what does this historical quote mean ?

"....all and singular ministers in any cathedral or parish church....shall be bound to say Matins, Evensong, Celebration of the lord's supper...and all their common and open prayer in such order and form as is mentioned in the book authorised by parliament..."

what is required ? and how such a requirement could contribute to a settlement of religious matters in england ? :confused:

Reply 1

Lillith Grimore

ronnie

"....all and singular ministers in any cathedral or parish church....shall be bound to say Matins, Evensong, Celebration of the lord's supper...and all their common and open prayer in such order and form as is mentioned in the book authorised by parliament..."

what is required ? and how such a requirement could contribute to a settlement of religious matters in england ? :confused:

What's the date? That might give us some clue as to which religious settlement. It sounds like Elizabeth I possibly?

Reply 2

Madelyn

13

The book is (I think) the Book of Common Prayer, which is pretty important as it told you (well, your parish priest) how the service ought to be and was a legal requirement. Under Elizabeth, she had to find some sort of balance between Catholic and Protestant (due to volatile politico-religious situation both at home, in recent history, and abroad), so was careful to leave some ambiguity (especially on the issue of transubstantiation. No matter how I spell it, that word always looks wrong) in her prayer book. However, in strongly Catholic areas, they continued to use the old prayer book, as the region was so Catholic that it wouldn't get reported. I think responsibility for reporting it lay with the JPs, and if they were also Catholic it'd be in their own interests to retain a Catholic preacher. I suppose the same thing could happen in Protestant/Puritan areas, though the fact that Ebgland was moving, albeit slowly, towards a more radical form of worship suggests that this was not really necessary.
Now you're going to tell me it's not Elizabeth at all...

Reply 3

ronnie

OP

yea its in ER's time

Reply 4

ronnie

OP

can u explain it more Madelyn ?

Reply 5

ronnie

OP

does it mean something like all ministers need to do prayers in the order mentioned in the book ?

Reply 6

Madelyn

13

caveat: I can try, though I haven't really looked at the settlement for a while, so my factual knowledge is a bit rusty. I'm assuming you're doing A level, mine's with AQA so might be a slightly different syllabus to yours.
Ok, first of all, presumably you know what the Elizabethan religious settlement was and some of the background/contexty stuff to all that. Have you heard of the Great Chain of Being? I know I mention it a lot but it is very important, and if you refer to e.g. Sir John Fortescue (who I think also taught the young Edward)'s essay on it, examiners tend to be pretty impressed. Basically, the chain is the idea that we're all connected in a huge line from the monarch all the way down to the lowly peasant scum and explained why we have rights over those below us and responsibilities to those above us (and also kind of vice versa). I think it's also linked to the development of the concept of the divine right of kings, but obviously that only fully involved later on, though at this point there is some credence in this idea. The chain was also the main reason for rebellion being such an enormous step to take - God put those above you above you for a reason, so by rebelling against them you are in fact rebelling against God (cf. Elizabeth's extreme reluctance to encourage rebels, e.g. in the Netherlands, although of course this was also strongly linked to issues of diplomacy and national security). So because of this near-absolute faith in the authority of those above you, the best way to convince the laity of the truth of Protestantism was to have their 'superiors' tell them, and, because they're only illiterate peasants, tell them often - obviously, parish priests are the best means of this. Given that there was still, whether left over from the National Catholicism of certainly the later years of Henry VIII's reign or from the more recent, though much shorter and therefore with arguably less of an impact, RCism of Mary, a certain amount of Catholicism especially among the lower ranks in England at this time - I think it was Eamonn Duffy (though I'm really not sure, I haven't looked at religion since last year and my history notes are not to hand, best to find out for yourself) who used the evidence of Hull wills to show the prevalence of Catholicism. Out in the country, people also preferred the rituals of traditional RCism (which, incidentally, Liz herself was pretty keen on, just as Luther liked his choirboys) - there is evidence, though I can't remember who says this, that people followed the formalities of it without any understanding of their significance or of the concepts involved. This is supported by the fact that Catholic rituals were often combined or confused with much older, more traditional pagan ones.
Um...I feel like I'm babbling a bit. Obviously I've only covered some aspects of the question, and in very little detail, but is there anything more specific you want to know?