According to Procter and Frere’s history of the BCP, Elizabeth’s letter to her ecclesiastical council written on January 22, 1561 had little impact on the lectionary.

They were wrong.

The kalendar revision of 1561 was the biggest shift in both kalendar and Daily Office lectionary policy since the production of the first Book of Common Prayer. 1561 represents a sweeping reform that fully embeds the modifications from 1559 into the kalendar system, moves the devotional clock “back” towards late Sarum practice, and establishes a new guiding hermeneutic for how biblical lessons are assigned through the year.

So—what precisely happened here? First, 1560 happened and the translation of the 1559 Book of Common Prayer into Latin. When we look at the kalendar of the Liber Precum Publicarum (LPP), two things are immediately obvious. First, the Daily Office readings are identical with the 1559 book. (As far as I’ve determined… I’ve been surprised on this in the past, though.)

Second, the kalendar has exploded with commemorations. Most every day of the year has a black-letter observance.  The exact source of all of the commemorations is not easy to trace. According to Vernon Staley (one of the the greats of the English Use movement), there are four negative indicators that these were taken up from the kalendars of the Sarum Missal and Breviary. In both the LPP kalendar and the Sarum kalendars:

1. Neither Joseph, adoptive father of Our Lord nor Joseph of Arimathea are present
2. There is an absence of Scottish and Irish saints with the sole exception of Bridget
3. Certain Western greats are conspicuously absent: viz. Anselm, Aquinas, and Bernard
4. There is an absence of the Eastern saints–even the two directly mentioned in the prayer book (Athanasius and Chrysostom)

The 1561 kalendar revision is a slimmed-down version of the 1560 LPP kalendar. Staley states:

It is exceedingly difficult to determine on what principles the four commissioners proceeded in compiling the list of black-letter or minor saints days, which we find in our present Kalendar [Ed.: he means the 1662 kalendar]. The selection has, to say the least, an appearance of caprice and inconsistency which is almost, if not altogether, impossible to justify.

. . .

Broadly speaking, the holy days in the Kalendar of the Book of Common Prayer correspond to the Feasts of Nine Lessons in the Sarum books. It does not seem improbable that the compilers of the Kalendar of 1561, which is practically our present Kalendar, took the Feasts of Nine Lessons in the Sarum books as their working basis, making such modifications as they felt desirable ; though this theory by no means disposes of all difficulties and inconsistencies as to omissions and additions which are presented to students of the Kalendar of the Prayer Book.

Thus, the sanctoral revision of 1561 is best thought of as a capricious rendering of the more important feasts of the Sarum kalendars.

When it comes to the Scripture dispositions, things are a bit different.

The first change between the 1561 kalendar and the ones that came before it is that all of the red-letter days from the proper lessons table have been thoroughly incorporated into the yearly round. Thus, days like Candlemas, the Annunciation, St Matthew and St Luke all receive their own proper OT lessons. On the surface this is a small change as these lessons had already been in the proper tables of the 1559 book. What makes this so important is the effect that it has on the rest of the year. The chapters appointed for Sundays and Holy Days were also retained without exception in the in-course reading cycle (so they would be read twice every year, once on the Holy Day and once where they fit within the canon). But, in order to make room for these proper OT readings, 38 chapters of Scripture had to be cut in order to let the rest of the cycle function as it should.

Cranmer’s original prime directive of comprehensiveness—reading through all of Scripture every year—has just moved into second place. It has been replaced by “edification.” Comprehensiveness is self-evident: you’ve either read through all the chapters or you haven’t. Edification is a fundamentally interpretive criterion: what is edifying is based on what the selectors  deem to be edifying.

So—38 chapters had to go. To put this in perspective, it would be like losing one large book of Scripture (like cutting the entire book of Job) or losing more than half of the minor prophets (those twelve books contain only 69 chapters between them). What got cut? We’ll go sequentially through the year:

1. January loses Exodus 6 (a narrative reduplication of God’s promise to Moses and Israel concluding with the genealogy of Moses)
2. The usual jump from Exodus 24 to 32 is retained
3. Exodus 35 and 40 on the construction & erection of the tabernacle get dropped
   Leviticus 26 gets added back in (details blessings and curses on those who keep or don’t keep God’s law)
4. Numbers gets savaged, losing 10 (silver trumpets, order of march), 15 (sacrificial regulations), 18-19 (sacrifice, red heifer), 26 (second census of Israel), 28-29 (sacrifices), 33 (stages of march), 34 (boundaries of land, naming of leaders)
5. March loses  Deuteronomy 23 (no eunuchs, foreigners in sanctuary, on noct. emissions, prostitutes, usury, etc.)
6. The reduplication of Joshua chapters that we had seen in the 1552-9 ends, but the readings now jump from 10 to 23, dropping more chapters than before and wrapping with Joshua’s final address
7. Ezra begins at ch. 2, leaving out 1 (edict of release and return of temple treasures), 8 (appointment of priests and vessels), and 10 (condemnation of foreign brides, list of priests and levites who had married them)
8. Nehemiah missing 3 (builders of sections of wall), 7 (registration of the nation), 11-12 (naming of leaders, dedication of wall)
9. Omits Job 23 (Job’s cry of dereliction on the absence of God)
10. Prov 30 (sayings of Agur) omitted
11. A note on MP on July 26th states that Dan 13 is read until the end of Susanna, omitting Bel & the dragon; no Dan 14, Prov 30 [left out earlier] takes its place instead
12. Tobit is read in course on Sep 28th, break for Michael, continues on 30th, then on October 1st replacing Tobit 5 (angel travels with Tobit), and 6 (fish magic) are replaced with excised Exodus 6 minus genealogy and Joshua 20 (appointment of the cities of refuge);Tobit 7 picks up on MP of the 2nd.  Joshua 22 (Joshua’s instructions to the Reubenites) replaces Tobit 8 (exorcism) at EP on 2nd
13. The note on Ecclesiasticus 46 seems to indicate that the last verse is left off, the one speaking of Samuel’s prophecy after death.
14. Isaiah begins on EP of December 23 with the ending of Baruch

In summary, we see a few things going on here. There’s a continued curtailing of the law which, again, seems to focus on descriptions of ritual worship. We also see some consistent moves against genealogical material and the mass listings of tribes and people and foreign places. Some of the more objectionable material is dropped from Job and from the apocryphal narratives.

