Ship of Fools: Historical Lectionary

Thread: Historical Lectionary Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

Being learned of all things liturgical on this board and being one ignorant to such things because of my being in Sydney, I am wondering if anyone knows how one would find the set lectionary readings from history, say 3rd February 1788?

Posted by Emendator Liturgia (# 17245) on :

Evangeline, for the old days when BCP was the norm, just need to know what Sunday in the Church year it was - THAT is the hard part, then the set readings would fall into place.

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

Thanks, I'm still ignorant as don't know how to work that out [Smile]

. Would BCP have been compulsory for Anglican clergy?Maybe I could do so backwards as I'm guessing the Psalm was 116.

I keep hearing this story of the first church service in Australia, that Richard Johnson CHOSE to preach on Psalm 116:12, indeed that he thought about his message to the new colony and so opened the PSalms......I have a feeling this is an anachronistic retelling in which it is assumed that expositional preaching not following the lectionary has been the norm forever.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

He could have had a lectionary that included Ps 116, and chose to preach on that rather than the OT, Epistle or Gospel lesson in the lectionary for the day.

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

Yes, thanks Allan I realise that, I wanted to look at what his other choices were. The context in which the story is being told ignores that there was any limitation of the choice.

[ 08. May 2016, 23:22: Message edited by: Evangeline ]

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

In 1788, February 6 was Ash Wednesday, so February 3 was Quinquagesima. But . . .

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer only appointed an Epistle and a Gospel reading for Holy Communion; no Old Testament reading or psalm was appointed.

For Morning and Evening Prayer, the readings for Quinquagesima were from Genesis. Psalms were appointed, but the pattern of the BCP was to pray through the psalter every month, not to tie the psalm(s) to the readings of the day or to the liturgical calendar. The appointed psalms for the third day of the month were Psalms 15–17 (morning) and Psalm 18 (evening).

I certainly can't speak to practice in Australia, but I remember the main service most Sundays in Episcopal churches when I was young was Morning Prayer and Sermon, and my impression that was also the norm elsewhere until the last century. I also wonder (but do not know) whether the preacher was free to chose a text other than the reading from Morning Prayer, since the sermon would have been so separated from the reading. Maybe others know more on that.

In any event, it does not appear that Psalm 116 would have been appointed for February 3, 1788. Hope this helps.

[ 09. May 2016, 02:48: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Psalms were appointed, but the pattern of the BCP was to pray through the psalter every month, not to tie the psalm(s) to the readings of the day or to the liturgical calendar.

Slight correction: there were a handful of holy days for which specific psalms, outside the monthly pattern, were appointed.

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
In 1788, February 6 was Ash Wednesday, so February 3 was Quinquagesima. But . . .

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer only appointed an Epistle and a Gospel reading for Holy Communion; no Old Testament reading or psalm was appointed.

For Morning and Evening Prayer, the readings for Quinquagesima were from Genesis. Psalms were appointed, but the pattern of the BCP was to pray through the psalter every month, not to tie the psalm(s) to the readings of the day or to the liturgical calendar. The appointed psalms for the third day of the month were Psalms 15–17 (morning) and Psalm 18 (evening).

I certainly can't speak to practice in Australia, but I remember the main service most Sundays in Episcopal churches when I was young was Morning Prayer and Sermon, and my impression that was also the norm elsewhere until the last century. I also wonder (but do not know) whether the preacher was free to chose a text other than the reading from Morning Prayer, since the sermon would have been so separated from the reading. Maybe others know more on that.

In any event, it does not appear that Psalm 116 would have been appointed for February 3, 1788. Hope this helps.

Thank-you hugely helpful, I suspect it was not a communion service as it was the very first Christian worship service in Australia and it was compulsory-so many non-Anglicans there.

One wonders about the context, one can't imagine the horror of the sea voyage from England to Australia, particularly for the convicts and then to arrive in this hostile, unfamiliar place in what would have been stinking heat in January and the threat of starvation and lack of water and potentially hostile indigenous people and to have a preacher stand up and preach on Psalm 116:12: “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me?” In the Australian vernacular you'd have to wonder that he wasn't taking the piss. Which might explain how little support the church received in the colony's early years although things never really improved.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

Getting off a boat onto land, however dismal and threatening, to have survived a voyage of several horrible months, would have felt quite a blessing in adversity I'd have thought. It would have been a deliverance from something worse.

Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :

I's guess that the choice of a text would have been totally unrelated to the set readings. Linking the readings to the sermon, but specifically at the eucharist, not the offices, has crept in during my lifetime -- not that it's a bad thing.

Who among us, of a certain age, does not remember the invariable opening the sermon (after "May the words of my lips...): "My text today is taken from..." And it was rarely if ever taken from one the lessons. Not least because the lessons, which were laid down as part of the service, were completely separated from the sermon, which was optional.

Practice in the Low-Middle stream of anglican worship changed somewhat between the 1780s and the early 1950s, but not that much -- as the words and lectionary didn't change significantly in that period.

John

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I've sometimes speculated that some of the controversy about Sydney Anglicans is because it inherited and then developed from the CofE as it was at the time of first settlement, without some of the things that have happened in other parts of the Communion since.

[ 09. May 2016, 17:12: Message edited by: Enoch ]

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

If you do a bit of googling (try the 'Justus' website) you will probably find some scans or PDFs of C18 editions of the 1662 BCP. Look for one which has the tables of lessons at the front, and the lessons and collects for each Sunday Communion. That should help you work it out.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I've sometimes speculated that some of the controversy about Sydney Anglicans is because it inherited and then developed from the CofE as it was at the time of first settlement, without some of the things that have happened in other parts of the Communion since.

Not really accurate, and shows many of the misunderstandings about Anglicanism in Aust in general and Sydney in particular. A bit of history.

To start with, the infant colony in Sydney was ministered to by chaplains. With the arrival of more and more free settlers, the local church community grew. Eventually it was attached to the Diocese of Calcutta. The first Bishop of Aust was William Broughton and in due course he became the first Bp of Sydney. Broughton was an old-fashioned pre-Tractarian High Churchman. Broughton appointed 3 Tractarians as Rectors of local churches, but in 1848 2 of these went to Rome. The effect of that on the diocese was profound and from thereafter Sydney was a predominantly low-church diocese - open evangelical in today's terms - but with a large number of MOTR churches and quite a few A-C.

Then came the Billy Graham crusades and the subsequent rise of the teachings of Broughton Knox at Moore College. That influenced many of the new generation of clergy who became known as Sydney Anglicans, and eventually one of their number, Peter Jensen, was elected Abp. He in turn appointed his brother Phillip as Dean of Sydney. Abps Donald Robinson and Harry Goodhew had done their best to maintain diversity, but the numbers were against that by the time of ++ Peter's election. Over the next decade, things changed and by the time of ++Peter's retirement the new school was unable to get their candidate past stage one of the election. The present Abp seeks to maintain diversity.

Sydney Anglicanism is a very different kettle of fish to the Anglicanism of eighteenth century England. Although ++Peter was a leading light in GAFCON, that was largely because of his views on ordination of women, and towards gays. Sydney Anglicanism is in many was a successor to the Puritanism of early 1600's England, a movement which had left the C of E well over 100 years before the colony was founded. My impression is that it is a clergy-directed movement with little lay input. Most of us simply go to their local church as has always been done and that it is those of us at the catholic end of the spectrum who travel. Even then, a large proportion of the A-C churches is from the local community.

Sorry for being long-winded.

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

I concur with GeeD's analysis. I'd just expand that the only clergyman who'd give up a comfortable, relatively privileged position in ol' Blighty to go to a colony consisting of the refuse of society would have to be a religious fanatic and not a mainstream clergyman. I think this influenced the early church in Australia-not least because the Governors didn't like the Chaplains-at one stage it was the law that the only religious service that could be conducted in the Colony had to be at 6am on Sunday morning.

The Puritan influence remains strong in Sydney as GeeD points out & there's a strong Presbyterian streak in the late 20th century Sydney Anglican diocese, with many of the leaders having been educated at the Presbyterian Scots College.

