Fr.

Diego Galanzino Cranmers liturgical agenda

What was Thomas Cranmers liturgical agenda?

The Church of England and several other Churches in the Anglican Communion owe much of their liturgical language, structures, and general inheritance to Thomas Cranmer and to the reforms he made in the Sixteenth Century at the courts of Henry VIII and his immediate successors. The chief example of Cranmers work is the Book of Common Prayer with its three consecutive editions i.e. AD 1549, 1552 and 1662. Indeed, the Stuarts edition of the Prayer Book preserved most of Cranmers original work, enshrining it as the backbone of Church of Englands liturgy until the liturgical movements of the twentieth century. Cranmers liturgical agenda was carried out through a series of dramatic reforms of the medieval and post-medieval English rites. However, because of the gradual introductions of these reforms it is difficult to understand whether or not Cranmers programme was a premeditated act, or whether it was part of a continuing process characterised by a series improvements and tweaking which would better suit his developing theological ideas. Even to this day different scholars have different opinions on the matter. According to Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer died at the stake for his hatred for the Mass1 and arguably this hatred could be considered as the driving force behind reforming agenda of the archbishop. This interpretation would depict the 1549 Prayer Book just an interim edition preceded by the distribution of English Bibles in every parish from 1538 and succeeded by the final 1552 more protestant edition. However, it is difficult to envisage Cranmer as a calculating opportunist who distributed his reforms over decades in order to achieve a better result especially given that some documents point towards a gradual change of heart2 which took place in Cranmers own theology and understanding of the sacraments. This latter interpretation of Cranmers work highlights the gradual shift from an essentially Catholic way of worship to an Anglicised model of Calvinist spirituality and thus it should not be totally overlooked.

Liturgical developments
Cranmers concerns about the liturgy were largely inspired by the protestant thought he encountered on the continent. Particularly, his first concern was to promote a type of worship which could be understood by the people. This essentially meant breaking with the Churchs traditional use of Latin and cutting back the more complex ritualism which was deemed unscriptural and the source of popular superstitions. Nevertheless, this type of reforms neither implied a complete change in sacramental theology nor in the understanding of ecclesiology.

1 2

Diarmaid MACCULLOCH (2003) 383 cf. D.E.W. HARRISON and Michael C. SAMSON (1982) 40

Fr. Diego Galanzino Cranmers liturgical agenda

The Litany and the English Bible Cranmer first attempt to reform the liturgy in this way came as the religious response to a political crisis under the reign of Henry VIII, when the King was engaged in conflicts with both France and Scotland3. Thus, in 1544, Cranmer convinced the King to allow for the publication of the Litany in English, in order to encourage popular devotion and prayer to support Henry. The Litany which closely matches the Litany of the Saints in the use of Sarum was published in 1544 in a version which notably shortened the invocation of saints4, without wiping them out completely. As a result of this, the first official liturgical text in English was introduced. It followed just a few years after the introduction of the English Bible in every parish; an innovation for which Cranmer was largely responsible5 together with Thomas Cromwell.

The 1549 Book of Common Prayer Nevertheless, a full-scale reformation had to wait until the reign of Edward VI (1547 1553). Thus is 1549 Cranmer promulgated the first Book of Common Prayer. This volume had very ambitious aims, among which was to introduce one single liturgical use for the whole land6; to make all rites of the Church accessible to the people; to simplify the daily pattern of prayer7 whilst also making it available to the laity; and also to provide the faithful with Scriptural teaching within the context of worship. The 1549 edition was a single mans effort and it tried to mediate between contrasting theological thoughts of the time. Thus, although this first edition was clearly a fruit of the Reformation, it preserved nonetheless a very strong conservative flavour. For example some key elements of its structure followed perhaps too closely for other reformers the use of Sarum. Before moving on to consider the second Cranmerian edition of the Prayer Book it is worth noting two intermediate events that remain often overlooked and which took place between 1549 and 1552. First, towards the end of 1549 a new wave of iconoclasm spread throughout England with an intensity only surpassed by the Civil War. Not only images, but also holy relics were destroyed; whilst many invocations to the Saints were blotted out8 of Primiers and artefacts. Cranmer was probably largely responsible for the royal directives which commanded all churches to destroy all images, not just the ones of saints9. However, the archbishop seemed not to be involved in the first iconoclastic frenzy that accompanied the dissolution of the monasteries under the reign of Henry VIII. Therefore, one could speculate that Cranmers theological stance on the matter may have become more puritan during the time since that first incident which cost England a great quantity of devotional artefacts, relics, shrines, and all monastic houses. Secondly, 1550 Cranmer completed the first set of reformed liturgies with the publication of the Ordinal. The archbishop did not include the ordination rites in the first edition of Prayer Book but kept them as a separate provision following the

