Ship of Fools: Anglican Lent before the Oxford Movement

Thread: Anglican Lent before the Oxford Movement Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=025735

Posted by ChippedChalice (# 14057) on :

Does anybody know of any resources (online or otherwise) that describe typical Anglican liturgical observences for Lent and Holy Week before the Oxford Movement began the Catholic revival?

I'm curious -- what sort of service did William Laud (for example) lead on Ash Wednesday? Or what were Good Friday services like when John Donne preached at St. Paul's?

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

Though there might be a special service on a "red letter" day, it was still from the Book of Common Prayer.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

I should further add that recusants were a vanishingly small portion of the population, and their clandestine services were necessarily low-key affairs. The bigger issue for Anglicanism was not people adding to the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer with papistical additions, but Puritans who refused to do even the few rubrics required of them.

Puritans certainly had no interest in celebrating the red letter days listed in the calendar, so the answer to your question about Lent for Puritans and probably a goodly majority of Anglicans would be "Nothing."

During the interregnum Christmas and Easter were actually banned- forget about Ash Wednesday.

Posted by jlav12 (# 17148) on :

The liturgy would have been exclusively from the Prayer Book. On Ash Wednesday, the Commination would have followed Mattins and the Litany. Services on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Even would have been otherwise normal BCP services with the propers for the day, i.e. collects and readings proper or the Easter anthems on Easter Sunday.

The BCP specifies that all weekdays and Fridays of Lent are days of fasting as well.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ChippedChalice:
Does anybody know of any resources (online or otherwise) that describe typical Anglican liturgical observances for Lent and Holy Week before the Oxford Movement began the Catholic revival?

I'm curious -- what sort of service did William Laud (for example) lead on Ash Wednesday? Or what were Good Friday services like when John Donne preached at St. Paul's?

I don't know the answer. This sort of thing is quite difficult to find out. But there's 200 years between Archbishop Laud and the Oxford Movement. And books written at the time tend not to describe what people took for granted.

Possibly the best source would be diaries. I don't know whether the writings of the Wesleys would help. From recollection, neither Parson Woodforde nor the Revd Gilbert White seem to have recorded much about their clerical duties, though that might be because those selecting extracts from them for publication weren't interested in that part of their lives.

Another possible source might be anything you can find on the Revd Patrick Bronte. He's right at the end of your period, but was definitely pre-Oxford Movement and both hard working and assiduous in his duties.

An interesting project. Go for it.

Posted by Arch Anglo Catholic (# 15181) on :

How far back do you want to go? There is plenty of material recording Sarum and Hereford Use observances in the penitential season. Vernon Staley's book on Ceremonial and Dearmer's Parsons Handbook both make reference to plenty of early uses in the English form.

Or are you just after post Reformation info? That's a bit thinner, being largely restricted to BCP observance and the Lenten Array in a few places, such as Norfolk.

Posted by otyetsfoma (# 12898) on :

If you want to find "high church shenanagins" before the Oxford movement, the most rich source is in the complaints of the puritans. Unfortunately you cannot trust them not to exaggerate.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

Indeed the Puritans exaggerated frequently and loudly!

Lent in the 18th century would have been pretty minimal. Additional services on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, with the latter being a favoured day for Communion (as indeed it was in Lutheran Germany). Cathedrals and big parish churches might have kept the full BCP provision for Holy Week but in the latter case it would have depended on the incumbant and local tradition. If anyone had tried to add to the accustomed services chances are someone would have cried Papist or worse still 'enthusiast.'

That said, some sort of fasting in Lent was still pretty widespread in the 18th century. It often gets a casual mention in the devotional literature of the period. Real High Churchmanship - as opposed to poncing about in nice vestments - was far more widespread in the eighteenth century than is often supposed. The nadir of High Churchmanship is the first half of the reign of George III not, as is so often supposed, the reigns of George I & II.

PD

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

Indeed- the Puritans actually demanded more fasting when they were in control. They just refused to tie it to liturgical seasons.

Posted by ChippedChalice (# 14057) on :

Thanks, everyone, for the responses.

To answer Arch AngloCatholic, yes ... I'm mainly interested in post-reformation practice.

