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The traditio instrumentorum in the Reform of Ordination Rites in the Sixteenth Century
- Kenneth W. T. Carleton
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- Journal:
- Studies in Church History / Volume 35 / 1999
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 March 2016, pp. 172-184
- Print publication:
- 1999
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The traditio instrumentorum is the ceremony in the rite of conferring holy orders in which an object or objects symbolizing the office to be conferred is handed to the candidate with an appropriate accompanying form of words. This ceremony grew in importance through the Middle Ages, to the extent that in Catholic theology it came to be seen as the essential act of ordination. Eucharistic doctrine and the role of the Church in salvation were key areas of conflict in sixteenth-century Reform movements. The Church’s ministry, therefore, being both intensely bound up with ecclesiastical structures and intimately concerned with the appropriate conduct of worship, was profoundly affected by these fundamental debates. A continuing need for some form of structured ministry was widely felt, though often understood as simply the appointment (for a time) of appropriate persons to the ministry of Word and Sacrament whose sacramental qualification for ministry was their own baptism, by which they entered into the priesthood of all believers, which was different from the unique high priesthood of Christ and completely replaced any sense of a sacrificing priesthood, which was tied up with the Old (and superseded) Testament. Looking to their Bibles for this, as for so much else in their ecclesiologies, the Reformers found only the apostolic laying on of hands with prayer in the conferring of ministry.
English Catholic Bishops in the Early Elizabethan Era
- Kenneth W. T. Carleton
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- Journal:
- Recusant History / Volume 23 / Issue 1 / May 1996
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 16 September 2015, pp. 1-15
- Print publication:
- May 1996
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Queen Mary Tudor died on the night of 17 November 1558. A few hours later, across the river at Lambeth, her cousin, Reginald Pole, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury, followed her, victim of the ague which he had contracted in the summer. England again had a change of monarch, the third in less than twelve years. What was not clear at the time was whether there would be another change in religion. With hindsight, it is clear that the programme of reform which sought to reunite the English Church with the see of Rome and to revivify it with the Tridentine reforms with which Pole had been so closely involved, had died also on that November night. Parliament was in session when Mary died, and immediately Elizabeth was proclaimed queen by Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, in his capacity as Lord Chancellor; there was no dissent such as had accompanied the accession of the new Queen's half-sister. It soon became clear, however, that the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn was unlikely to retain the settlement of religion in the precise form in which it had been left by the daughter of Katharine of Aragon. On Christmas Day, the Queen ordered that the elevation of the Blessed Sacrament was not to take place during the Mass to be celebrated in her chapel by the Bishop of Carlisle, Owen Oglethorpe. His refusal to obey this command led the Queen to leave the chapel after the gospel had been read. Two days later, a royal proclamation restored the first liturgical changes of Henry VIII, ordering that the epistle and gospel of the Mass were thenceforward to be read in English, along with the litany which usually preceded the service. The coronation of Elizabeth should have been conducted by the senior surviving churchman, Heath of York; he had resigned the Chancellorship before the end of 1558, and declined to conduct the service. It was Oglethorpe, as bishop of a suffragan see of the Northern Province, who crowned the new Queen, with no other diocesan bishops present. The coronation Mass was sung by one of the Reformers, Dr. George Carewe, who omitted the elevation, and another Reformer preached the sermon.
John Marbeck and The Booke of Common Praier Noted
- Kenneth W. T. Carleton
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- Journal:
- Studies in Church History / Volume 28 / 1992
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 March 2016, pp. 255-265
- Print publication:
- 1992
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The liturgical section of The New English Hymnal contains musical settings for both eucharistie orders of the Church of England’s Alternative Service Book 1980. The modern-language service, Rite A, is provided with a newly-composed congregational setting in speech rhythm. The texts of Rite B use the traditional language of the Book of Common Prayer, and are given a musical setting taken from The Booke of Common Praier Noted by John Marbeck, published in 1550. An accompaniment is added, and the text is adapted where the original is no longer accurate. Its inclusion in this new hymn-book is evidence of the popularity which Marbeck’s setting has enjoyed for more than a hundred years. Its rediscovery took place in the nineteenth century through the influence of the Tractarians and their successors, who sought to revive traditional liturgical practices such as the singing of plainsong during worship. The Booke of Common Praier Noted is a musical setting of parts of the first English Prayer Book, which had been promulgated in 1549. The appearance of a second Prayer Book in 1552 rendered Marbeck’s work obsolete, as the new book expresses a different attitude towards music in worship. The 1549 Prayer Book encourages singing in many of the services, not least the Office of Holy Communion. The clerks, singing-men usually in minor orders, are expected to take a full part, and the normal eucharistie celebration is one which is sung virtually throughout. The Offices in the 1552 Book contain very few references to singing, and the clerks are nowhere mentioned. The only direction for singing any part of the order for Holy Communion is found at the end, when ‘Glory be to God on high’ may be said or sung. A rubric at Morning Prayer allows for the singing of the lessons in that service and at Evening Prayer, as well as the Epistle and Gospel at Holy Communion, so that the people may hear them more clearly. It is possible that the retention of this reference to singing from the first Prayer Book may have been an oversight, as the rubric is situated away from the main body of the service.