to remove altars and replace them with holy tables.

The campaign to bring about reform was reflected in the evolving leadership of the church. Older bishops were gradually replaced by men of the “New Learning.” Gardiner and Bonner were sent to prison for preaching against the new doctrine of the Eucharist; Heath was deprived of his see for refusing to accept the Ordination service, Day for refusing to remove altars, and Rugg resigned.

The influence of the “New Learning” had begun to reach England by the early 1530s. Cranmer had first experienced Lutheran worship in Lent, 1532, at Nuremberg. He was no doubt familiar with Martin Bucer’s book (1524) on “the Lord’s Supper.” This was a new name for the ancient sacrament, a name which found its way into the 1549 Book. Bucer was “the leading light of the religious life” of the city of Strasbourg, Germany. It is not surprising that when life on the continent became intolerable for Protestant reformers, Cranmer invited Bucer to come to England. This he did in April, 1549. By the end of the year Bucer, whose views on the sacrament were somewhere between those of Calvin and those of Zwingli, had the divinity chair at Cambridge. Peter Martyr was another reformer who crossed the Channel. He was an Italian whom the Inquisition drove out of Italy. Zurich and Strasbourg were only temporary havens for him before coming to England. In less than a year he was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. He and Bucer were friendly rivals. These two were in the forefront of the continental reformers who put their mark on the second Prayer Book of Edward VI.

Continental pressure for reform reached England by mail packet as well as in person. Calvin, “the Geneva Pope,” was graciously pleased to say that the Book contained “many tolerable absurdities.” He called for more drastic changes. Actually the first Book was too conservative for all of the continental reformers. While they were thankful for it, they obviously hoped for and expected further revision. They considered the retention of ceremonies as only a temporary expedient.

It is not surprising that because of English extremists such as Hooper and Ridley and continental reformers like Bucer and Peter Martyr, the pressure for revising the 1549 Book began almost from the moment of publication. By August, 1549, the translation of the Te Deum had been improved, and the Litany had been placed between Evensong and the Sacrament. (Its 1549 position had been right after the Lord’s Supper.)

One unintentional cause for the extremely reformist nature of the revision came out of the trial of Bishop Gardiner. He was being tried for preaching against the doctrine of the Eucharist. In his defense he presented a paper, “An Explication and Assertion of the true Catholic Faith,” which was a reply to Cranmer’s “Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ.” Gardiner’s method was both clever and exasperating. He picked out various passages in the 1549 Book which appeared to express the Catholic doctrine rather than Cranmer’s, and warmly commended them. The only way to stem this kind of opposition was to alter the text at these points. So the effect of Gardiner’s criticisms was to make the next revision more narrowly Reformed in doctrine and harder for well-disposed Catholics to accept.

No conclusive consideration of the proposed revision took place in the Houses of Convocation. The moderates had been repressed, and their leaders—Bishops Gardiner, Bonner, Heath, Day, Tunstal, and perhaps others—were in the Tower. In Parliament, the second Act of Uniformity was considered for a month and passed on April 14, 1552. The Book was to become official on November 1 of that year.

Perhaps for appearances’ sake that second Act of Uniformity spoke favorably of the 1549 Book. It was “a very godly order, agreeable to the Word of God and the primitive Church, very comfortable to all good people.” Percy Dearmer observed that “the First Prayer Book was indeed too fair-minded for the violent and bitter spirit of the age.”

