Frederick Edward Warren

“ The chief distinguishing characteristics of the Roman rite are these: (a) the position of the great intercession for quick and dead within the canon, the commemoration of the living being placed just before and the commemoration of the departed just after the words of institution; (b) the absence of an “Epiklesis” or invocation of the Holy Ghost upon the elements; (c) the position of the “Pax” or “Kiss of Peace after the consecration” and before the communion, whereas in other liturgies it occurs at a much earlier point in the service. ”

“ The Sarum order of dedication described above is substantially identical with the Roman order, but it would be superfluous to tabulate and describe the lesser variations of language or ritual. There is, however, one very important and significant piece of ritual, not found in the above-described English church order, but always found in the Roman service, and not infrequently found in the earlier and later English uses, in connexion with the presence and use of relics at the consecration of an altar. ”

“ From an early period men have been set apart, under the title of anagnostae, lectores, or readers, for the purpose of reading Holy Scripture in church. We do not know what the custom of the Church was in the first two centuries, the earliest reference to readers, as an order, occurring in the writings of Tertullian (De praescript. haeret. cap. 41) ; there are frequent allusions to them in the writings of St Cyprian and afterwards. Cornelius, bishop of Rome in A.D. 251–252, in a well-known letter mentions readers among the various church orders then existing at Rome. ”

“ A theory, originating with Pinius, that it may have been brought by the Goths from Constantinople when they invaded Spain, is as improbable as it is unproven. It may have been derived from Gaul. The Gallican sister stood to it in the relation of twin-sister, if it could not claim that of mother. The resemblance was so great that when Charles the Bald (843–877) wished to get some idea of the character of the already obsolete Gallican rite, he sent to Toledo for some Spanish priests to perform Mass according to the Mozarabic rite in his presence. ”

“ The next important stage in the history of the Prayer Book was its total suppression in 1645 for a period of fifteen years, “the Directory for the Public Worship of God in the Three Kingdoms” being established in its place. The restoration of King Charles II. in 1660 brought with it toleration at once, and soon afterwards complete restoration of the Prayer Book, but not exactly in the same form which it had before. Nonconformists pressed upon the king, either that the Prayer Book should not be re-introduced, or that if it were re-introduced, features which they objected to might be removed. ”

“ The evidence collected from these sources is sufficient to prove that the liturgy of the Celtic church was of the Gallican type. In central England the churches, with everything belonging to them, were destroyed by the heathen invaders at the close of the 5th century; but the Celtic church in the remoter parts of England, as well as in the neighbouring kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland, retained its independence for centuries afterwards. ”

“ This was the second Prayer Book of King Edward VI., with the following few but important alterations, which, like all the alterations introduced at subsequent dates into the Prayer Book, were in a Catholic rather than in a Protestant direction.
1. Morning and Evening Prayer were directed to be “used in the accustomed place of the church, chapel or chancel,” instead of “in such place as the people may best hear.”
2. The rubric ordering the use of the rochet only by the bishop and of surplice only by a priest or deacon was abolished. ”

“ It would be beyond our scope here to give a complete list of the numerous and frequently minute differences between a medieval Sarum and the earlier Anglo-Saxon or contemporaneous Roman liturgy. They lie mainly in differences of collects and lections, variations of ritual on Candlemass, Ash Wednesday and throughout Holy Week; the introduction into the canon of the mass of certain clauses and usages of Gallican character or origin; the wording of rubrics in the subjunctive or imperative tense; the peculiar “Preces in prostratione” ”

“ The bishop then proceeds to various parts of the church and blesses the font, the chancel, with special references to confirmation and holy matrimony, the lectern, the pulpit, the clergy stalls, the choir seats, the holy table. The deed of consecration is then read and signed, and the celebration of Holy Communion follows with special collects, epistle and gospel.
The Church of Ireland and the episcopal Church of Scotland are likewise without any completely authorized form of dedication, and their archbishops or bishops have at various times issued forms of service on their own authority. ”

“ The Roman liturgy seems to have been introduced into England in the 7th, into France in the 9th and into Spain in the 11th century, though no doubt it was known in both France and Spain to some extent before these dates. In France certain features of the service and certain points in the ritual of the ancient national liturgy became interwoven with its text and formed those many varying medieval Gallican Uses which are associated with the names of different French sees. ”

“ Period III. Anglo-Norman Church.—The influx of numerous foreigners, especially from Normandy and Lorraine, which preceded, accompanied and followed the Conquest, and the occupation by them of the highest posts in church as well as state had a distinct effect on the liturgy of the English church. These foreign ecclesiastics brought over with them a preference for and a habit of using certain features of the Gallican liturgy and ritual, which they succeeded in incorporating into the service-books of the church of England. ”

“ The collect for St Andrew's Day is based on a Missa in the Mozarabic Mass for the same festival (ibid., col. 159) . Other examples might be given, but this is hardly the place for complete details. (d) The many addresses, beginning with “Dearly beloved brethren” (“the Scripture moveth us,” &c.) , introduced into most of the services in the Prayer Book, correspond to the addresses which, under the title of “Missa,” and generally addressed to “fratres dilectissimi” or “carissimi,” form part of every Mozarabic Mass. ”

“ Group V. The Hispano-Gallican Rite (St John) .—This group of Latin liturgies, which once prevailed very widely in Western Europe, has been almost universally superseded by the liturgy of the Church of Rome. Where it survives, it has been more or less assimilated to the Roman pattern. It prevailed once throughout Spain, France, northern Italy, Great Britain and Ireland. ”

“ In the canons of Hippolytus in the first half of the 3rd century we find this direction: “Let presbyters, subdeacons and readers, and all the people assemble daily in the church at time of cock-crow, and betake themselves to prayers, to psalms and to the reading of the Scriptures, according to the command of the Apostles, until I come attend to reading” (canon xxi.) ”

