‘Nothing for the godly to fear’: Use of Sarum Influence on the 1549 Book of Common Prayer

Abstract

This thesis examines the extent to which the Use of Sarum service books provided an evolutionary basis for the form and content of the 1549 edition of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP).
This study focuses on the contributions of the Sarum books to the 1549 BCP from a book history viewpoint, addressing where necessary the religious and political issues, in order to better comprehend the ways in which such changes would have impacted Tudor people. First offering an analysis of the genres studied as the BCP’s antecedents, this thesis further surveys how governmental attitudes affected religious doctrine and practice in the service books of the English realm, during the vacillations of the 1530s and 1540s. It further contends that the transition from manuscript production to print production and the growth of the printing industry in England hardly altered how religious material was produced, despite the religious preferences of the producers. The five subsequent chapters argue that the legacy of the Sarum books in the Book of Common Prayer varies according to the selected themes. The first theme is that of marking time; we prove that although the calendars of service books were radically pruned, the methods for tracking time remained the same. The second theme looks at the use of vernacular and Biblical material, arguing that the use of English and of specific Biblical passages from Sarum services in the BCP were not radical differences. The third theme explores the rich devotional tradition of praying to the Virgin Mary and to the saints, attesting that while there is diminution, it was not strictly due to reformist ideals. The fourth theme examines the occasional offices of the Church, asserting that the considerable overlap outweighed the differences between the Sarum and BCP traditions. The final theme examines changes and continuities in the ways of preparing for death, contending that the impact of seemingly radical changes was lessened by the retention of optional practices. This thesis provides the book history evidence that the 1549 Book of Common Prayer clearly derived from its Sarum predecessors, in ways that go beyond the simple paradigm of melding reformist and traditional interpretations.