Frank Senn's magisterial book Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical has a great section on the liturgy in Bach's Leipzig -- and I'm curious if there is similiar information about Anglican practice, especially on "special" days like Ash Wednesday or Palm Sunday.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

One thing I forgot was that although the church observance was less, the societal observance was greater. The pleasure gardens, ballrooms, theatres and the Opera tended to close for Lent. Covent Garden used to do Oratorios during Lent - hence G F Handel's output of such works in the 1730s and 40s.

On a similar theme there was a hell of a stink when Abp. Cornwallis hosted a 'rout' during Lent. It was customary for political balls and routs to occur in private houses, but they were hosted by laymen and they were somewhat discrete about it. A clergyman, and an Archbishop at that, hosting such an event in Lent was a no-no. That would have been about 1768. I seem to recall that he was personally rebuked by George III.

PD

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

I've only read the one-volume edition of Woodforde's diary, but I always got the impression that the reason he didn't mention things like this very much was because they didn't happen. His usual formula for describing the Sunday service was something like "To church this morning to read prayers." I remember one mention of an Easter Communion service. I don't think I remember anything about Lent - not even a let-up in his descriptions of what sounded like lavish meals!

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

Jeremy Taylor advocated a 'plain' Lent and used Advent in the same way by preaching a series of sermons on the last judgement year after year and extolling the virtues of a rather extreme fasting.

Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :

It's an interesting subject. As PD mentions there was society observance.

As for church liturgy - what had they to use but the BCP.

However there is some evidence of some extra catechising or extra services in Lent.

Research into marriage seasonality suggests marriages in lent were discouraged well pre Oxford movement.

[ 15. August 2012, 21:49: Message edited by: Percy B ]

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I've only read the one-volume edition of Woodforde's diary, but I always got the impression that the reason he didn't mention things like this very much was because they didn't happen. His usual formula for describing the Sunday service was something like "To church this morning to read prayers." I remember one mention of an Easter Communion service. I don't think I remember anything about Lent - not even a let-up in his descriptions of what sounded like lavish meals!

Woodforde is from the period when Church observances were at their slackest. The corrosive influence of both the ennui brought on by the religious strife of the previous century and Rationalism had tended to undermine the rather robust Lenten observance contemplated by the BCP. His active span as a clergyman (1764-1803) neatly coincides with that rock bottom era in Anglican history.

In the early seventeenth century there is evidence that Churchmen did indeed fast throughout Lent and that in many places additional sermons were preached. However, the interregnum (1549-1660, but in church affairs more like 1643-1660) as sufficiently disruptive that much of the old pattern was lost. Remember it only took the half a dozen years that Frederick the Great's Dad banned the chasuble for it to go into terminal decline in the Lutheran Church of Prussia and Brandenburg! The interregnum was a far longer period than that - almost twenty years - and even with the best efforts of the Restoration Episcopate and the High Flying clergy that dominated the Church 1660-88 they were only partly able to restore traditional uses.

That said, the more devout would have kept Lent with some strictness - especially those who had come under the influence of folks like Jeremy Taylor, George Hickes and Francis Atterbury. The early Methodists - using that word as the 18th century did as a synonym for Evangelical - were also 'methodical' in their observance of the Prayer Book's requirements as then understood. However, the Latitudinarian middle of the Church would have large blown off Lent apat from the usual social nicities of avoiding marriages and frivilous entertainments in Lent.

PD

Posted by mettabhavana (# 16217) on :

quote:
the interregnum (1549-1660,...

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

Diaries are great sources for these issues and if there are any shipmates who devote their time to the many spiritual journals of the 17th century, we will be here for weeks.

Samuel Pepys, on March 10, 1660/1, dined at home on a “poor Lenten dinner.” On March 26, 1660/1, he tortured his abstemious guests (“Very merry at dinner; among other things, because Mrs. Turner and her company eat no flesh at all this Lent, and I had a great deal of good flesh which made their mouths water”), but by Good Friday, April 17, 1663, Pepys repents for not having observed Lent as he ought.

Was he more observant or just observing when, on March 21, 1667, he writes that he was at the “Duke of York’s play-house, where unexpectedly I come to see only the young men and women of the house act; they having liberty to act for their own profit on Wednesdays and Fridays this Lent?”

