The following site contains links to the different versions of the Book of Common Prayer, from the initial version in 1549 to the most recent versions available in different parts of the world. http://justus.anglican.org/resour…
For the uninitiated, the Book of Common Prayer was first introduced during the reign of Edward VI in 1549. The principal author was believed to be Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This BCP was the first attempt to create a standard form of worship for the Anglican churches. Before this time, the liturgies had all been in Latin. Adherence to the BCP was made compulsory under the Act of Uniformity of 1549. Much of the wording will be familiar to Anglicans (or Episcopalians in the US) from the current versions of the BCP.
The first version proved to be controversial (too "popish"), so a revised version was issued just three years later in 1552. These changes were extensive, and were made at the insistence of the more vocal Protestant reformers. This book came out only six months before the death of Edward VI. Since Edward was succeeded by Queen Mary, this BCP was quickly outlawed and replaced by the Latin rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Mary also burned Cranmer at the stake.
The next version of the BCP was issued in 1559, upon the accession to the throne of Elizabeth I, and the restoration of Protestant England after the reign of Queen Mary. This edition was less "protestant" than the 1552 version, and included removing such items as prayers against the Pope. In 1604, this edition was slightly revised. This revised edition of the BCP was the first version used in the United States, brought over by the settlers at Jamestown. This BCP was in common use until 1645, when the Long Parliament outlawed it as part of the Puritan Revolution. During the period from 1645 to 1660, use of the BCP was suppressed.
With the restoration of the monarchy, the BCP was reissued in 1662 under a new Act of Uniformity, with only a few modifications to the 1559 version. Most notable is the quotations from scripture are now based upon the King James Version of the Bible, which was published in 1611.
The 1662 version remained in use until a revised version was submitted to Parliament for approval in 1927. The House of Lords approved the changes, but Commons rejected them. A modified version was submitted in 1928 and also was rejected. In 1965, Parliament finally passed the Prayer Book Measure, which recognized revisions already in use.
So, for our dear Pepys', at the start of his diary, there was no official prayer book in use in church, although beginning in 1660, the use of the prayer book was to be allowed as the political situation changed.
Church attendance [This was originally posted by Helena Murphy for the 16 April, 1660 entry]
Although church attendance was mandatory up to the year 1650 when it was abolished, the Anglican Episcopalian Church was never all embracing. There is evidence to show that the very poor, rogues, vagabonds, masterless men, and beggars did not ever attend. In some instances parish relief had to be withheld in order to get the poor to attend. Donne asked "How few of these who make beggary an occupation from their infancy were ever within church, how few of them ever christened, or ever married?" In 1657 compulsory church attendance was restored but its ineffectiveness was evident after 1660 with the existence of de facto sects in the towns. The Anlican or state church drew its congregation for the most part from the privileged 3 percent of the population or those with incomes of more than 100 poounds per year, such as peers, bishops, baronets, knights, esquires, gentlemen, greater and lesser offfice holders, merchants, traders and lawyers.
Hill, Christopher, Some Intellectual Consequences of the English Revolution, Phoenix 1997
Om Sunday 8th April 1660 Pepys was on board the Nazeby and had a dispute with the Chaplain after supper about extemporary prayers - the Chaplain for and Pepys against. Pepys was always keen to demonstrate his allegiance to the established church.