The Act justifies the revision as having two purposes: “more plain and manifest explication,” and “more perfection of . . . some places where it is necessary . . . to stir Christian people to the true honoring of Almighty God.” In a sort of halfhearted way these purposes were followed. For example, in relation to the former, “The Purification of Women” is changed to “The Thanksgiving of Women After Childbirth, commonly called the Churching of Women.” The latter may be identified with “the requirement of saying the Office daily . . . more congregational participation, especially in the Creeds and the Lord’s Prayer (though not, as Bucer suggested, in the Prayer of Humble Access and Thanksgiving); communion at least three times a year, instead of once . . . and above all, a new introduction to both Holy Communion, and Mattins and Evensong. In pursuance of a general policy of dropping the old names, the latter are now called Morning and Evening Prayer, while “the Mass,’ ‘anthems,’ and ‘Ash-Wednesday’ no longer appear anywhere in the book. . . . Morning and Evening Prayer are to be said where ‘the people may best hear,’ not necessarily in the quire; but the chancels are to ‘remain as they have done,’ not be shut up, as Hooper wished”⁹

In the interval between the closing of Parliament (April 14, 1552) and the beginning of use set by the second Act of Uniformity (November 1, 1552), a great controversy arose over kneeling to receive Communion. The reformers were dead set against the practice, and John Knox, who had become the Royal Chaplain, was as outspokenly opposed in London as he had been in the north. The Council awoke to the fact that the Book, now already in print (September 27), specifically required kneeling. The Council held up the Book on the pretext of a printer’s error and wrote Cranmer to reconsider. He refused to take any action and at the same time pointed out “both the crudity of the Scriptural argument which was being alleged against the custom, and also the indecency of sitting to receive, but kneeling both before and after reception.” On October 27, four days before the Book was to go into use, a letter went forth from the Council to the Lord Chancellor “to cause to be joined unto the Book of Common Prayer lately set forth a certain declaration, signed by the King’s Majesty and sent unto his Lordship, touching the kneeling at the receiving of the Communion.” So the Council compromised the matter on the eve of publication with the “black rubric,” which declared in explanation of the requirement to kneel to receive “that it is not ment thereby, that any adoration is doone, or oughte to bee doone, either unto the Sacramental bread or wyne, there bodily receyued, or unto anye reall or essencial presence there beeyng of Christ’s naturall fleshe and bloude.”

Procter and Frere conclude, “Thus against the Archbishop’s will and without the consent of the Church, English religion reached its low water mark and the ill-starred Book of 1552 began its brief career.”¹⁰

Take a brief look at the principal changes in this second Book.

Morning and Evening Prayer now have a penitential introduction: Opening Sentences, Invitation, Confession, and Absolution. This introduction was added because, on those many occasions when there was no Communion (the service would end with the offertory), there would be no expression of penitence and forgiveness. By adding this at the beginning of Morning Prayer, the need was met.

The Litany now follows Evening Prayer and has this more elaborate title: “Here followeth the Letany to be used upon Sundayes, Wednesdayes, and Fridayes, and at other times, when it shall be commanded by the Ordinary.” Several new occasional prayers have been attached to it—for rain, for fair weather, in the time of dearth and famine, in the time of war, and in the time of any common plague or sickness. The last of these was added because of the “sweating sickness” which swept the country in the summer of 1551.

Percy Dearmer says, in the Holy Communion, “Cranmer set forth his matured conclusions.”¹¹ The Decalogue has been added. (There is no Summary of the Law in either of these first Books.) The Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church has been separated from the canon and follows the offertory. Significantly, the introduction to that prayer now reads “Let us pray for the whole state of Christe’s Church militant here in earth.” All references to the saints and the departed are removed. The order of the major part of the service is that which is more familiar to present-day users of the Prayer Book than to users of the first Book:

Invitation

General Confession

Absolution

Comfortable Words

Sursum corda

Sanctus

“We do not presume . . .”

Prayer of Consecration

Reception

Lord’s Prayer

Oblation or Thanksgiving

Gloria in excelsis

“The Peace of God . . .”

