A Reappraisal of Liturgical Continuity in the Mid-Sixteenth Century: Henrician Innovations and the First Books of Common Prayer

• Main Author: Aude de Mézerac-Zanetti
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre de Recherche et d'Etudes en Civilisation Britannique 2017-05-01
• Series: Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique
• Subjects: English Reformation; Henry VIII; liturgy; Book of Common Prayer
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1218

The multiple sources of the first two versions of the Book of Common Prayer have received a lot of attention from scholars. Thomas Cranmer, who was their principal compiler, had indeed turned to diverse texts for inspiration: the Sarum rite of his province of Canterbury and Scripture were obvious sources, as were the several ancient liturgical traditions of which the archbishop had knowledge. This article however explores more immediate origins for the English liturgies, i.e. the new practices created at the end of Henry VIII’s reign. After the break with Rome and the passing of the Act of Supremacy of 1534, liturgical experiments were rife in England as the regime harnessed public prayer to advertise the royal supremacy and the clergy responded by adapting the Catholic liturgy to the new ecclesiology and the revised doctrinal pronouncements. Several of the new prayers composed under Henry were included in the Book of Common Prayer, albeit in a slightly modified version (bidding of the bedes, 1543 litany). Moreover, changes in the clergy’s liturgical habits also shed light on the origins of some passages found in the Edwardian liturgies. This article also seeks to illuminate one of the most enduring historiographical issues relating to the English Reformation: why was the wholesale liturgical reform of 1549 so readily accepted or tolerated by a majority of the English people? A better understanding of how the Henrician Reformation redefined the status of the liturgy may contribute to explaining the success of the Edwardian liturgical reforms, for public prayer had lost its status as an immutable and trustworthy depository of faith and had become a text which could be reformed at will by the government.