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cf. ibid. 41 cf. ibid. 41 5 cf. ibid. 39 6 Notably, the Roman Church only achieved near-total uniformity of use only with the Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum which promulgated the 1570 edition of the Roman Missal. 7 both in terms of Kalendar and of Daily Office. 8 Remarkable examples of this are found in Eamon Duffys The Stripping of the Altars. The author shows how, where destruction of images proved too difficult, the artefacts were just defaced to prevent devotions. 9 cf. D.E.W. HARRISON and Michael C. SAMSON (1982) 42

Fr. Diego Galanzino Cranmers liturgical agenda

customs of the medieval Ceremonial of Bishops10. Notably, in the ordination of priests the explicatory rites were amended to reflect the new emphases placed on priestly ministry; thus the rite prescribed the giving of a Bible to the priest as well as the Eucharistic vessels.

The 1552 Book of Common Prayer and further developments The second stage of Cranmers reform came with the redaction and publication of the second edition Prayer Book between 1551 and 1552. By the end of 1550 the Church of England had assumed many of the characteristics of a continental Reformed church; however the formal and largely conservative style of worship imposed by Cranmer in the previous year created unrest on both side of the widening religious divide. On the one hand, those more influenced by Protestant ideas wished to remove any sort of ritualism from the Prayer Book; whilst on the other hand, the traditionalist struggled to adapt to the new regime and criticised Cranmer for his ambiguous theological stance. The archbishop thus found himself caught between the extremisms expressed by the continental Reformers and the sheer weight of religious conservatism11. Up to this point Cranmer had cut back the ritualism of the Church in order to establish a liturgy which could be understood by the people thus preventing them from falling into superstitious practices. However, it seems that Cranmer did not set himself to amend drastically the sacramental theology of the Church. Indeed, he had been responsible for the publications the Ten Articles of Faith during the reign of Henry VIII, but these appeared on the whole only moderately influenced by the Reformation12. Nevertheless, during the brief period in between the editions of the Prayer Book Cranmer theology about priesthood, the Eucharist and the other sacraments appear to change radically, giving rise to a new quasi-Calvinist way of worship. Three things could be seen as shaping Cranmers actions at this time: (a) he recognised that the 1549 Prayer Book was a compromise and did not please anyone with its ambiguous positions; (b) Cranmer became more involved in Protestant circles forming a Protestant Council13 with people such as Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr; (c) he responded forcefully almost impulsively to the criticisms raised by the Traditionalist party and in particularly by Stephen Gardiner14, bishop of Winchester15. These factors were pivotal in Cranmers decision to publish another Prayer Book with the aid of Bucer and Martyr. The end result was the 1552 Book of Common Prayer in which all sacrificial language was removed, together with any invocation of saints and prayer for the dead16. Perhaps even more significantly, this edition incorporated the Black Rubric aimed to catechise the believers about the Protestant understanding of presence in the Eucharistic elements. The introduction of this rubric was accompanied by the breaking up of the Canon which now featured the Communion in the middle of it and the introduction of new words for the communicants which