Thanks all on the input re the readings and the sermon, I really hoped there had been a reason why the chaplain had to choose that verse-but guess not.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

It'd be intersting to know the background of some of the very early colonial clergy. There were quite a lot of late C18/ early C19 English clergy who were in anything but a comfortable and privileged position- the unbeneficed parson, or the underpaid curate with no hope of a living of his own, are fairly stock figures in the literature of the period. To some of those, even going out to the oither side of the world as chaplain to a bunch of convicts and perhaps rather rough and ready colonists might have been more appealing than anything else that might be available.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

I am reading a biography of the Brontes, and it fascinates me that being a curate was such a dead-end position. Patrick Bronte (father of the authors Emily, Charlotte and Anne) had a huge hostile parish in the back of the beyond, a famously brutal and impoverished district. It never seemed to occur to him that he could try for another post, better his position or salary, or emigrate to Australia. Instead he put all his faith in his son (not the daughters) to do something brilliant and pull the entire family out of the hole.

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

Almost certainly, the sermon would have been preached at either Morning or Evening Prayer--or rather, *attached* to MP or EP, since the 1662 gives no provision for sermons to be preached at the Office.

In many places, this was circumvented by the officiant removing his surplice after the Grace and then mounting to the pulpit in cassock to give a sermon.

John Holding's correct to note that sermons were not necessarily expected to be on the lectionary texts, and in fact that idea is one whose resurgence is fairly recent. I think approaching the question of Ps 116 in terms of the lectionary may be a bit wrong-headed in any case, since the Psalms aren't lessons any more than the canticles are.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I am reading a biography of the Brontes, and it fascinates me that being a curate was such a dead-end position. Patrick Bronte (father of the authors Emily, Charlotte and Anne) had a huge hostile parish in the back of the beyond, a famously brutal and impoverished district. It never seemed to occur to him that he could try for another post, better his position or salary, or emigrate to Australia. Instead he put all his faith in his son (not the daughters) to do something brilliant and pull the entire family out of the hole.

Brenda, a lot of the biographies of the Brontës perpetuate an over-dramatised picture of them that derives directly from Mrs Gaskell. Whether that was because she was a novelist and could not help it, or because it would sell her own book better, I couldn't possibly comment.

The reason why Patrick Brontë was a curate not a vicar is to do with the history of how benefices in the north of England worked, and the oddities of trying to adapt a set up that derived from the pre-middle ages when a lot of northern England was very rural and rather empty to a later time when the communities of west Yorkshire were expanding fast with thriving cottage industries. All the parishes were subject to Halifax, which had been the original base from which they had planted, but they were religious communities in their own right and in modern terms he was an incumbent.

Haworth in the Brontës' time was no longer 'in the back of the beyond' and was not 'a famously brutal and impoverished district', It had acquired that sort of a reputation about 80 years previously, but it wasn't by the 1820s any more than it is now.

Somebody did write a book about Patrick rather than his daughters a few years ago. It was rather good. If you get a chance, and can find it, it's well worth reading.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

Haworth in the Brontës' time was no longer 'in the back of the beyond' and was not 'a famously brutal and impoverished district', It had acquired that sort of a reputation about 80 years previously, but it wasn't by the 1820s any more than it is now.

It's full of middle-class teashops and trendy wine bars now! And it's got a steam railway, which it didn't have in the 1820s.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

The man was clearly beyond his work (going blind, in poor health). All the parish work had to be handed over to his curate, one of whom eventually married Charlotte. Yet he could not retire, or quit, or move to some less demanding post that would accommodate his lessening powers. A modern diocese would never put up with this, would they? They would insist that the incumbent actually be able to do the work, and there would be some provision to ease him out into another slot if he could not.

I have to assume this is because he was the sole support of the four children (off and on, whenever Anne and Charlotte were not being governesses or teachers and Bramwell was holding a job, and before anybody sold a novel). His parsonage was tied to the job, so the moment he left all five people would be homeless.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
Being learned of all things liturgical on this board and being one ignorant to such things because of my being in Sydney, I am wondering if anyone knows how one would find the set lectionary readings from history, say 3rd February 1788?

As Nick Tamen has said the psalms were 15-17 at Morning Prayer and 18 at Evening Prayer. The corresponding readings were Genesis 48 and Matt 19.3-27 for the morning, and Genesis 49 and Acts 20.17-end for the evening. For Holy Communion the prescribed readings were 1 Corinthians 13 and Luke 18.31-end.