Regarding CHURCH ATTENDANCE,Posted 17/4/2003. Unless we look carefully at the subject we are never going to arrive at a satisfactory understanding of Pepys's religion.First of all the Anglican Church was banned by the Protestant ,[Calvinist] authorities in Parliament by 1646. The alternative to the ancient Church was a Presbyterian Sect which fell because of its own inadequacies.Emilio might be right regarding what later ages called the "Lumpen" part of the population,but regarding the rest of the country it has been suggested that some 95% of people considered themselves Anglican. Romans were thought to be about 2%, this leaves some 3%to the sectarians. If Emilio cares to consult the records in the town where I live, this was considered a stronghold of the Presbyterians, he will find that during the time of the Protestant ascendancy the practice of marriage and baptism fell enormously. They picked up voluntarily when the Church resumed its place in the community.That is before the restoration of the Monarchy. The statement of the Church drawing its support from approx 3p/c of the population is a gross error. The Stuarts drew support from the agrarian and lower classes until the middle of the 18cent. He must realise that the Church had been a major factor in the life of this country since before the Saxon Conquest.In the Risings of 1715 and 1745 support for the Stuarts reflected the unease of the poor for the ancient religion. Support for the Church was enormous till recently. Pepys himself, came from a Puritan stance and over the years had some kind of conversion to Anglicanism. Not just the Latitudinarian section, but to the true Catholic base. He became a religious Non Juror and was buried by the Non Juring Primus."The Good Father" Hicks was an uncomromising catholic.
"An act for the uniformity of public prayers and administration of sacraments and other rites and ceremonies, and for establishing the form of making, ordaining, and consecrating bishops, priests, and deacons, in the Church of England. Whereas in the first year of the late Queen Elizabeth there was one uniform order of common service and prayer ... compiled by the reverend bishops and clergy, set forth in one book, entitled The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies in the Church of England, and enjoined to be used by act of parliament, holden in the said first year of the said late queen ...;[14] and yet, this notwithstanding, a great number of people in divers parts of this realm ... do wilfully and schismatically abstain and refuse to come to their parish churches and other public places where common prayer, administration of the sacraments, and preaching of the word of God is used upon the Sundays and other days ordained and appointed to be kept and observed as holy days; and whereas, by the great and scandalous neglect of ministers in using the said order or liturgy so set forth and enjoined as aforesaid, great mischiefs and inconveniences during the times of the late unhappy troubles have arisen and grown, and many people have been led into factions and schisms, to the great decay and scandal of the reformed religion of the Church of England and to the hazard of many souls; for prevention whereof in time to come, for settling the peace of the Church, and for allaying the present distempers which the indisposition of the time hath contracted, the king's majesty ... granted his commission under the great seal of England to several bishops and other divines to review the Book of Common Prayer and to prepare such alterations and additions as they thought fit to offer; and afterwards the convocations of both the provinces of Canterbury and York, being by his majesty called and assembled, and now sitting, his majesty hath been pleased to authorize and require ... the bishops and clergy of the same to review the said Book of Common Prayer and the Book of the Form and Manner of the Making and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and that after mature consideration they should make such additions and alterations in the said books respectively, as to them should seem meet and convenient, and should exhibit and present the same to his majesty in writing for his further allowance or confirmation; since which time, upon full and mature deliberation, they ... have accordingly reviewed the said books and have made some alterations which they think fit to be inserted to the same, and some additional prayers to the said Book of Common Prayer to be used upon proper and emergent occasions, and have exhibited and presented the same unto his majesty in writing, in one book entitled The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments ... and the Form or Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; all of which his majesty, having duly considered, hath fully approved ... and recommended to this present parliament....