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cf. ibid. 42 ibid. 41 12 Cranmer did not support the change from the Ten to the Six Articles towards the later reign of Henry VIII. 13 D.E.W. HARRISON and Michael C. SAMSON (1982) 44 14 cf. ibid. 45 15 Gardiner held the wealthiest bishopric in the Country and a senior status in the Churchs hierarchy. He criticised Cranmer for his dubious positions about the Eucharist. More specifically he claimed that the 1549 rite preserved elements of sacrificial offering and hinted towards a real presence of Christ in the elements by means of transubstantiation. 16 Martin Bucers influence is visible in the Censura. cf. E.C. WHITAKER (1974) 52

Fr. Diego Galanzino Cranmers liturgical agenda

emphasised the spiritual character of the sacrament and a receptionist approach to Holy Communion. Almost contemporary to the publication of the 1552 Prayer Book, Cranmer composed the Forty Two Articles of Faith which were promulgated by Edward VI as the summary of Anglican faith. Cranmers reforms revolutionised the liturgical life of the Church of England; however this series of reforms came to sudden end with death of Edward VI in 1553 and the accession of his sister Mary to the throne. The new Queen wiped out or at least tried to the whole of the reformation appointing Gardiner as Chancellor and reinstating Roman Catholicism with Cardinal Poles aid. During her reign many supporters of the Reformation where scattered; they were convinced to recant their positions, exiled, or tried for heresy. Archbishop Cranmer along with Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley was tried at the University Church in Oxford and burnt at the stake soon afterwards. However, Mary Is attempts to re-establish Roman Catholicism in England also came to an abrupt end with the death of the Monarch. The reign of Elizabeth I saw the reinstatement of a national church with the Act of Supremacy 1558 and the reintroduction of the Book of Common Prayer through the Act of Uniformity 1558. The Elizabethan edition of the Prayer Book reflected the volatile climate of the time and also the varied theological perspectives of the royal court; it became a sort of compromise between the 1549 and the 1552 editions by dropping the Black Rubric and by conflating both the more Catholic and the Protestant Communion Sentences. During the same reign the Chapel Royal, other royal peculiars, and many English cathedrals developed a style of worship which contrasted Cranmerian liturgies with new forms of ritualism17.

A lasting legacy
Partially because of Thomas Crenmers unusual approach to reforming the liturgy historians hold contrasting opinions on whether or not the reforms introduced by the archbishop reflect a gradual change in his theology especially through the later influences of Bucer, Martyr and through the raise of Northumberland and other zealous reformers at the court of Edward VI. Cranmers agenda aimed to take the Churchs liturgy out of medieval piety and the complex style of corporate worship that fuelled it. This was achieved in a way that allowed the English Church to be influenced by continental Reformers whilst preserving some of her Catholic roots and developing a style of worship that replaced a private, disengaged devotional life. Sacred scripture and the documents of the Early Church became the canons by which the Church was to judge her liturgy. Cranmer remained faithful to the historical documents which he knew about the early Church setting him apart from the extremisms of some continental Reformed Churches. To this day however, Cranmer second Prayer Book remains in the use of the Church of England as this was largely left untouched in the 1662 edition. Cranmers work is considered the prototype of English ritual language. The corporate character of daily prayer introduced by the Archbishop is also a strong feature of Anglicanism worldwide.

17

cf. Diarmaid MACCULLOCH (2003) 511

Fr. Diego Galanzino Cranmers liturgical agenda

Bibliography G.J. CUMING, A History of Anglican Liturgy, The Macmillan Press (London, 1982) Eamon DUFFY, The Stripping of the Altars, Yale University Press (2005) D.E.W. HARRISON and Michael C. SAMSON, Worship in the Church of England, SCPK (London, 1982) Diarmaid MACCULLOCH, Reformation, Allen Lane (London, 2003) E.C. WHITAKER, Martin Bucer and the Book of Common Prayer, The Alcuin Club (1974)