As others have commented, the preacher wouldn't have felt any pressure to base his sermon on the lessons/psalms used.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The man was clearly beyond his work (going blind, in poor health). All the parish work had to be handed over to his curate, one of whom eventually married Charlotte. Yet he could not retire, or quit, or move to some less demanding post that would accommodate his lessening powers. A modern diocese would never put up with this, would they? They would insist that the incumbent actually be able to do the work, and there would be some provision to ease him out into another slot if he could not.

I have to assume this is because he was the sole support of the four children (off and on, whenever Anne and Charlotte were not being governesses or teachers and Bramwell was holding a job, and before anybody sold a novel). His parsonage was tied to the job, so the moment he left all five people would be homeless.

By modern standards, that's a very fair point, but it applied to everybody at that period, except possibly army officers who could sell their commissions and retire (usually in meagre circumstances) on the proceeds. Manual labourers went on until they dropped and then went into the workhouse and probably died. I don't know what happened in the US which notoriously had no Poor Law at all. Retirement is quite a recent concept, and certainly wasn't envisaged for office holders. After all, Pope Benedict was the first Pope to retire and HMQ was 90 a few days ago and has not retired.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

HM is doing all she ever did. (Great genes!) Old Bronte was unable to, being nearly blind. Purely from the desire to have the parish served, you would think somebody would have intervened.

Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :

That was then, not now.

Just who do you suppose might have intervened? And where do you suppose the money would have come from to pay him a pension?

Barring flagrant public immorality, there was no way for either the bishop or the patron to force a resignation. And he could not be fired. Incompetence or failure to perform duties was not a cause for firing at the time and it was perfectly proper, indeed normal at some times, for the incumbent's duties to be performed by a curate.

As for money -- I'd guess that the only source of a pension might be the patron of the living who'd have to pay out of his own pocket. But then, as has been pointed out, apart from the military, people didn't retire and pensions were small private arrangements made by the wealthy and benevolent for beloved family retainers.

John

Posted by american piskie (# 593) on :

quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
That was then, not now.

[del]
And where do you suppose the money would have come from to pay him a pension?

The practice in the Established Church of Scotland was for the presbytery to appoint a "colleague and successor", splitting the endowment in some agreed way. But of course it depended on there being sufficient teinds and other endowment, and the agreement of the minister in question. I am sure there were some of these relics of a previous age still in post in the 1950s in Perthshire, one of whom had outlived more than one such colleague.

I write this from a parish which has just celebrated a Festal Evensong to mark the Vicar's 90th birthday.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
The practice in the Established Church of Scotland was for the presbytery to appoint a "colleague and successor", splitting the endowment in some agreed way. But of course it depended on there being sufficient teinds and other endowment, and the agreement of the minister in question. I am sure there were some of these relics of a previous age still in post in the 1950s in Perthshire, one of whom had outlived more than one such colleague.

I write this from a parish which has just celebrated a Festal Evensong to mark the Vicar's 90th birthday.

An interesting and rather a good idea. I suspect in England the possibility of making any such arrangement would have been fallen foul of being classified as the terrible sin of simony. That may even still be the case.

My best wishes by the way to your vicar on his 90th birthday. When I was at University in the 1960s there was still a fellow of one college who survived from before the introduction of the compulsory retirement age. By then, he was 20+ years older than any of the others. Your vicar is probably in a similar position.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

posted by Brenda Clough re: the Bronte's father

quote:
The man was clearly beyond his work ... A modern diocese would never put up with this, would they? They would insist that the incumbent actually be able to do the work, and there would be some provision to ease him out into another slot if he could not.

For an incumbent maybe, but what if the person not capable of fulfilling their role is above that level? I'm sure others can think of a similar situation we had in the CofE where someone higher up the tree stayed on well beyond the introduced retirement age with quite devastating results ...

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

All this goes to show that no, you absolutely do not want to indulge in time travel and no, when you get to the past it is not fun. Pay no attention to all those SF novels and slushy TT romances! At least these days there is some minimal provision, in some decent fraction of the world, for old people who can no longer work. (Although as I read on I do have to say that Bramwell Bronte was one of the most useless young men to have ever encumbered the earth. If there was ever a case for psychoactive medications, here he is. I wonder if any of those lit magazines have ever done a postmortem diagnosis on him. Could he have been bipolar?)

