The complicated historical development of liturgy and music within Anglican tradition exhibits, like most traditions, both continuity and diverse evolution. In the past seven decades the ‘Liturgical Movement’ and Vatican II have impacted Anglican liturgy and catechesis, affecting particularly what role music plays in liturgy, and in the ongoing tension between what is ecumenically ‘common’ (what unifies liturgically and musically) as well as what is peculiar to Anglican music history, the latter found primarily in the historical traditions of England and the British Isles. More recently the reality of enculturated liturgy has moved away from the “common” to the specific, including ritual music of different geographies, languages, and peoples.
Anglican historical overview, ecclesial and liturgical[1]
The break of the church in England from papal oversight was official by 1534, when King Henry VIII declared he was the head of the church and demanded an act of submission of the clergy to the king, rather than to the pope. But the political history and tension in the Church of England, and by extension, throughout the Anglican Communion is an almost constant tug of war between the Catholic side of Anglicanism and the Protestant (or Reformed) side of Anglicanism, a series of conflicts that is also reflected in the early history of the liturgy. For example, within the space of 100 years; in 1555, Anglicanism was suppressed and England was again Roman Catholic. In 1558, papal authority was again rejected and the Church of England was back as a separate entity, now declared to be both Catholic and Reformed. In 1649 the Church of England was dis-established and Puritans reigned supreme. In 1660 the monarchy and the church were restored, and Anglicanism began to spread throughout the British Empire and from there throughout the world.
Like this political pattern, the liturgy, enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer, was caught in the same pattern of first more Catholic, then more Protestant, then more Catholic, then more Protestant; a tensive pattern that continues to this day. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer was meant to be a compromise between these two claims on Anglicanism, but the tensions continued through the 19th century, with the Oxford movement returning much of the performative, visual, and devotional elements of Catholic liturgy, and the evangelical movement particularly focusing on very public social justice issues and scriptural adherence. In the 20th century revisions and renewals, the particularities of Anglicanism on both sides of the Catholic and Reformed sides are both challenged and enriched by ecumenical trajectories.
Liturgical development
The church in England continued to use existing Latin prayer books until the first official Book of Common Prayer in 1549 was compiled by Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), then Archbishop of Canterbury, who translated medieval prayers, drawing especially on the Sarum Usage of the Roman Rite in England,[2] borrowed some prayers from continental Protestantism,[3] simplified the liturgy to accommodate some Protestant demands, reduced the sanctoral, and above all sought to “saturate”[4] the English people in scripture in their own language. The annual lectionary made its way through most of the bible, morning and evening prayer made it through the psalter each month, and a tremendous effort was made to teach everyone the essential prayers in English. How this shapes Anglican liturgy is a stress on a liturgy that was shaped to teach – more didactic than catechetical, more information than formation. In spite of the beauty of the English language composition of Thomas Cranmer’s prayers, it is words, lots and lots of words, now in the vernacular and in a loud voice that enabled the assembly to enter into the scriptures and prayers of the church. Cranmer’s collect written shortly before his death (and later appointed for the second Sunday of Advent in the 1662 Prayer Book) is a summation of this intent:
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever.[5]
This work of teaching through the liturgy was aided by the presence of an English language bible in every church, mandated by law in 1539 to be chained to a reading desk and available to all;[6] by an English language book of common prayer, by Cranmer’s own design of the liturgy of the hours, combining lauds and matins into a lengthy morning prayer with psalms, biblical canticles, two substantial scripture readings, and prayers, as well as creating a complex evening prayer by combining vespers and compline, also with long readings and a double set of prayers.
Each of the sacramental rites came with lengthy introductions, or exhortations, both by way of explanation (a didactic teaching about the sacrament) as well as encouragement to amend one’s life before partaking in the sacraments. So, for example, the exhortation before the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer in the 1549 prayer book relies on St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (I Corinthians 11:23-32) and the reminder to receive worthily, instructing parishioners as to what it is they are doing, why it is so important, and what they may bring upon themselves by receiving unworthily.[7] It is particularly the instruction before the marriage rite that is perhaps best known throughout the English-speaking world and beyond.
Deerly beloved frendes, we are gathered together here in the syght of God, and in the face of his congregacion, to joyne together this man and this woman in holy matrimonie, which is an honorable estate instituted of God in paradise, in the time of mannes innocencie, signifying unto us the misticall union that is betwixte Christe and his Churche…[8]
But lest these didactic instructions and extensive scripture passages give the impression of a static liturgy in which intellectual assent was the sole means of salvation, it would be good to look at the contexts in which these several prayer books in the 16th and 17th century were set, and how the dynamism of the liturgy drew people in and inspired contemporary arrangements in Anglican liturgy. I would suggest music was a primary way in which Anglicanism found a way to shape Christian spirituality through the liturgy, along with the physical space in which that music was lifted upwards.