Now, in regard that nothing conduceth more to the settling of the peace of this nation ... , nor to the honour of our religion and the propagation thereof, than an universal agreement in the public worship of Almighty God ... , be it enacted ... that all and singular ministers in any cathedral, collegiate or parish church, or chapel, or other place of public worship within this realm of England, dominion of Wales, and town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, shall be bound to say and use ... the public and common prayer in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book annexed and joined to this present act.... And ... be it further enacted ... that every parson, vicar, or other minister whatsoever, who now hath or enjoyeth any ecclesiastical benefice or promotion within the realm of England or places aforesaid, shall, in the church, chapel, or place of public worship belonging to his said benefice or promotion ... , openly and publicly before the congregation there assembled declare his unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things in the said book contained and prescribed, in these words, and no other: "I, A. B., do here declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the book entitled The Book of Common Prayer ... and the Form or Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons." And [it is enacted] that all and every such person who shall ... neglect or refuse to do the same within the time aforesaid ... shall ipso facto be deprived of all his spiritual promotions....[15]
And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that every dean, canon, and prebendary of every cathedral or collegiate church, and all masters and other heads, fellows, chaplains, and tutors of or in any college, hall, house of learning, or hospital, and every public professor and reader in either of the universities, and in every college elsewhere, and every parson, vicar, curate, lecturer, and every other person in holy orders, and every schoolmaster keeping any public or private school, and every person instructing or teaching any youth in any house or private family as a tutor or schoolmaster ... shall ... subscribe the declaration or acknowledgement following, scilicet: "I, A. B., do declare that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king, and that I do abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person or against those that are commissionated by him, and that I will conform to the liturgy of the Church of England as it is now by law established; and I do declare that I do hold there lies no obligation upon me or any other person, from the oath commonly called the Solemn League and Covenant, to endeavour any change or alteration of government either in church or state, and that the same was in itself an unlawful oath and imposed upon the subjects of this realm against the known laws and liberties of this kingdom." ...[16]
And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that no person whatsoever shall ... be capable to be admitted to any parsonage, vicarage, benefice, or other ecclesiastical promotion or dignity whatsoever, nor shall presume to consecrate and administer the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper, before such time as he shall be ordained priest according to the form and manner in and by the said book prescribed, unless he have formerly been made priest by episcopal ordination, upon pain to forfeit for every offence the sum of
Excerpt based on a book review: William J. Bulman, Anglican Enlightenment: Orientalism, Religion and Politics in England and its Empire, 1648–1715. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-107-07368-5 https://www.academia.edu/29297523…
In Restoration England, the ‘high church’ heirs of the executed Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancelor, William Laud, and the pre-Interregnum Caroline divines anticipated a restored, Episcopal, church establishment as a place in which to salvage the Laudian vision for England.
Unembarrassed by Puritan charges of ‘popery’, they asserted the ‘divine right’ of bishops, priestly authority, and the scriptural validity of liturgical ritual. Their political theory was grounded in the monarchical security of the church without injuring clerical authority.
Because of the wavering religious policies of the restored Stuarts -- and division within the church -- their ideas hardly had time to be implemented. With the Whig domination of the church after the “Glorious” Revolution, the neo-Laudian program unraveled.
The losers in 1688, these high churchmen were the unlikely carriers of enlightenment. In the whiggish arc of progress they are usually left in the shadows as champions of priestly tyranny; unmovably dogmatic critics of the latitudinarian comity of the gentle erastianism of 1688; bigoted opponents of toleration, they are portrayed as the obstructers of Protestantism’s emancipatory potential.
Of what, counter-intuitively, did the ‘Anglican enlightenment’ consist?
Despite the neo-Laudians’ brief 28 years, [the author] identifies a consequential transformation. It was a shift in perspective on how to achieve the union of civic and sacral communities under an essentialist clericalism. In the neo-Laudian search for creative ways to defend their orthodoxy, they needed to justify Laudian commitments as being not just essentials, but essentially reasonable, and to explain the church’s pastoral mission as one of communicating such to reasonable minds.
These enlightening reconfigurations came from a productive tension: given political instability and confessional division, how could the church justify its monopoly on public religion without resorting to coercive excess?
The answer was for the clergy to explain and educate the population on the natural and universal characteristics of religious essentials. In confronting heterodoxy, the church possesses tools other than politically-enforced conformity or sacramental-disciplinary leverage.
Their gamble was that their high church orthodoxy would be vindicated by a comparative assessment based on universal criteria, and by enlisting inherent human reasonableness to recognize it.