The Invitation (“Ye who do truly and earnestly repent . . .”), Confession, Absolution, and “Comfortable Words” now come before the Sursum corda. The Prayer of Consecration does not follow the same order as that in the first Book. Cranmer considered the different form to be more in accord with the New Testament. There is a whole series of changes aimed at removing any suspicion of transubstantiation. For instance, instead of praying that the bread and wine “may be unto us the body and blood,” the prayer now asks that we “may be partakers of the body and blood.” There is also strong emphasis on the memorial nature of the sacrament. This is most notably present in the words of administration. The traditional words which became part of the 1549 Book are “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.” In 1552, those words were dropped and in their place: “Take and eat this, in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.” The rubric states that the people receive in both kinds “in their handes kneling.” Also because of suspicion of transubstantiation the Benedictus (“Blessed is he that cometh . . .”) and the Agnus Dei are omitted. And of course there is the “black rubric” referred to earlier (page 19) which states emphatically that by kneeling to receive “it is not meant thereby that any adoration is done or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental bread or wine . . .” The doctrinal impact of the sacrament centers in what it says about the presence of Christ in the Eucharist elements. The 1549 Book was consistent with the Catholic belief in the real presence. But, as Procter and Frere observe, the 1552 Book makes it clear that the Prayer of Consecration refers rather to the worshippers than to the elements, and that the presence of Christ is not in the sacrament but only in the heart of the believer. So the Book is more acceptable to those “determined to retain the primitive doctrine apart from mediaeval accretions.” The final change in the service was to remove the Gloria in excelsis from its ancient position following the Kyrie and place it just before the Benediction. It thus becomes a new climax at the end of the service.

The Baptismal service is vigorously remodeled. The entire service is to take place at the font. Bucer suggested that it take place in the context of the Communion service. On this point he was 400 years ahead of his time! The sign of the cross is kept in spite of the objections of the reformers. The latter part of the service established the pattern followed in all succeeding Books up through 1928. The exorcism, the anointing, the putting on of the Chrism, and the triple repetition of immersion are all omitted. And the rubric which gives sanitary minded moderns a sigh of relief directs that the font be filled and the water consecrated whenever the service is used rather than only once a month.

The Burial Office is curtailed. There are no prayers for the dead and a special office for Eucharist at funerals is omitted. The minister is not directed to throw dust into the grave.

The Book is very careful to omit any mention of “the Altar.” It simply refers to “the Table” or in one place to “Goddes borde.” The manual acts which might suggest transubstantiation are eliminated—the fraction and elevation of the hosts. Ordinary bread is used and is put in the communicants’ hands.

The only vestments permitted are a rochet for bishops and a surplice for priests and deacons. Even a hood or a scarf is forbidden.

Music is virtually abolished in Holy Communion except the Gloria in excelsis which is permitted to be sung as an alternative to saying it. Introit Psalms, Kyrie, Creed and Sanctus are all said. Two months before the Book came out, the organ at St. Paul’s, London, ceased to be used.

A rubric directs that the table stand in the body of the church or in the chancel (the place for best audibility), and that it be covered with a fair linen cloth. The priest is to stand at the north side.

The wardens collect the alms rather than the people coming up with them.

The Zwinglian reformers pressed hard for the utmost simplicity of dress, furnishing, and movement. Certainly their influence can be seen throughout the Book, but evidence of other doctrines is also there. Percy Dearmer gives this often unappreciated 1552 Book significant credentials: “Proud as we are of the First Model [1549 Book], there is no less cause for pride in the Second, when we remember that its purpose is to provide a liturgy that is Apostolic rather than Patristic.”¹² This second Book of Edward VI, which became official on November 1, 1552, was unpopular everywhere. It was halfheartedly launched on its brief career—no authorization was even given for its use in Ireland. Conservative priests made the best of it for the moment by retaining old ceremonial. There was little or no violence. Opposition to the use of upsetting practices had spent itself during the two years or more prior to the appearance of the Book.

Young King Edward died July 5, 1553, and Mary, the ardently Roman Catholic daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, came to the throne. With the news of Edward’s death, the Latin Mass was immediately and widely restored. The 1552 Book was only officially in use for eight months.