Book of Common Prayer (1662)
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is an authorised liturgical book of the Church of England and other Anglican bodies around the world. In continuous print and regular use for over 360 years, the 1662 prayer book is the basis for numerous other editions of the Book of Common Prayer and other liturgical texts. Noted for both its devotional and literary quality, the 1662 prayer book has influenced the English language, with its use alongside the King James Version of the Bible contributing to an increase in literacy from the 16th to the 20th century.
Within Christian liturgy, the 1662 prayer book has had a profound impact on spirituality and ritual. Its contents have inspired or been adapted by many Christian movements spanning multiple traditions both within and outside the Anglican Communion, including Anglo-Catholicism, Methodism, Western Rite Orthodoxy, and Unitarianism. Due to its dated language and lack of specific offices for modern life, the 1662 prayer book has largely been supplanted for public liturgies within the Church of England by Common Worship. Nevertheless, it remains a foundational liturgical text of that church and much of Anglicanism.
Background
Following the English Reformation and the separation of the Church of England from the Catholic Church, the liturgies of Anglicanism were transcribed into English. The 1549 Book of Common Prayer, traditionally considered to be the work of Thomas Cranmer, replaced both the missals and breviaries of Catholic usage. Largely a translation of the Sarum Use books, the liturgies were the Communion service and canonical hours of Matins and Evensong, with the addition of the first Edwardine Ordinal containing the forms for the ordination of bishops, priests, and deacons in 1550.Under Edward VI, the 1552 Book of Common Prayer was a radically Protestant liturgy, greater Reformed theology. This process continued with the 1559 edition, following Elizabeth I's rejection of the Marian Restoration. The 1559 edition was for some time the second-most diffuse book in England, only behind the Bible, through an act of Parliament that mandated its presence in each parish church across the country.
The usage of the 1559 prayer book and subsequent elaboration at the Convocation of 1563, which produced the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the revised Book of Homilies in 1571, helped solidify Anglicanism as doctrinally distinct from Catholicism and more Reformed churches under what is now known as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. Minor alterations to the 1559 prayer book were made in 1561, with additions to the Kalendar.
Puritan opposition and the Commonwealth
rejected substantial portions of the Book of Common Prayer, particularly elements retained from pre-Reformation usage. Further escalating the tension between Puritans and other factions in the Church of England were efforts, such as those by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, to require the usage of certain vestments such as the surplice and cope. The Puritan faction further established their opposition to the prayer book liturgical formulae by the Millenary Petition in 1603 and at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604. The resulting Jacobean prayer book was only a minor revision, but the conference also approved the development of the Authorized Version of the Bible. Among the more notable alterations in the Jacobean prayer book was an elongation of the Catechism's sacramental teachings and the introduction of a rubric allowing only a "lawful minister" to perform baptisms, which has been described as an example of post-Reformation clericalism.File:Witnessesfortru00unkngoog 0082JanetGeddes.png|thumb|right|Jenny Geddes rejects Laud's prayer book in St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, 23 July 1637.
The Puritan, Presbyterian, and eventually Parliamentarian opposition to the prayer book continued, while the prayer book was a sign of Royalist leanings. The imposition of a 1637 prayer book influenced by William Laud, the high church Archbishop of Canterbury, for the Church of Scotland stirred a riot that eventually spiraled into the First Bishops' War. The popular Puritan Root and Branch petition, presented to the Long Parliament by Oliver Cromwell and Henry Vane the Younger in 1640, attempted to eliminate the episcopacy and decried the prayer book as "Romish".
With the defeat of the Royalist Cavalier faction, execution of Charles I, and establishment of Commonwealth England under the Puritan Parliament, restrictions were repeatedly imposed on prayer book worship that culminated in its prohibition in 1645 and introduction of the Directory for Public Worship. Public celebration according to prayer book rubrics occasionally continued with varying degrees of discreetness, with priests such as George Bull and John Hacket memorising certain offices to feign extemporaneous prayer. Private celebration of the prayer book among some laity continued, with John Evelyn recording in his diary the conduct of private baptisms of his children and the churching of his wife according to the prayer book. Other proponents of the prayer book, including Laud, were imprisoned. Laud was executed in 1645.
Revision and introduction
Restoration and Savoy Conference
, a Laudian bishop locked in the Tower of London by the Parliamentarian Roundheads, remarked during his imprisonment that the prayer book "hath been long disused that not one of five hundred" were familiar enough with the prayer book that they would recognise any alterations. Despite this, Wren hoped that he could effect a revision that would resolve the issues that had made the prayer book so unpopular. This desire for effective revision was contemporaneous with a significant increase of interest in Anglican liturgical history; Hamon L'Estrange's 1659 The alliance of divine offices would be the only comparative study of the preceding prayer books for some time even following the 1662 edition's approval.The 1660 Stuart Restoration saw the end of Puritan rule and coronation of Charles II. While the reinstated Church of English prelates desired a return to prayer book liturgies, the surviving Nonconformist Puritan party sought an arrangement that would prevent the resurrection of the prayer book and other pre-Commonwealth Anglican practices. The new leadership broadly supported simply reinstating the 1604 prayer book, but both Laudians and Presbyterians successfully lobbied for revision. This dialogue culminated in the 1661 Savoy Conference at Savoy Hospital in London. From among the Anglican bishops and Puritan ministers, twelve representatives and nine assistants attended the conference. The Anglican party forwarded a modest revision of the 1559 prayer book, advertised as a via media between Catholic and Reformed Protestant practice. The conference terminated with few concessions to the Puritans, which included rejecting an effort to delete the wedding ring from the marriage office, and encouraged the creation of a new prayer book.