6 Annotations
First Reading
Robert Bush • Link
The following site contains links to the different versions of the Book of Common Prayer, from the initial version in 1549 to the most recent versions available in different parts of the world. http://justus.anglican.org/resour…
For the uninitiated, the Book of Common Prayer was first introduced during the reign of Edward VI in 1549. The principal author was believed to be Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This BCP was the first attempt to create a standard form of worship for the Anglican churches. Before this time, the liturgies had all been in Latin. Adherence to the BCP was made compulsory under the Act of Uniformity of 1549. Much of the wording will be familiar to Anglicans (or Episcopalians in the US) from the current versions of the BCP.
The first version proved to be controversial (too "popish"), so a revised version was issued just three years later in 1552. These changes were extensive, and were made at the insistence of the more vocal Protestant reformers. This book came out only six months before the death of Edward VI. Since Edward was succeeded by Queen Mary, this BCP was quickly outlawed and replaced by the Latin rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Mary also burned Cranmer at the stake.
The next version of the BCP was issued in 1559, upon the accession to the throne of Elizabeth I, and the restoration of Protestant England after the reign of Queen Mary. This edition was less "protestant" than the 1552 version, and included removing such items as prayers against the Pope. In 1604, this edition was slightly revised. This revised edition of the BCP was the first version used in the United States, brought over by the settlers at Jamestown. This BCP was in common use until 1645, when the Long Parliament outlawed it as part of the Puritan Revolution. During the period from 1645 to 1660, use of the BCP was suppressed.
With the restoration of the monarchy, the BCP was reissued in 1662 under a new Act of Uniformity, with only a few modifications to the 1559 version. Most notable is the quotations from scripture are now based upon the King James Version of the Bible, which was published in 1611.
The 1662 version remained in use until a revised version was submitted to Parliament for approval in 1927. The House of Lords approved the changes, but Commons rejected them. A modified version was submitted in 1928 and also was rejected. In 1965, Parliament finally passed the Prayer Book Measure, which recognized revisions already in use.
So, for our dear Pepys', at the start of his diary, there was no official prayer book in use in church, although beginning in 1660, the use of the prayer book was to be allowed as the political situation changed.
Emilio • Link
Church attendance
[This was originally posted by Helena Murphy for the 16 April, 1660 entry]
Although church attendance was mandatory up to the year 1650 when it was abolished, the Anglican Episcopalian Church was never all embracing. There is evidence to show that the very poor, rogues, vagabonds, masterless men, and beggars did not ever attend. In some instances parish relief had to be withheld in order to get the poor to attend. Donne asked "How few of these who make beggary an occupation from their infancy were ever within church, how few of them ever christened, or ever married?"
In 1657 compulsory church attendance was restored but its ineffectiveness was evident after 1660 with the existence of de facto sects in the towns. The Anlican or state church drew its congregation for the most part from the privileged 3 percent of the population or those with incomes of more than 100 poounds per year, such as peers, bishops, baronets, knights, esquires, gentlemen, greater and lesser offfice holders, merchants, traders and lawyers.
Hill, Christopher, Some Intellectual Consequences of the English Revolution, Phoenix 1997
Roger Miller • Link
Om Sunday 8th April 1660 Pepys was on board the Nazeby and had a dispute with the Chaplain after supper about extemporary prayers - the Chaplain for and Pepys against. Pepys was always keen to demonstrate his allegiance to the established church.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
jim petty • Link
Regarding CHURCH ATTENDANCE,Posted 17/4/2003.