“ While the alterations, therefore, were violent enough to alarm and offend the Catholic party, they were not violent enough to satisfy the extreme Puritan party, who would no doubt have agitated for and would probably have obtained still further reformation and revision. But this Prayer Book only lived for eight months. It came into use on All Saints' Day (Nov. 1) 1552, and on the 6th of July 1553 Edward VI. died and was succeeded by his sister Mary, under whom the Prayer Book was abolished and the old Latin services and service books resumed their place. ”

“ But there is no record of the conversion of Spain by Gallican missionaries. Christianity existed in Spain from the earliest times. Probably St Paul travelled there (Rom. xv. 24) . It may be at least conjectured that its liturgy was Pauline rather than Petrine or Johannine.
2. Gallican Liturgy.—This was the ancient and national liturgy of the church in France till the commencement of the 9th century, when it was suppressed by order of Charlemagne, who directed the Roman missal to be everywhere substituted in its place. ”

“ Many of the new collects introduced into the Prayer Book, though not transferred bodily from any Mozarabic service book, are modelled upon a Mozarabic pattern, and preserve some Mozarabic ideas and phrases, e.g. the references to the Second Advent in the collects for the first and third Sundays in Advent take their tone from the Mozarabic Advent services. The collect for Christmas Day is based on a collect for Christmas Day Lauds in the Mozarabic Breviary (Migne, Pat. Lat. tom. lxxxvi., col. 122) . ”

“ Herein regulations are laid down for the conduct of public worship, for the reading of Scripture and for extempore prayer before and after the sermon, and in the administration of the sacrament of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, for the solemnization of marriage, visitation of the sick and burial of the dead, for the observance of days of public fasting and public thanksgiving, together with a form of ordination and a directory for family worship. ”

“ Whether the selections were ad libitum or according to a fixed table of lessons we are not informed. Nothing in the shape of a lectionary is extant older than the 8th century, though there is evidence that Claudianus Mamercus made one for the church at Vienne in 450, and that Musaeus made one for the church at Marseilles c. 458. The Liber comitis formerly attributed to St Jerome must be three, or nearly three, centuries later than that saint, and the Luxeuil lectionary, or Lectionarium Gallicanum, which Mabillon attributed to the 7th, cannot be earlier than the 8th century ”

“ From the 2nd century onwards references multiply, though the earlier references do not prove the existence of a fixed lectionary or order of lessons, but rather point the other way. Justin Martyr, describing divine worship in the middle of the 2nd century says: “On the day called Sunday all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the Apostles, or the writings of the Prophets are read as long as time permits” (Apol. i. cap. 67) . ”

“ A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to be used yearly upon the Eifth Day of November, to commemorate the happy deliverance of King James I. and the Three Estates of England from the Gunpowder Plot in 1604.
2. A Form of Prayer with Fasting to be used yearly on the Thirtieth Day of January, to commemorate the Martyrdom of the Blessed King Charles the First in 1649.
3. A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to be used yearly on the Twenty-ninth Day of May, to commemorate the Restoration to the throne of King Charles the Second in 1660. ”

“ The Collectarium contained the collects for the season, together with a few other parts of the day offices. It was an inchoate breviary. (5) The Epistolarium contained the epistles, and the Evangelistarium the gospels for the year. (7) The Gradual contained the introit, gradual, sequences, and the other portions of the communion service which were sung by the choir at nigh mass. (8) The Legenda contained the lections which were read at matins and at other times, and may be taken as a generic term to include the Homiliarium, Passional and other volumes. ”

“ Even these subordinate Uses have for the most part become, or are rapidly becoming, obsolete.
The date, origin and early history of the Roman liturgy are obscure. The first Christians at Rome were a Greek-speaking community, and their liturgy must have been Greek, and is possibly represented in the so-called Clementine liturgy. ”

“ In the Litany the phrase “Bishops, Pastors and Ministers of the Church,” was altered into “Bishops, Priests and Deacons,” and in the clause commencing “From all sedition and privy conspiracy,” &c., the words “rebellion” and “schism” were added. ”

“ One MS. exists which has been claimed to represent the Roman liturgy as it existed in the time of Leo I., 440–461. It was discovered at Verona by Bianchini in 1735 and assigned by him to the 8th century and published under the title of Sacramentarium Leonianum; but this title was from the first conjectural, and is in the teeth of the internal evidence which the MS. itself affords. The question is discussed at some length by Muratori (Lit. Rom. Vet. tom. i. cap. i. col. 16) . Assemani published it under the title of Sacramentarium Veronense in tom. ”

“ Ital. tom. i. Pars. ii. p. 106) . It has been asserted by Joseph Vicecomes that this is an originally independent liturgy drawn up by St Barnabas, who first preached the Gospel at Milan (De Missae Rit. 1 capp. xi. xii.) , and this tradition is preserved in the title and proper preface for St Barnabas Day in the Ambrosian missal (Pamelius, Liturgicon, i. 385, 386) , but it has never been proved.
We can trace the following points in which the Ambrosian differs from the Roman liturgy, many of them exhibiting traces of Eastern influence. ”

“ They include most of the collects on Saints' Days, for which, though no direct evidence of authorship is as yet forthcoming, Cranmer is probably responsible, and certain other collects, such as that for the Royal Family (Archbishop Whitgift) ; that for the high court of parliament (Archbishop Laud) ; that for all conditions of men (Bishop Gunning) , &c. ”

“ The disentangling the Gallican from the Roman elements in the early Western forms of service is a delicate and difficult task, undertaken by Monsignor Louis Duchesne, who shows how the former partook of a funerary and the latter of a baptismal character (Christian Worship (London, 1904) , cap. ”