I remember reading (but cannot find the reference) that Elizabeth I ordered the continuation of the Lenten fast so that fishermen could continue to prosper. Certainly, your trusty BCP (always at hand, one hopes), lists the Days of Fasting, Abstinence and Solemn Prayer, and numbers all the Fridays of the Year (but Xmas and Epiphany) and the Forty Days of Lent as days of abstinence.

I suspect that pre-Oxford Movement Anglicanism might have had a more general observance of Lent than we see now, but it’s difficult to get the metrics right for this. I can provide for curious shipmates the name of a TEC parish in Florida which had a proper southern barbecue on the Friday after Ash Wednesday.

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

One suspects that these days mildly devout Anglicans tend to go to special services and devotions in Lent, but do not fast, whereas before the Oxford Movement they fasted, but had no extra services to go to. Of course, one suspects that the vast majority always did as little as their conscience would let them get away with!

PD

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

Again, according to Pepys, he was frequently attending services during the week but I would have to spend a few hours figuring out how many of them were Lenten and how many were not. Folk often sat through two services on a Sunday and sermon topics and quality were often noted by Pepys. Of course, he was often found trying to swive with servant girls in the kitchen before and after services, so he might not have taken Lenten sermons to heart as he should have.

Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :

Now we are in Lent I've been thinking about this a little more.

It certainly seems that Lent was not forgotten in the 17th and 18th centuries and the examples from Pepys are fascinating.

The BCP 1662 seems more interested in Lent as a season of fasting than with stating any liturgical variance - except using the collect through Lent. For BCP lovers this is a point worth making! Along with loving the words of the 1662 liturgy is there love of devotional practice of that period too?

It would be interesting to know how and to what extent everyday lay people observed lent.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

Tangent alert - except not entirely
Does anyone know why it is no longer a requirement to use the Ash Wednesday Collect every day in Lent, in addition to the one for the day? It is a clear instruction in the BCP and from memory was invariably observed when I was at school fifty years or so ago.

Posted by dj_ordinaire (# 4643) on :

Well, that's 'Thread Necromancy' for you. One can't say it isn't relevant though, I'll concede that. Hm.

As to Enoch, I think it's because of the return to the concept that there should only be one Collect on any given day, as promoted by Vatican II and acknowledged by many other churches e.g. Anglicans.

Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Tangent alert - except not entirely
Does anyone know why it is no longer a requirement to use the Ash Wednesday Collect every day in Lent, in addition to the one for the day? It is a clear instruction in the BCP and from memory was invariably observed when I was at school fifty years or so ago.

Similarly with the Advent collect, it is not used daily as before. A shame in one sense as when repeated in this way they emphasise the focus of prayer of the season and remind people of it. It also helps give the season a unity.

I can see djo's point about just one collect, I am not sure but doesn't the modern C of E daily office allow for more than one collect, though.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

In CW Daily Prayer, the Ash Wednesday collect is a permissible alternative to the Sunday every day in the first four weeks of Lent.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Tangent alert - except not entirely
Does anyone know why it is no longer a requirement to use the Ash Wednesday Collect every day in Lent, in addition to the one for the day? It is a clear instruction in the BCP and from memory was invariably observed when I was at school fifty years or so ago.

It has been a principle, since vatican 2, to go back to the ancient practice of having only one collect.

Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Tangent alert - except not entirely
Does anyone know why it is no longer a requirement to use the Ash Wednesday Collect every day in Lent, in addition to the one for the day? It is a clear instruction in the BCP and from memory was invariably observed when I was at school fifty years or so ago.
It has been a principle, since vatican 2, to go back to the ancient practice of having only one collect.

But not necessarily an Anglican principle. After all the office in the BCP has three collects and is still an acceptable C of E rite. Not sure about other Anglican churches. I have a feeling the Episcopal church in the US still allows for the daily Lent collect.

Posted by dj_ordinaire (# 4643) on :

I'm not sure that the use of multiple Collects is proscribed exactly - just not suggested as a standard way of doing things at the Eucharist...

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Well yes, Anglicans can do BCP and RCs can do the Tridentine.

