History and derivation of the Prayer Book?

[gtsecc]

History and derivation of the Prayer Book?

[gtsecc]

And when did the Latin begin to be the language of the Mass in England?

[benedictine]

It began after the norman takeover of the motherland.













(england)

[Fish and Bread]

The first Book of Common Prayer was created in 1549 under the guidance of St. Thomas Cramner, then Archbishop of Canterbury. It was designed in an attempt to unify the different rites in use in the Church of England at the time into one rite, while at the same time ensuring a mass universally said in the venacular, and condensing a series of books that were used at the time (breviary, psaltar, ordinal, missal, etc.) into one book that would be more accessible to clergy and laity alike. The idea was that even a priest would need only two books -- a bible and a Book of Common Prayer.

The prayer book of course underwent several revisions and when the Church of England expanded to the colonies and then those same colonies achieved independence, those provinces put out their own revised editions. The first revised US edition was done primarily to remove references to the English monarch, among other things, and the preface from that original volume is included in the 1979 BCP.

Granted, most everyone probably knows this stuff, but I thought I'd start the ball rolling with the basics so other people can fill in the blanks in subsequent posts. :)

John

[pmcleanj]

It began after the norman takeover of the motherland.
It may have been earlier. One thrust of the Council of Whitby, in the seventh century was conforming the Anglican rite to the usage on the continent. Was not Latin the already the language of the Gregorian rite that was imported at that time? Of course, the pre-Whitby usages survived until they were put down by force of arms under the papally-sponsored Normans, but I suspect Latin had already found a place in those parts of England that accepted Whitby's decision. Latin was already the language of scholarship and of books, and after the Angle invasion and the inroads of paganism, Christianity was preserved largely in monasteries where, I had thought, scholarship -- and hence Latin -- were norms rather than exceptions.