THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662

Edited by

BRIAN CUMMINGS

OXFORD

university press

OXFORD

university press

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press

in the UK and in certain other countries

Published in the United States

by Oxford University Press Inc., New York

© Brian Cummings 2011

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

First published 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Data available

ISBN 978-0-19-920717-6

PREFACE

Sisyphus, it may be assumed, knew nothing of Christian liturgy. If I had known what was in store when Judith Luna of Oxford University Press invited me to prepare an edition of the Book of Common Prayer for the World’s Classics, I might have thought twice. That it has appeared after all is largely down to her encouragement, enthusiasm, and gentle cajoling in seeing it through. In more material terms, I am grateful to the British Academy and the Huntington Library for the award of a Fellowship, which enabled me to spend a summer using the James R. Page Collection of early copies of the Book of Common Prayer, the largest collection of its kind in the world. Andreas Höfele gave me the opportunity to develop some of the issues at the stimulating seminars on religious pluralization at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. A Major Research Fellowship with the Leverhulme Trust enabled me to finish the edition. Like anyone working on the Book of Common Prayer, I owe more than I can say (as my notes will bear witness) to the extraordinary scholarship it has inspired, especially of J. H. Blunt, Frank Brightman, Wickham Legg, and Francis Procter and W. H. Frere; and the more recent industry and insight of Geoffrey Cuming and Diarmaid MacCulloch. In more personal ways, Henry Woudhuysen has been a model of editorial meticulousness as well as a patient and sympathetic source throughout of bibliographical advice. Peter Blayney gave generously of his incomparable knowledge of early printing history, and especially of the Book of Common Prayer’s first godparents, ...