Architectural space as shaper of liturgical engagement
The use of architectural space, particularly in the 16th and early 17th centuries, had a tremendous impact on music. Having been forced by law to worship according to the 1549 prayer book alone, many parishes, especially those aligned with monastic churches and cathedrals, found themselves at a loss as to how to do the new liturgy, in English, in buildings designed for a different liturgy. The typical church architectural arrangement was primarily a two-room space, with a nave for the lay people, and a quire for the monastic community with the high altar at the far end of the quire. These two spaces were divided by a rood screen,[9] which by the 13th century had become a substantial wall in many places, offering visual access only through a narrow doorway. In large cathedrals and pilgrimage churches, the space beyond the high altar was often for important burials, and by the 15th century often extended further east with the erection of numerous Lady Chapels dedicated to the Virgin Mary.[10] Smaller parish churches, without the substantial monastic quire, still maintained a very ancient two room space rooted in Anglo-Saxon traditions, with the altar against the east wall in what was almost a separate room from the nave. These spaces generally had the entrance on the south side, or in the southwest corner, where one walked into the baptismal font, frescoes and statues on the opposite wall, and turned right to enter and face the altar.[11]
With the reformed English church requirement to have a large bible chained to a reading desk in an accessible place in the nave, a creative solution to using the whole space emerged in the 16th century.[12] While the 1549, the 1552, and the 1559 prayer books (the third prayer book enduring the longest, until outlawed in 1645 by the Puritans) describe the opening rites of the Eucharistic liturgy as taking place at the altar, the liturgy of the word (and preaching) was often done in the nave, with the congregation gathered around the pulpit or reading desk in order to hear. The sermon was followed by the creed and then the offering, which was often given by dropping a coin in the alms box embedded in the rood screen as they walked to the altar. In other words, the whole congregation (or at least those who were staying for communion) moved from the nave through the rood screen into the quire to gather around the altar. After they arrived in the choir, the ‘prayer for the whole state of Christ’s church” was offered (the prayers of the faithful) and the Eucharistic prayer began, followed by the reception of communion and a blessing. The bipartite liturgy (word and eucharist) was celebrated in two parts of the building, moving the congregation through the whole space, rather than separating the laity and the clergy, or the laity and monastic community inclusive of clergy, into their own exclusive spaces.
This creative use of the whole building was undone in the Puritan ascendency, when hearing the scriptures and preaching required a space designed for auditory engagement with clear sight lines to the pulpit. The new construction or adaptation of single room spaces accompanied the change of verbal dimensions of worship during the decades of suppression of Anglican liturgy,[13] but also the use of time (Christian feasts and seasons were banned) and the physical engagement of moving through the building; of sitting, standing, kneeling, eating and drinking. With the inclusion of benches for the congregation, and then boxed pews, people no longer moved but sat and occasionally stood for the word-based worship service centered around didactic moralistic preaching.
What is interesting about the medieval church spaces is that the influence of the late 18th century and particularly 19th century Oxford and Cambridge movements, with their concern for architectural aesthetics as a way to restore the appeal of medieval remoteness and mystery, led to a resurgence of Neo-Gothic (or Gothic Revival) church buildings that came to mark the majority of new Anglican church buildings around the world.[14] But unlike the creative use of the medieval monastic church by early Anglicans in which the whole assembly moved through the spaces, the separate spaces of the medieval floorplan were reproduced in both large and small churches with the congregation stuck in nave pews, while the monastic quire became the place of the musical choir, and the high altar was placed against the east wall surrounded by a communion rail, remote from the congregation. Because the primary liturgy on Sunday mornings was most often Morning Prayer rather than Holy Eucharist, there was no reason to draw near to the altar for the majority of participants.
The engagement with the liturgy became far less physically active, the altar (and communion) remote and removed from everyday experience, and the baptistery – once a separate building attached to the cathedral – reduced to a side chapel containing a very small and very private baptismal bowl. But the almost-mandatory use of the neo-gothic design with the quire separating the nave and the altar sanctuary contributed to another liturgical resurgence, especially pronounced after the restoration of monarchy and church in 1660, the expanded role of music in the liturgy.
[1] I use the terms “Anglican”, “Anglicanism”, and the “Anglican Communion” throughout this essay, understanding that while the phrase ecclesia anglicana dates back to 1246, and anglicanae back to Roman rule in Britain, the use of the term “Anglican” is really only common in the 19th century, and specifically refers to those Christians within the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic” church who are in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, a definition challenged in recent years.
