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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

From: "Graham Mallaghan"
Subject: Re: [M-R] Book of Common Prayer


> For many years the BCP was the Anglican rite, and the 'shape of the
liturgy.'
> Reading it can give you a thorough education in Anglican liturgy and
theology, and the religious politics of the English Reformation.

For some 300 years - from 1662 until the "reforms" of the 1960s the Book of
Common Prayer was the defining text of the Church of England and also of the
world wide Anglican Communion. Its phraseology is to be found richly, and
sometime unconsciously, in English poets, novelist, political speech writers
and journalists. (Do you realise that Neville Chamberlain's famous "Peace in
our time" was a direct quotation from the liturgy for Evensong ? - and would
have been recognised comfortingly as such by much of the electorate.)

Its services of baptism, marriage and funeral were the ones normally used ,
and customarily quoted in drama and literature as those most familiar to the
general public.

Together with the Authorised Version [of the Bible - now renamed the King
James' Version] it was an almost essential part of the library of English
households until the middle of the 20th century, even among irregular
church-goers. During the 18th & 19th centuries, the service of Morning
Prayer (at 11 o'clock on Sunday in the Parish Church) was the 'normal'
service to which most church-goers went. Evensong at 6.30 was also common
and the one which, by tradition, servants attended. There was customarily a
sermon at both of these. The service of Holy Communion [= Eucharist] was
marginalised to 8am or 12 noon and seen by many as an optional extra.

Again until the 1960s, English church music was composed round the texts in
the BCP liturgy.

There are umpteen copies to be found in second hand shops in England, some
showing signs of a lifetime's use.

It is still possible to find parish churches in England where the BCP is
used but they are few and information about them is hard to come by - one
might almost suspect that they were disapproved of by the Anglican bishops
....! Under the new Common Worship arrangement, many parish churches have
"Traditional Languages" service in which larger or excerpts from the BCP are
used, often in a different order from the BCP liturgy and with modifications
to remove phrases which are theologically unfashionable or considered
politically incorrect.

There is a Prayer Book Society whose web-site is http://www.prayerbookuk.com

Brenda M. Cook

"I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry,

But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above ?

To a poet a thousand years hence.
James Elroy Flecker, 1884-1915.

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