Bill East wrote:
>...Churches were directed to buy only one copy of the BCP, for the
use of the priest; it was not envisaged that members of the congregation
should have a copy in their hands.
Scarce and *very* expensive items, books; clearly manuscript ones would have
been *way* beyond the purchase of all but the very, *very*
well-to-do and almost likewise even with printed ones before the
invention of machine-made paper, stereotyping (printing from plates rather
than directly from moveable type), and binding machines in the first half of
the nineteenth century.
Someone on this string mentioned the tradition of being given their own prayer
book, which, for reasons too convoluted for me to fathom, put me
in mind of the beautiful carved "Bible boxes" of 17th-18th c. Puritan New
(and, presumably, Old) England, a necessary accoutrement for the
protection and preservation of an expensive and precious possession.
c
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