Posted by american piskie (# 593) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
... I suspect in England the possibility of making any such arrangement would have been fallen foul of being classified as the terrible sin of simony. That may even still be the case.

The C of S was also deeply worried about simony, but didn't think these colleague and successor arrangements broke the rules:

.... effectual preventing simony , it is enacted, That upon a presentation being lodged with any presbytery of this church, before the presbytery shall take any steps towards the settlement of the presentee the moderator shall read to him Act 5, Assembly 1753, and Act 8, Assembly 1759, and thereafter the presentee shall subscribe, coram, the following solemn declaration, which declaration, as engrossed in the presbytery record, shall be authenticated by the signature of the moderator, in name and by appointment of the presbytery: "I, A. B., presentee to the vacant parish and church of D., or appointed to be assistant and successor to E. F., minister of the parish of H., hereby solemnly declare, as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgment, that I have come under no engagement, expressed or understood, with the patron or heritors of the parish of D., nor with any person or persons in their name, or on their account, that neither by myself, nor by any person with my knowledge, has any thing been given or promised to procure me a presentation to the vacant parish of D., and, if at any time hereafter it shall come to my knowledge, that any thing has been given, or has been promised to be given to .the patron, or to any other person, for procuring the presentation now laid on the presbytery's table, to the vacant parish and church of D., I will immediately reveal it to the presbytery. (Signed) A. B., presentee to the parish of D."—" I. H. moderator, in name and by appointment of the presbytery" and that till such declaration is subscribed as above, the presbyteries of this church be prohibited from proceeding to the settlement of presentees, and that a copy of this act be given to each candidate for the ministry at the time he is licensed.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
The practice in the Established Church of Scotland was for the presbytery to appoint a "colleague and successor", splitting the endowment in some agreed way. But of course it depended on there being sufficient teinds and other endowment, and the agreement of the minister in question....
An interesting and rather a good idea. I suspect in England the possibility of making any such arrangement would have been fallen foul of being classified as the terrible sin of simony. That may even still be the case.
...

Before the introduction of proper clergy pensions in the CofE there was AIUI some arrangement, established by Act of Parliament, whereby an incumbent could retire on part of the income of the benefice.
I found a rather sad case in our parish archives from about 1906 (pre-disestablishment- we were part of the CofE then) where the Vicar, a man in his 70s who had clearly been a man of some distinction (DD TCD) fell out very badly and publicly with one of his churchwardens and a substantial chunk of the congregation- it was all written up in detail in the Western Mail. Reading between the lines, and from some information I had from the Vicar's great grandson, it seems that he was in the early stages of dementia but could not afford to retire- it was not an especially wealthy benefice. In the end enough money was found to enable him to do so.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The man was clearly beyond his work (going blind, in poor health). All the parish work had to be handed over to his curate, one of whom eventually married Charlotte.

Nowadays in the Church of England, he'd have to retire at 70. If he was in office under Common Tenure, he'd be subject to capability procedures and/or ill-health retirement with a reasonable pension and probably some help with housing. Also no-one these days would expect him to support adult children. If he had freehold he'd be more difficult to get rid of (other than retirement at 70). The processes are limited, cumbersome and expensive.

In the 18th and early 19th century the expectation was more that he make appropriate provision for his benefice, and doing that by employing a curate was quite acceptable.

The family weren't in desperate poverty. The Perpetual Curacy of Haworth was worth £170 p.a.. It is not easy to arrive at its worth in modern terms. It was about five times average annual earnings. In 1851, for example, only around 1-2% of the population had an income of over £150 a year.

There clearly are other views about Patric Brontë's continuing effectiveness, both in the biography reviewed here, and in wikipedia.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

He was also supporting five adults (himself, the three surviving daughters, the son and the servant) on that salary. And this is completely putting aside Bramwell's issues, which must have devoured quite a lot of cash. (If you're going to be a drunkard you have to drink, yes? And pay your bar bill?) Incredible.

Posted by Baker (# 18458) on :

I don't know if the OP has this link, it's to the 1662 BCP website.

http://www.eskimo.com/~lhowell/bcp1662/

I found it when I was working on a sea story set in the early 19th century, before 1812 though.

Maybe this can help.

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