Unless we look carefully at the subject we are never going to arrive at a satisfactory understanding of Pepys's religion.First of all the Anglican Church was banned by the Protestant ,[Calvinist] authorities in Parliament by 1646. The alternative to the ancient Church was a Presbyterian Sect which fell because of its own inadequacies.Emilio might be right regarding what later ages called the "Lumpen" part of the population,but regarding the rest of the country it has been suggested that some 95% of people considered themselves Anglican. Romans were thought to be about 2%, this leaves some 3%to the sectarians. If Emilio cares to consult the records in the town where I live, this was considered a stronghold of the Presbyterians, he will find that during the time of the Protestant ascendancy the practice of marriage and baptism fell enormously. They picked up voluntarily when the Church resumed its place in the community.That is before the restoration of the Monarchy. The statement of the Church drawing its support from approx 3p/c of the population is a gross error. The Stuarts drew support from the agrarian and lower classes until the middle of the 18cent. He must realise that the Church had been a major factor in the life of this country since before the Saxon Conquest.In the Risings of 1715 and 1745 support for the Stuarts reflected the unease of the poor for the ancient religion. Support for the Church was enormous till recently.
Pepys himself, came from a Puritan stance and over the years had some kind of conversion to Anglicanism. Not just the Latitudinarian section, but to the true Catholic base. He became a religious Non Juror and was buried by the Non Juring Primus."The Good Father" Hicks was an uncomromising catholic.
JWB • Link
K) Act of Uniformity (1662)
"An act for the uniformity of public prayers and administration of sacraments and other rites and ceremonies, and for establishing the form of making, ordaining, and consecrating bishops, priests, and deacons, in the Church of England. Whereas in the first year of the late Queen Elizabeth there was one uniform order of common service and prayer ... compiled by the reverend bishops and clergy, set forth in one book, entitled The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies in the Church of England, and enjoined to be used by act of parliament, holden in the said first year of the said late queen ...;[14] and yet, this notwithstanding, a great number of people in divers parts of this realm ... do wilfully and schismatically abstain and refuse to come to their parish churches and other public places where common prayer, administration of the sacraments, and preaching of the word of God is used upon the Sundays and other days ordained and appointed to be kept and observed as holy days; and whereas, by the great and scandalous neglect of ministers in using the said order or liturgy so set forth and enjoined as aforesaid, great mischiefs and inconveniences during the times of the late unhappy troubles have arisen and grown, and many people have been led into factions and schisms, to the great decay and scandal of the reformed religion of the Church of England and to the hazard of many souls; for prevention whereof in time to come, for settling the peace of the Church, and for allaying the present distempers which the indisposition of the time hath contracted, the king's majesty ... granted his commission under the great seal of England to several bishops and other divines to review the Book of Common Prayer and to prepare such alterations and additions as they thought fit to offer; and afterwards the convocations of both the provinces of Canterbury and York, being by his majesty called and assembled, and now sitting, his majesty hath been pleased to authorize and require ... the bishops and clergy of the same to review the said Book of Common Prayer and the Book of the Form and Manner of the Making and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, and that after mature consideration they should make such additions and alterations in the said books respectively, as to them should seem meet and convenient, and should exhibit and present the same to his majesty in writing for his further allowance or confirmation; since which time, upon full and mature deliberation, they ... have accordingly reviewed the said books and have made some alterations which they think fit to be inserted to the same, and some additional prayers to the said Book of Common Prayer to be used upon proper and emergent occasions, and have exhibited and presented the same unto his majesty in writing, in one book entitled The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments ... and the Form or Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; all of which his majesty, having duly considered, hath fully approved ... and recommended to this present parliament....
