IX CHAP they are to inform them that the bestowing it on the poor will be more acceptable to God Almighty than making a A.D. 1538 present to images and relics." ized Expo sition of Cromwell's Injunctions also forbid the clergy to alter any fasts or the "order and manner of any prayer, or divine service, otherwise than is specified in the Injunctions," but no alteration at all is specified, unless that indicated in the seventeenth and last injunction, which is as follows: “Item. Where in times past men have used in divers places in their processions to sing Ora pro nobis' to so many saints that they had no time to sing the good suffrages following, as 'Parce nobis Domine, et Libera nos Domine;' that it must be taught and preached that better it were to omit 'Ora pro nobis,' and to sing the other sufrages." Author- About this time an attempt was made to bring out an authoritative exposition of the devotional system at- system of the Church, of a similar character with tempted that of its doctrinal system, which had been published devotional 3 as the "Institution of a Christian Man." This work remains in MS. in the British Museum, and is entitled "Ceremonies to be used in the Church of England, together with an explanation of the meaning and significancy of them." It was probably written by Malet (one of Cromwell's chaplains, and afterwards Dean of Lincoln) in the year 1538, and under the eye of Cranmer, in whose house, at Ford, he was staying for the purpose. This very able "Rationale" of the ancient devotional system is said Cleopatra, E. v. 259. It is printed in Collier's Eccl. Hist., v. 104-122, ed. 1852; and in Strype's Eccl. Memor., I. ii. 411, ed. 1822. * 66 My very singular good Lord: forasmuch as this bearer, your trusty chaplain, Mr. Malet, at this his return towards London from Ford (whereas I left him, according to your Lordship's assignment, occupied in the affairs of our IX by Strype to have been placed before Convocation, CHAP and to have been rejected through the influence of Cranmer. But this is improbable, as Cranmer was de- A.D. 1538 cidedly in favour of continuing the ceremonies of the Church, and explaining them in this manner. And, indeed, a letter of his to a justice of the peace, written about this time, seems almost to refer to this book, though no contemporary copy of it is known in print. Contents The tract itself would occupy about thirty pages of "Ration. this volume, and is, therefore, too long to be printed here. It consists of separate articles on the following subjects, which are all dealt with in the spirit of the "Ten Articles" and the "Institution :" 6 The Church-The Churchyard-The Rites and Ceremonies observed about the Sacrament of Baptism-Ministers -Service of the Church-Ceremonies used in the MassThe observance of Sundays and Holy-days-Bells-The dress of the Clergy-The saying of the daily Offices-Candles on Candlemas Day-Fasting-Ashes on Ash-Wednesday, and other ceremonies of Lent-The Ceremonies of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter-Processions or Litanies Benedictions by Bishops and Priests-Holy water and Holy bread. That this "Book of Ceremonies" had some official Church Service, and now at the writing up of so much as he had to do), came by me here at Croydon to know my further pleasure and commandment in that behalf. . . ." Jenkyns' Cranmer, i. 241. 5 Memorials of Cranmer, i. 168. Eng. Hist. Soc. ed. 6" And whereas your servants report that all things are restored by this new book to their old use, both of ceremonies, pilgrimages, purgatory, and such other, truly you and your servants be so blinded that you call old that is new, and new that is old. . . . But in very deed the people be restored by this book to their old good usages, although they be not restored to their late abused usages, And if men will indifferently of this ale" CHAP weight is evident from a proclamation on the same IX subject which was issued by the Crown on February A.D. 1538 26, 1538." This proclamation travels over the same of the ver. nacular ground in a more condensed way, and in some cases uses the very expressions of the "Rationale." It commands that the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England shall all be used as heretofore until some new orders respecting them are issued; but enjoins upon the clergy the duty of explaining them to the people, indicating the kind of explanations to be given in several cases, and doing so in language that was evidently used by a writer who had the "Book of Ceremonies" before him. Growing The revision of the usages of divine service was a influence most delicate and difficult business to be undertaken, but one which was felt to be necessary by the leading clergy, and the necessity of which the King himself seems reluctantly to have acknowledged. There was, especially, a general feeling that the divine service used in the Church of England should be used in the vernacular, and not in Latin. There was not now, as there would have been a century or two before, any difficulty in deciding what the vernacular really was; for Anglo-Saxon, and NormanFrench, and Latin, and the several dialects of the fens and the hills had been gradually amalgamating into the noble English of the sixteenth century, and though peculiar dialects were still to be heard in remote parts of the country, there was now a real and definite language spoken by the great majority. 7 Wilkins' Concil., iii. 842. 8 It is amusing to find Giraldus Cambrensis saying, that when he preached the Crusades to the Welshmen of Haverfordwest, he could gain two hundred converts at a sermon in French or Latin though they understood not a word of it. [Wharton's Anglia Sacra, ii. 491.] IX Latin, therefore, had no longer the advantage of CHAP being the most comprehensive language in a country of mixed dialects, nor was it so generally understood A.D. 1538 as formerly even by the educated classes. Vernacular prayer books had, indeed, been long Use of English in known in England, and several portions of divine Divine service which especially concerned the people had service been said in English, as will be shown when we come to deal with the subject more fully in the next volume. The English Primer was in use at least during the whole of the fifteenth century, and had been in print from the opening of the sixteenth.9 Homilies in English for the Festivals were printed (from older MSS.) by Caxton in 1483; and convenient indexes had long been common, by means of which those who were able to read could turn to the Lessons, the Epistles and Gospels, in their English New Testaments. In short, a gradual approximation to the use of the vernacular in divine service had been making for a long time past, and Latimer found a very hearty response in the minds of the clergy when, speaking of baptism in his sermon before the Convocation of 1536, he exclaimed, "Shall we evermore in ministering it speak Latin, and not English rather, that the people may know what is said and done ?"1 tion of The first attempts in the direction of ritual refor- Reformamation were, of course, associated with the ancient Latin SerLatin service books. The Breviary, or Portiforium, vice Books had been revised in the time of Warham and Wolsey, 9 Coverdale and Grafton write to Cromwell, on Sept. 12, 1538, asking permission for Regnault, the Paris printer, to sell what books he has in stock, but not to print more in English without an English corrector. They say that he has 1 Sermons, i. 52, ed. 1824. CHAP and a reformed edition published in the year 1516. IX In this the rubrics were much simplified: Holy A.D. 1542 Scripture was directed to be read in order, without omission, and the Lessons were restored to their original length, which was about double of what they had been reduced to in some previous editions. This reformed Portuis was reprinted in 1531, and in 1533 the Missal was reformed on the same principles. The Psalter had also been in use for some time, on a system very nearly similar to our own, and much less difficult to use and follow than the old arrangement. It had also been translated into English as early, at least, as 1530, and was sometimes printed with the Latin and English in parallel columns, as Prayer Books are printed in Welsh and English to this day in Wales. In 1541 a still further reformed edition of the Portuis or Breviary was printed, and directed by Convocation to be used throughout the whole of the province of Canterbury. But further measures of ritual reformation were already contemplated, and no more Service Books were now al lowed to be printed than were absolutely necessary. Lessons to be read in The Convocation of 1542-3 took the first decided English steps towards that revision of the ancient devotional system which ended in our existing Book of Common Prayer. In sending forth the revised Breviary, they also passed a canon ordering "that every Sunday and Holy-day throughout the year, the curate of every parish church, after the Te Deum and Magnificat, shall openly read unto the people one chapter of the New Testament in English without exposition; and when the New Testament is read over then to begin the Old." Archbishop Lee had ordered some years before (probably in 1536) that all curates 2 Wilkins' Concil. iii. 863 |