However if the collect is to 'collect' our thoughts, to have more than one would be top disperse rather than collect them.

More classically, the oratio ad collectam was to signify that the gathering was complete, the bishop had arrived and so the readings could commence. Only ONE prayer is required for that.

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by dj_ordinaire:

As to Enoch, I think it's because of the return to the concept that there should only be one Collect on any given day, as promoted by Vatican II and acknowledged by many other churches e.g. Anglicans.

Bah. Yet another liturgical reverse etymology, evidence of the Liturgical Movement's mania for rationalization and logic in the service. We're talking about prayer, not a dissertation defense; who goes to church to admire the logical symmetry of the service? Surely the aim is to encounter God, not to marvel at the perfection of the rectangle.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Well yes, Anglicans can do BCP and RCs can do the Tridentine.

However if the collect is to 'collect' our thoughts, to have more than one would be top disperse rather than collect them.

More classically, the oratio ad collectam was to signify that the gathering was complete, the bishop had arrived and so the readings could commence. Only ONE prayer is required for that.

While Leo is correct in that only one collect is required for that, there may well be times when 2 or 3 might be helpful. Sarum flexibility trumps General Instruction, IMHO.

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Well yes, Anglicans can do BCP and RCs can do the Tridentine.

However if the collect is to 'collect' our thoughts, to have more than one would be top disperse rather than collect them.

More classically, the oratio ad collectam was to signify that the gathering was complete, the bishop had arrived and so the readings could commence. Only ONE prayer is required for that.

Sorry but I protest the reasoning, the Advent and Lent Collects provide a unity to the season. Since when should we bother with liturgical minimalism? What are we, Protestants???
[Razz]

Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :

I would be interested to know if none C of E churches in the Anglican Communion keep the traditional idea of a Lent collect. One church I know uses it each week in Lent as the collect concluding the prayers at the Eucharist.

Whatever, and to return to the topic, I would imagine before the Oxford Movement it was used in Lent as prescribed, as it appears in those days they did as they were told a little more!

On Lent itself I did a little research, mainly using our friend Google, and a seventeenth century bishop of Ely wrote a scholarly paper on the history and keeping of the Lenten fast. Suggesting again it was the fasting emphasis more than a liturgical one which was a prevailing.

This isn't a theme much emphasised by modern Anglcian bishops, as far as I know. They seem more keen on Lent courses and Lent books.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Well yes, Anglicans can do BCP and RCs can do the Tridentine.

However if the collect is to 'collect' our thoughts, to have more than one would be top disperse rather than collect them.

More classically, the oratio ad collectam was to signify that the gathering was complete, the bishop had arrived and so the readings could commence. Only ONE prayer is required for that.
Sorry but I protest the reasoning, the Advent and Lent Collects provide a unity to the season. Since when should we bother with liturgical minimalism? What are we, Protestants???

liturgical minimalism - protestant? On the contrary I compare 'crisp and catholic' to 'verbose and protestant'

Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :

Deep in the caverns of my memory I seem to remember that the Benedicite was the canticle preferred to the Te Deum in Lent.

How old this tradition is I don't know.

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
Deep in the caverns of my memory I seem to remember that the Benedicite was the canticle preferred to the Te Deum in Lent.

How old this tradition is I don't know.

It's as old as the 1549, I think.

Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :

Ah! Is it actually prescribed in 1549 or is it a custom?

I always wondered why the Benedicite was considered penitential/ Lenten. As a youngster I thought it was because it was rather repetitive and tedious.

Posted by Mama Thomas (# 10170) on :

I like the idea of the special collects for Lent and Advent. In the Church of Melanesia, the custom of saying/singing the collect for the 1st Sunday of Advent and Ash Wednesday is kept, the somewhat new orthodoxy of "there can be only one collect and one only" being a concept that hasn't taken off with as much force as it has elsewhere.

Personally, I have used the seasonal collect after the collect of the day in Rite I, and after the Prayers of the People in Rite II and after the collect of the day during the offices.

I know the practice is unknown to the practice of Christianity as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, but the older prayer books had something that really did bind the seasons together.

So even without the ashes or stations or having ante-communion during holy week unbearably long lessons, Lent would have had a definite something, even without the hymns we've come to know and love.