Now, in regard that nothing conduceth more to the settling of the peace of this nation ... , nor to the honour of our religion and the propagation thereof, than an universal agreement in the public worship of Almighty God ... , be it enacted ... that all and singular ministers in any cathedral, collegiate or parish church, or chapel, or other place of public worship within this realm of England, dominion of Wales, and town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, shall be bound to say and use ... the public and common prayer in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book annexed and joined to this present act.... And ... be it further enacted ... that every parson, vicar, or other minister whatsoever, who now hath or enjoyeth any ecclesiastical benefice or promotion within the realm of England or places aforesaid, shall, in the church, chapel, or place of public worship belonging to his said benefice or promotion ... , openly and publicly before the congregation there assembled declare his unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things in the said book contained and prescribed, in these words, and no other: "I, A. B., do here declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the book entitled The Book of Common Prayer ... and the Form or Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons." And [it is enacted] that all and every such person who shall ... neglect or refuse to do the same within the time aforesaid ... shall ipso facto be deprived of all his spiritual promotions....[15]
And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that every dean, canon, and prebendary of every cathedral or collegiate church, and all masters and other heads, fellows, chaplains, and tutors of or in any college, hall, house of learning, or hospital, and every public professor and reader in either of the universities, and in every college elsewhere, and every parson, vicar, curate, lecturer, and every other person in holy orders, and every schoolmaster keeping any public or private school, and every person instructing or teaching any youth in any house or private family as a tutor or schoolmaster ... shall ... subscribe the declaration or acknowledgement following, scilicet: "I, A. B., do declare that it is not lawful, upon any pretence whatsoever, to take arms against the king, and that I do abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person or against those that are commissionated by him, and that I will conform to the liturgy of the Church of England as it is now by law established; and I do declare that I do hold there lies no obligation upon me or any other person, from the oath commonly called the Solemn League and Covenant, to endeavour any change or alteration of government either in church or state, and that the same was in itself an unlawful oath and imposed upon the subjects of this realm against the known laws and liberties of this kingdom." ...[16]
And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that no person whatsoever shall ... be capable to be admitted to any parsonage, vicarage, benefice, or other ecclesiastical promotion or dignity whatsoever, nor shall presume to consecrate and administer the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper, before such time as he shall be ordained priest according to the form and manner in and by the said book prescribed, unless he have formerly been made priest by episcopal ordination, upon pain to forfeit for every offence the sum of
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
Excerpt based on a book review:
William J. Bulman, Anglican Enlightenment: Orientalism, Religion and Politics in England and its Empire, 1648–1715.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
(hardcover) ISBN 978-1-107-07368-5
https://www.academia.edu/29297523…
In Restoration England, the ‘high church’ heirs of the executed Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancelor, William Laud, and the pre-Interregnum Caroline divines anticipated a restored, Episcopal, church establishment as a place in which to salvage the Laudian vision for England.
Unembarrassed by Puritan charges of ‘popery’, they asserted the ‘divine right’ of bishops, priestly authority, and the scriptural validity of liturgical ritual.
Their political theory was grounded in the monarchical security of the church without injuring clerical authority.
Because of the wavering religious policies of the restored Stuarts -- and division within the church -- their ideas hardly had time to be implemented. With the Whig domination of the church after the “Glorious” Revolution, the neo-Laudian program unraveled.
The losers in 1688, these high churchmen were the unlikely carriers of enlightenment.
In the whiggish arc of progress they are usually left in the shadows as champions of priestly tyranny; unmovably dogmatic critics of the latitudinarian comity of the gentle erastianism of 1688; bigoted opponents of toleration, they are portrayed as the obstructers of Protestantism’s emancipatory potential.
Of what, counter-intuitively, did the ‘Anglican enlightenment’ consist?
Despite the neo-Laudians’ brief 28 years, [the author] identifies a consequential transformation.
It was a shift in perspective on how to achieve the union of civic and sacral communities under an essentialist clericalism.
In the neo-Laudian search for creative ways to defend their orthodoxy, they needed to justify Laudian commitments as being not just essentials, but essentially reasonable, and to explain the church’s pastoral mission as one of communicating such to reasonable minds.
These enlightening reconfigurations came from a productive tension: given political instability and confessional division, how could the church justify its monopoly on public religion without resorting to coercive excess?
The answer was for the clergy to explain and educate the population on the natural and universal characteristics of religious essentials.
In confronting heterodoxy, the church possesses tools other than politically-enforced conformity or sacramental-disciplinary leverage.
Their gamble was that their high church orthodoxy would be vindicated by a comparative assessment based on universal criteria, and by enlisting inherent human reasonableness to recognize it.
Ironies abound here.