 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
May 2008
Parish History Episode 85 - The 1552 Prayer Book
The lords and ladies departed from Greenwich. Gilpin’s sermon had been delivered. It is true that there had been several rows of empty chairs in front of the preacher (this has not been unknown on later occasions). Young Edward, the crowned and anointed King of England, had been absent. John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland, the real ruler of England, had also been absent. But John’s son, young Robert Dudley, had heard Gilpin preach, and so had Francis Russell. Some years later, when both Edward and Mary were dead, and their half-sister Elizabeth had come to the Throne, these men, by then Earl of Leicester and Earl of Bedford respectively, would be very influential at Elizabeth’s Court.
But for the moment, John Dudley ruled. He had no interest in economic or social reform, and would probably have been displeased if he had heard Gilpin. But he did give his backing to religious reform - to the Reformation - and was ready to back Cranmer in the Archbishop’s plans for a new liturgy to reflect more closely the new understanding of religion, and of the Eucharist, which had arisen in circles influenced by the ideas of Luther, and more recently by the teachings of Zwingli and Calvin.
But why was a new liturgy needed ? By the summer of 1552 the earlier prayerbook had had three years to establish itself, and had, it would seem, proved popular with most of its users. No longer did conservative squires associate Protestant worship with the ecstatic rantings of “Hot Gospellers”, and no longer did tongue-tied peasants see it as “a Christmas game”. The beauty and rhythm of Cranmer’s English was becoming increasingly appreciated, while the old Latin texts were becoming forgotten, or by some remembered merely as so much “hocus-pocus”. (How quickly have we seen, in our own times, the vernacular replace Latin in the services of the Roman Catholic Church - and the modern Catholics have no Cranmer to write for them!)
John Marbeck, who, like Latimer, had only just escaped death as a heretic in the last years of the old King’s reign, had composed the necessary musical accompaniment to lend dignity to the to the 1549 service (though probably most parish churches lacked talented persons capable of making use of Marbeck’s music). Sterngold and Hopkins had begun to compose metrical versions of the Psalms, translated into ordinary English, though only forty-four had been printed in the latest edition published at the time of King Edward’s death (Their work would be completed during Queen Elizabeth’s reign). But these psalms were becoming increasingly popular, and congregational singing would prove to be one of the most popular innovations associated with the new services.
But Thomas Cranmer was not satisfied with his own labours. While Seymour and Dudley squabbled for power around the young King’s throne, he was reading liturgical texts, and seeking out the best in Christendom. He corresponded with learnèd men, including the Continental Reformers, and he was in conversation with scholars in England. His views on the Eucharist, orthodox enough, we may presume, at the time of his ordination, with formal consent to the doctrine of Transubstantiation, as defined by Aquinas and others, had first been influenced by Luther, who taught Consubstantiation (the belief that the elements of the Eucharist were truly the Body and Blood of Christ, without ceasing to be, at the same time, bread and wine), but had now advanced to the doctrine taught by Zwingli, that the Sacrament was “a bare Memorial” of Christ’s Redemption of humanity.
Gilpin’s old opponent, Peter Martyr, together with Butzer and Laski, had all criticised the 1549 book to Cranmer, and had asked for further changes in a Protestantising direction, and they had been joined by another exile, the Scottish Reformer John Knox, who had come to England for his own safety, and had for a brief while ministered to a congregation of exiled Scots in Berwick, and had introduced to them the custom of receiving Communion while seated round a table, and had since moved to London, and was advocating that practice to all who would give him ear.
Oddly enough, another man to influence Cranmer’s thinking was Stephen Gardiner, the Catholic champion, and Bishop of Winchester. Like Bonner of London, Gardiner was now resident in the Tower of London, both prelates having been despatched there because of their non-compliance with instructions to introduce the 1549 Prayer-Book in their respective dioceses.
However Bishop Gardiner had, while in prison, written a book, which he managed to get published abroad, in which he claimed that the words of the 1549 Book did not necessarily imply Protestant belief, but that they could be used by a Catholic with a perfectly clear conscience, as long as the user rightly understood their meaning. Possibly Gardiner was signalling to the authorities his willingness to comply with the Law, and he might have hoped to be released, and to be restored to his diocese.
