Edwardine Ordinals
The Edwardine Ordinals are two ordinals primarily written by Thomas Cranmer as influenced by Martin Bucer and first published under Edward VI, the first in 1550 and the second in 1552, for the Church of England. Both liturgical books were intended to replace the ordination liturgies contained within medieval pontificals in use before the English Reformation.
The 1550 ordinal was authorized the year following the first Book of Common Prayer's introduction. The 1552 ordinal's introduction coincided with that of the second Book of Common Prayer. Both prayer books were also largely prepared by Cranmer. The ordinals provided the basis for most Anglican ordination rites until the 20th century and contributed to the development of the Anglican priesthood from "sacerdotal" and "intercessory" into a "preaching, catechizing, and protestant ministry". They also formed the basis for both the Vestiarian Controversy and, much later, some of the debate over the validity of Anglican holy orders and the subsequent 1896 papal bull Apostolicae curae where they were declared "absolutely null and utterly void" by the Catholic Church.
Medieval ordination liturgies
The word ordinal in the medieval period, rather than applying to a liturgical book containing the rites of ordination, was the title given to a text associated with the recitation of the canonical hours that was eventually assimilated into the breviary. While it is the typical modern name in reference to texts containing ordinations, it was probably not until John Bramhall's 1636 The Consecration and Succession of Protestant Bishops Justified that ordinal was used in this context.Prior to the English Reformation, the liturgies of ordination–for the conferral of holy orders–in the Latin liturgical rites were contained within several versions the pontifical, most prominently the Roman Pontificals of the Roman Rite and the Sarum Pontifical of the Sarum Use. These ordination liturgies were a matter of debate between Rome and Reformers; 17th-century scholar Jean Morin summarized the Catholic Church's position that the contemporary Roman Pontificals "omit nothing that was present in the older" pontificals, while Anglicans have suggested that the laying on of hands by consecrators were variously deleted or obscured by other rituals.
The Gallican ordination liturgies, which had influenced broader Roman Rite practices in the early medieval period, were ritually complex but also possessed clear moments of ordination. For priestly ordination, the bishop laying of hands on a candidate would say it was "the blessing of the presbyterate". The anointing of a priest's hand with chrism appeared within Gallican and Roman liturgies, including the 11th-century Leofric Missal.
As early as the 10th century, English pontificals would build upon Gallican practices with a litany that accompanied ordination liturgies. These medieval texts–besides containing the rituals for ordinating deacons, priests, bishops–also included means for conferring minor orders such as the subdiaconate. Medieval pontificals gradually included and emphasized the conferral of the vestments and other items associated with their new offices, among these being stoles, patens, and chalices, in a custom known as the "tradition of elements". In 1439, this practice was identified by Pope Eugene IV as an essential part of ordination. These medieval practices and their convoluted nature–duplicated actions were common within the ordination Masses–were the result of Roman and Gallican rites being conflated with local permutations. It was not uncommon for elements to be inserted into ordination liturgies that were associated with neither the formal texts nor the liturgical actions.
First Edwardine Ordinal
With the English Reformation and independence of the Church of England from Rome, Henry VIII mandated that the oath of obedience to the pope be deleted from the Sarum and Roman pontificals still in use; these modifications can be seen in some preserved copies of these texts. In 1547, a meeting between parliament and convocation resulted in an act of convocation that permitted clerical marriage in the Church of England. However, no wholly revised ordinal immediately accompanied the 1549 Book of Common Prayer and the Church of England continued to use the Sarum ordination form for the first year of the prayer book's authorization.German reformer Martin Bucer–who had been exiled to England in 1548–drew on the discussions that had already occurred among his fellow reformed countrymen in Germany regarding the role of the priesthood and compiled an ordination liturgy in Latin, De ordinatione legitima ministrorum ecclesiæ reuocanda, for the English reformers to study. Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury and liturgist behind the 1549 prayer book, would perform an ordination with Nicholas Ridley, the Bishop of London and Westminster, at St Paul's Cathedral in 1549 according to the ritual soon to be legally requested.
The authorization and production of an ordinal was formally requested in a House of Lords bill on 8 January 1550 and authorized by an act of Parliament on 31 January that mandated its preparation under the authority of the king "before the first day of April" of 1550. A commission was set up to authorize a form for the new ordinal. Nicholas Heath, a moderate Catholic and the Bishop of Worcester, is the only person known to have been on the commission; Heath was imprisoned for 18 months for refusing to sign off on the ritual form produced for the commission. This form, largely arranged by Cranmer, was derived from Bucer's work with additions that could be traced to Martin Luther and featured some "personal creative contribution" from Cranmer. The ordinal was completed and published by 25 March that year, with the liturgy accompanied by a literary preface. The authorized ordinal was printed by Richard Grafton, bound separately from the prayer book, under the full name A forme and maner of makyng and consecratyng of Archebisshopes, Bisshopes, Priestes and Deacons.
The Sarum ordination liturgies were the foundations of this ordinal, as the revisers did not have the means to review the precedents to the contemporary Sarum usage. As such, the 1550 ordinal was largely a simplification of those rituals with an intent to emphasize the imposition of hands and associate prayers, including the ancient hymn Veni Creator Spiritus. Additionally, the minor orders were wholly deleted in favor of what were deemed the "necessary" orders of deacon, priest, and bishop. According to the ordinal's preface, this was based on an interpretation of Scripture and ancient tradition that established a "existence of the threefold ministry" during the Apostolic age. The examination of candidates, which in the Sarum Use had been exclusive to episcopal consecrations, was also extended to the candidates for the diaconate and priesthood.
The essential elements of the ordination liturgy were interpolated into a Holy Communion office that included Cranmer's litany. As with the medieval ordination Masses, these elements were dispersed throughout the 1550 ordinal liturgies with less attention to cohesion than inclusion of the actions; there is a different ordering of share events within the three ordination rites relative to the Holy Communion office. The 1550 ordinal retained the practice of giving a newly ordained priest certain items, with the addition of a Bible in addition to paten and chalice.
Laypersons could and would attend ordinations, with an opportunity for those gathered to "declare 'any impediment'" and give negative endorsement of the candidates to prevent their ordination. Among the requirements for an ordinand present in the 1550 ordinal were that they be educated and intimately connected with their ministerial community. This requirement proved a challenge among clergy emanating from Wales and the linguistic and cultural frontiers on the border between England and Wales–particularly in the Diocese of Hereford–as many English-speaking clergy had trouble communicating with the local Welsh-speaking laity. In Ireland, the Reformation was decelerated by stalled efforts to translate and print Anglican liturgies in the country and its language. Among the instances of these was a failure to introduce the ordinal alongside a 1551 printing of the prayer book. According to research by Walter Frere published in 1896, a total of six bishops and 110 other clergy were ordained according to the 1550 ordinal.
The Catholic bishops in England did not receive the ordinal in a positive manner. Despite having accepted the 1549 prayer book, Nicholas Heath refused to accept the 1550 ordinal, as he believed that it eroded the Church of England's catholicity. He was deprived of his bishopric at Worcester and imprisoned. A similar fate befell the Catholic Stephen Gardiner.
Episcopal consecration
The ordering and contents of the 1550 form for consecrating bishops differed from both that present in the Sarum Pontifical and Bucer's Latin liturgy:| Sarum Pontifical | Bucer's liturgy | 1550 ordinal |
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Oremus Propitiare domine
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