[2] Often called the “Sarum Rite”, the Sarum Usage was the inculturated Roman Rite of Salisbury Cathedral and environs, shaped and celebrated primarily from the 11th through the 16th centuries in the South of England. In the late 20th century a number of revitalized versions of the Sarum Usage have returned, most notably in the US (the “American Sarum Rite” – see Christ Church, Bronxville, New York) and in Eastern Canada (see McGill University’s early music program, as well as a number of Anglican parishes).
[3] Cranmer traveled to the continent and became friends with several of the Protestant Reformers, familiarizing himself with some of the Lutheran materials as well as the Reformed work in Switzerland and elsewhere.
[4] Alan Jacobs, The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
[5] Opening collect for Proper 28 (the Sunday closest to November 16) in the Rite I translation of the Book of Common Prayer 1979. (New York: Church Publishing, 1979) 184. Originally an Advent collect looking to the second coming of Christ, the shift to the end of the liturgical year is itself an interesting example of the particularity of Anglicanism meeting the ecumenical liturgical movement.
[6] See Arthur Sumer Herbert, Thomas Herbert Darlow, & Horace Frederick Moule, Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the English Bible 1525-1961. London: British & Foreign Bible Society, 1968.
[7] Derely beloved in the Lord: ye that mynde to come to the holy Communion of the body and bloud of our saviour Christ, muste considre what St. Paul writeth to the Corinthians, how he exhorteth all persons diligently to trye and examine themselves, before they presume to eate of that bread, and drinke of that cup: for as the benefite is great, if with a truly penitent heart and lively fayth, we receive that holy Sacrament (for then we spirituallye eate the fleshe of Christ, and drynke hys bloud, then we dwel in Christ and Christ in us, we be one with Christ, and Christ with us;) so is the daunger great, if we receive the same unworthely. For then we be giltie of the bodye and bloud of Christ our saviour. We eate and drynke our own damnacion, not consideryng the Lordes body. We kindle Goddes wrath againste us, we provoke hym to plague us with divers diseases, and sundry kynds of death. Therfore, yf any of you be a blasphemer of God, an hynderer or slaunderer of his worde, an adulturer, or be in malice or envie, or in any other grevous cryme, bewayle your sinnes, and come not to thys holy Table; lest after the takyng of that holy Sacrament, the Devill entre into you, as he entred into Judas, and fyll you ful of al iniquities, and bryng you to destruccion, both of bodye and soule. The Supper of the Lord and Holy Communion, commonly called the Masse. Book of Common Prayer 1549.
[8] “Solemnizacion of Matrimonie” in The booke of the common prayer and the administracion of the sacraments (1549).
[9] “rood” is the Old English word (Saxon) for “cross” and originally referred to a wooden lattice separating the altar space from the rest of the church topped with a crucifix and statues of Mary and St. John on either side. In many medieval English cathedrals the rood screen became 10-15 feet deep, allowing for a gallery above that could accommodate singers.
[10] See David Stancliffe, The Lion Companion to Church Architecture. Oxford: Lion Pub., 2008; Robert Whiting, The Reformation of the English Parish Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010; Jon Cannon, Cathedral: the Great English Cathedrals and the World that Made them; 600-1540. London: Constable, 2007.
[11] Helen Gittos, Liturgy, Architecture and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013; and The Liturgy of the Late Anglo-Saxon Church, eds. Helen Gittos & M. Bradford Bedingfield. London: Boydell Press for the Henry Bradshaw Society, 2005.
[12] See David H. Smart, “Anglican Church Plans” in Searching for Sacred Space: Essays on Architecture and Liturgical Design in the Episcopal Church, ed. John Ander Runkle. NY: Church Pub. Inc., 2002.
[13] The Puritan ascendancy was fueled by the rise of “Laudianism” (named after Archbishop William Laud) which restored an aesthetic dimension to the liturgy generally referred to as a return to “the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 29:2). This move toward a more catholic Anglicanism resulted in the banning of the “popish” Anglican liturgy and the prayer book in 1645 and the ultimate execution of the king (Charles I). At the restoration of the monarchy and Anglicanism in 1660, a new prayer book was reconstructed, the 1662 prayer book, which is still in active use in many places around the world.
[14] See H. R. Hitchcock, Architecture: nineteenth and twentieth centuries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 4th edn, 1989; and Phoebe B. Stanton, The Gothic Revival and American Church Architecture: An Episode in Taste 1840-1856. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
This post is Part I of a three-part series.
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