The Laudian ritualist John Cosin had fled during the Commonwealth and was made Bishop of Durham upon his return in 1660. Cosin, who had spent his exile examining the prayer book liturgy, produced a compilation of his proposed revisions as notations in a 1619 copy of the prayer book. The edits and notes of this copy, known as the Durham Book, were translated by William Sancroft into a new copy, known as the Fair Copy. Ultimately, some of these edits were accepted by the Convocation and placed into a manuscript, known as the Annex Book for its attachment as an annex to the law approving it, and a noted 1636 copy of the prayer book, known as the Convocation Book.
The post-Puritan Parliament passed a series of four laws, known as the Clarendon Code, to prevent Puritans and other Nonconformists from holding office and ensure that public worship was according to officially approved Anglican texts. The Act of Uniformity 1662, passed on 19 May 1662, authorised the usage of the 1559 prayer book until St. Bartholomew Day that year, at which point it would be replaced with the 1662 prayer book. When the 24 August date arrived, an estimated 1,200 to 2,000 Puritans were evicted from their benefices in what became known as the Great Ejection or Black Bartholomew. In 1664, the Conventicle Act introduced punishments for any person over 16 years old should they attend a worship service not according to the 1662 prayer book. These Nonconformists would boost the Dissenter denominations, frustrating the Church of England's efforts for uniform worship.
Early printings
Including printings of the 1549, 1552, 1559, and 1662 editions, there were more than 500 printings of the Book of Common Prayer through to the 1730s, with an average of 2,500 to 3,000 copies in these printings. The total number of copies printed increased as technology improved; in the period between 1836 and 1846, up to half a million copies of the 1662 prayer book were printed each year. It was during the first decades of the 1662 edition's use that Oxford University Press began printing an increasingly larger proportion of the total number of prayer books produced.Some initial printings retained the already antique blackletter script of earlier editions, though the last blackletter English prayer book of any note may have been the 1662 prayer book's first folio edition. The 1662 prayer book was among the various texts printed by John Baskerville in his font during the 18th century. Baskerville, whose printings achieved acclaim for their ornamentation, also collaborated with Cambridge University Press to produce octavo and duodecimo prayer books. Deviating from the red and Gothic script used in Roman Breviaries and earlier prayer books respectively, roman fonts were standard for 1662 prayer book rubrics.
Church of England usage
For roughly 300 years, the 1662 prayer book was left mostly unmodified. However, incremental additions appeared during the early Stuart Restoration. Among them were polemic penitential offices for the Gunpowder Plot and execution of Charles I, as well as one for thanksgiving following the 1666 Great Fire of London. Soon into its use, the 1662 prayer book's lack of offices for particular events forced the Church of England to separately adopt forms for these services. Among these was a simplified form for consecrating churches approved by convocation in 1712, the result of Cosin's Laudian office having been rejected and the need to consecrate 50 new churches in London. When James II of England succeeded Charles II, it was necessary to revive the coronation service used by Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I.Where Charles II had been Catholic-sympathising, James II was an openly practising Catholic. Both favoured practices which further excluded Nonconformists. The ousting of James II and arrival of the Dutch Calvinist William III and Mary II during the Glorious Revolution in 1688 resulted in a greater normalisation of relations with Dissenter parties. Along with these measures, William III endorsed the creation of a commission to improve the Church of England's relations with Nonconformists. One objective of the commission was to approve "alterations and amendments to the liturgy" along Latitudinarian lines. With the leadership of William Lloyd, then the Bishop of Worcester, and deans Edward Stillingfleet, Simon Patrick, and John Tillotson, a revised prayer book was produced in 1689. The Liturgy of Comprehension was never approved, as the policy of Toleration towards Nonconformists—codified by the 1688 Toleration Act—was felt sufficient. The contents of the Liturgy of Comprehension were not public until Parliament ordered its printing in 1854.
Efforts to revise the prayer book were proliferate through the 19th century. Pamphlets containing proposals for such revisions were published in the dozens during the 1850s and 1860s, though to no formalised effect. Similarly, internal Church of England efforts to alter the prayer book resulted in only the excising of the Gunpowder Plot prayers and insertion of a general office to celebrate the accession day of the reigning monarch. An 1877 committee spent 15 years attempting to improve the 1662 prayer book's punctuation, ultimately with no action taken.