(Incidentally, Gardiner’s arguments bore a strong resemblance to those which would be used, three hundred years later, by the “Tractarians”, the High Church party within the Church of England, when they similarly argued that the creeds and articles of the Church of England fully supported their “Catholic” interpretation of the meaning of the Eucharist and the other Sacraments. However, as Newman and other leading Tractarians of that period chose later to be accepted into the Roman Catholic Church, they presumably eventually found their own arguments in support of Anglo-Catholicism to be unsatisfactory. But whatever the validity of such claims, Cranmer seems to have been disturbed to discover that his writings were so ambiguous as to allow Bishop Gardiner, or anyone else, to claim him for the traditions of Catholicism).
Perhaps, however, Archbishop Cranmer had been goaded by Gardiner into making his revised Prayer-Book unambiguously Protestant, It was laid before Parliament and Convocation, and accepted by both the lay and the clerical Estates of the Realm, and orders were given that it would replace the existing 1549 Book from All Saints’ Day (the First of November) of that year, 1552. It would be this Book that Gilpin would come to use, as Vicar of Norton, a post which he accepted shortly after delivering his sermon at Greenwich.
When he first came to use the Book, Bernard Gilpin would at first see it as a revision of the 1549 Book, for most of Cranmer’s words remained unaltered. There were, however, important differences. Some rites, such as the Sacrament of (private) Confession, had been omitted entirely, while others, such as the Sacrament of Baptism, had been greatly simplified. The Doctrine of Purgatory had been denied in the 1549 Book, and prayers for the dead, together with the invocation of saints, only vestigial there, had gone completely in the 1552 Book. The Sign of the Cross was no longer required in any service.
But it was in the Sacrament of the Eucharist (now referred to as “the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion”, not as “the Mass”) that the differences were most pronounced. It was now ordered that no Eucharistic Vestments would be worn by the priest, but only a plain surplice. Communion had been in Both Kinds, according to the 1549 rite, but in 1552 instructions to mix water with the Wine in the chalice were omitted; while the Bread was now to be ordinary leavened Bread, not an unleavened Wafer, and was to be placed in the communicant’s hand, not his or her mouth.
Reservation for the sick was forbidden, the priest being instead instructed to consecrate anew at the sick person’s bedside. Any private celebration of Communion was forbidden, and there was no specific permission given for any celebration other than in the course of the Sunday parish service.
Whatever the Lord’s Supper was, it was clear, according to the new Book, that it was not a sacrifice. Although the celebrant is still described as “the priest”, the place of consecration is no longer an altar, but is called either “the Communion Table” or “God’s Board” The Offertory became the Presentation of Alms (collected before, not during, the Service) at the Table, not the oblation of the Eucharistic Elements prior to Consecration. The Words of Administration, which in 1549 had been “The Body/Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ Which was given/shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto Everlasting Life”, now became “Take and eat This, in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by Faith, with thanksgiving” / “Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s Blood was shed for thee, and be thankful".
Although the author of all these words was Thomas Cranmer, he had this time, in 1552, though not in 1549, taken advice in compilation not only from foreign divines, but also from Convocation, the “parliament”, so to speak, in which the English clergy convened - the equivalent at that time of the General Synod to-day. Thus, Cranmer hoped, the clergy of the Realm would “own” and use the wording of the 1552 Book, and would influence the laity to take it to their hearts.
But, at the last moment, before going to press, he added a further passage without consulting anyone. This was the “Black Rubric”, as it would be later known, which was appended to the Communion Service. This rubric explains why, contrary to the advice of the Scottish Reformer, John Knox, the communicants were expected to kneel in order to receive the Elements. It reads, in part, “...lest the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise, we do declare that it is not meant thereby that any adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Real and Essential Presence there being of Christ’s Natural Flesh and Blood. For as concerning the Sacramental Bread and Wine, they remain still in their vary natural substances, and therefore may not be adored, for that were idolatry... ...the Natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, They are in Heaven, and not here.”
In part it was an answer to John Knox. But it was also a reply to Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester at that time incarcerated in the Tower of London, and claiming to be able to read Catholic doctrine into the words of the English Prayer-Book. This rubric would also be the rock upon which Newman and other Tractarians would stumble, three hundred years later, and which would compel them to follow their consciences, and betake themselves to Rome.
Dick Toy