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
Ah! Is it actually prescribed in 1549 or is it a custom?

I always wondered why the Benedicite was considered penitential/ Lenten. As a youngster I thought it was because it was rather repetitive and tedious.

The rubrick saith :

quote:
After the fyrste lesson shall folowe Te Deum laudamus in Englishe, dayly throughout the yeare, excepte in Lente, all the which tyme in the place of Te Deum shalbe used Benedicite omnia Opera Domini Domino...

This rubric was dropped in the 1552 and thereafter.

One of the reasons that the Benedicite was an option was that, thanks to the various Prymers, it was a canticle that people already had some familiarity with in English (likewise the Te Deum).

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

IMHO it's a pity the Benedicite isn't used as much as it was. We had a lively chant for it when I was at school.

Doubtless there are shipmates who will really disapprove but I think the practice of batching the verses into threes is a good one. I can't remember the source, but the more liturgically precise were complaining about this as far back at least as the mid-eighteenth century.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

The Benedicite was the OT canticle in Lauds on Sunday and feast days, after the regular psalms and before the praise psalms (148, 149 & 150).

It is still used like that in the modern Roman Liturgy of the Hours

So it was used festally, but it is rather less obviously festive in character than the Te Deum.

Posted by ardmacha (# 16499) on :

I am often out of date, but in the 1980s in our Middle of the Road Parish the Te Deum at Mattins was replaced by the Benedicite in Lent, and sung very well by a crowd of schoolchildren.As far as I can see none of the old Anglican Prayer Books suggest that either Advent or Lent is the season for the Benedicite but just say: Or this canticle. I am sure that there is a book called English Church Life in the post reformation period, is it by J.Wickham Legg ? I am sorry not to have details, but something like that would give details of Lent. G.W.O Addleshaw's THE HIGH CHURCH TRADITION about the pre-Oxford movement and Caroline Divines would have other details of their worship.

Posted by ardmacha (# 16499) on :

The book is by J.Wickham Legg and is called: English Church Life from the Restoration to the Tractarian Movement, Considered in Some of Its Neglected Or Forgotten Features.
London and New York: Longmans, Green, 1914.
He was a formidable scholar and the book is online.

Posted by Oblatus (# 6278) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ardmacha:
The book is by J.Wickham Legg and is called: English Church Life from the Restoration to the Tractarian Movement, Considered in Some of Its Neglected Or Forgotten Features.
London and New York: Longmans, Green, 1914.
He was a formidable scholar and the book is online.

Thank you for mentioning this. The book is dedicated, by the way, to THE HONOURED MEMORY OF THE REVEREND ALBERT BARFF, M.A....interesting. [Razz]

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ardmacha:
As far as I can see none of the old Anglican Prayer Books suggest that either Advent or Lent is the season for the Benedicite but just say: Or this canticle.

Look more carefully at the rubrics in the 1549. Granted, it was only in force for three years, but still...

Posted by ardmacha (# 16499) on :

Sorry, you ar right. I was using LITURGIAE BRITANNICAE, with the five editions alongside each other; it is funny because the Benedicite is very festal and is used at Lauds on Sundays and Feasts in the old Roman & Monastic Breviary.
Thanks.

Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :

Picking up comments on prohibitions on theatrical performances in Lent in the eighteenth century, at least some such restrictions continued well into the nineteenth century, although by this point they were clearly in severe decline.

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ardmacha:
Sorry, you ar right. I was using LITURGIAE BRITANNICAE, with the five editions alongside each other; it is funny because the Benedicite is very festal and is used at Lauds on Sundays and Feasts in the old Roman & Monastic Breviary.
Thanks.

I agree that there's nothing about the Benedicite that sounds particularly Lenten (using the Tone IV setting makes it sound a bit somber, but that's imposing a post-18th century "minor-key" connotation on it).

The Marshall Hours (which replaced the Office of the BVM from about 1535 to the issuing of the first BCP) contained three morning canticles in English : the Te Deum, the Benedicite, and the Benedictus. I suspect the reason that the Te Deum and Benedicite were presented as alternate choices for the first canticle has to do with the fact that English versions already existed, and that people were thus already familiar with them.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0