Why the Prayer Book?

Last updated on: October 9, 2015 at 7:28 am by Gerald McDermott

Why the Prayer Book? 2015-10-09T07:28:46-04:00 Gerald McDermott

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Roy Strong’s A Little History of the English Country Church is a gem. It is a delightful history of Anglicanism using the story of what happened in the parish, with many beautiful pictures, from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century.

There are many surprises and Aha! moments, such as . . .

1. The purpose of Cranmer’s original Prayer Books (1549 and 1552) was to inspire people to join in worship rather than simply watch the priest at the front, as had been the case before the Reformation when “the congregation would be at their separate prayers and beads” (102).

2. “Before the Reformation, many within the village community had been involved in the church, raising money and taking part in various ceremonies. Processions, lighting candles before the Rood and the images, and prayers for the dead had drawn the community together. But all of that had disappeared [by the mid-sixteenth century]. Now it was the churchwardens who were responsible for poor relief, the repair of the roads and bridges and, of course, the church fabric” (98).

3. Most folks in the Elizabethan country congregations were illiterate. This was why the Anglican service had so many Scripture readings, arranged so that most of the Bible would be “read over in the year.”

4. In the 1570s the Prayer Book “was often bound up with the Bible, physical evidence of their being seen as a unity” (102).

5. Weekly communion by most never became a commonplace until the twentieth century, despite Cranmer’s intention. The reason? One was the expense of the beard and wine!

6. Some of “the reformers replaced the drama of the Mass, culminating in the elevation of the Host, with something that lacked colorful ceremonial and attempted instead an archaeological reconstruction of the Last Supper. A highly cerebral religion of the Word was suddenly imposed on congregations where most could not read” (75).

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