I’ll unpack some of the implications of these cuts in another post (lest this one get hideously long…).

There is an interesting trend when we look at the provision of proper lessons for the Daily Office lectionaries between 1549 and 1559.

In the 1549 BCP, there are twelve fixed-feast days that receive proper lessons within the kalendar; these days are identified in the previous post.  Too, within the BCP’s mass sets, there are an additional 10 moveable-feast days with proper lessons, all related to Easter. One of the key changes is the replacement of the OT lessons in Holy Week with Lamentations:

• Wednesday EP: Lam 1
• Thursday MP/EP: Lam 2/Lam 3
• Friday MP/EP: [Gen 22/Isa 53]
• Saturday MP: Lam 4-5

The 1552 book did away with the instructions hidden in the mass sets. Instead, it offered a table before the kalendar that established what the particular days were that received their own propers. It follows the liturgical year and begins with Christmas, the first feast of the church year receiving a proper.  There were no new additions between the 1549 and the 1549 and only a few changes.

One was Christmas. In the 1549 BCP, two masses were provided for Christmas, this first using the Luke 2 Gospel, the second the John 1; Matthew 1 was the reading at Christmas MP. This fits with standard medieval lectionary practice which appointed Matthew 1 for Christmas Eve (day), Luke 2 for the first two masses of Christmas, and John 1 for the third. The 1552 retains only the second service, drops Matthew 1 and shifts Luke 2 to Christmas MP.

The other major change was the suppression of Lamentations during Holy Week. The new pattern looks like this:

• Wednesday EP: Hosea 13-14
• Thursday MP/EP: Daniel 9/Jeremiah 31
• Friday MP/EP: [Gen 22/Isa 53] (unchanged)
• Saturday MP: Zechariah 9

Lamentations was used in the first nocturn of the Sarum Breviary Night Office from Maundy Thursday through Holy Saturday; perhaps the suppression of the book in the 1552 BCP was due to too-close of a connection between Lamentations and the old rites of tenebrae.

The 1559 book was presented as substantially the 1552 book but with the addition of a new table of proper lessons. The pay-off here is that the kalendar was unchanged; Cranmer’s pattern of readings from the 1552 BCP was left untouched. Nevertheless, the proper tables presented quite a number of readings that reflect a whole new way of apportioning readings for feasts.

Two tables prefaced the kalendar in the 1559 BCP: a table of Sundays and a table of Holy Days. While conceptually distinct, they are sequentially linked. Evidently, someone had a list of the days needing lessons and a corresponding list of edifying chapters of the Scriptures.The Sundays of Advent begin with lessons from Isaiah. They proceed sequentially through 22 selected chapters from Isaiah, running from Advent 1 through Epiphany 5. Then, Septuagesima begins with Genesis. Genesis runs through the first half of Lent. Exodus is read through Passiontide and the first part of Easter Week. After a brief dip through Numbers, the majority of Easter is given to the selected reading of Deuteronomy with the final exhortation from Moses in 30-34 rounding of the Monday and Tuesday following Pentecost.  From there we head into the histories, take a very quick swing through the prophets, then, on the 21st Sunday after Trinity head into Proverbs. This is significant—we’ll remain in the Wisdom literature for the rest of the tables.

The Sunday table ends on the 26th Sunday after Trinity with Proverbs 17 and 19. Significantly, the first entry on the Holy Days table, St Andrew, receives only two OT lessons: Proverbs 20 and Proverbs 21. It continues the pattern of the previous literally without a hitch. From there things seem to proceed along fairly simple rules: 1) all former readings are retained. If a proper lesson was given in the 1552 book, it is retained here. 2) If an OT lesson was not provided for either MP or EP for any red-letter day, one is provided out of the sequential order.  So, saints’ days receive readings from the Wisdom Lit, the Easter weekdays receive Exodus readings, and the Ascension and Pentecost weekdays receive Deuteronomy.

Over all, 16 new days get added to the table; with OT readings for all plus the previous 21, that’s a lot of days with propers. the 1559 book doesn’t do anything about this large influx of material , nor does it account for the 32+ chapters that are now dropped out of the sequential reading by these new propers.

That’ll have to wait until the revision of 1561…

After some more research, I need to make some corrections and clarifications to some of the previous posts. Some items are things that I overlooked or didn’t notice before; others are items that now seem more significant in light of the trajectories I’m seeing. I’ll note the corrections here, then fold them into the posts where they belong as I have time.

On the 1549 Lectionary

I made two main errors in describing the 1549 Office Lectionary. The first  is not noting the compete absence of 1 & 2 Chronicles. These books are essentially a rewrite of the Samuel/Kings material, the key difference being the intense focus on worship and levitical activities. If anything, the omission of these two books furthers the trend that downplays Israelite worship and ceremonial.

The second error was failing to note that directions on the Office readings were included at points within the Collect/Epistle/Gospel propers for Masses through the year. In addition to clarifications on the lengths of some lessons, I discovered that the book appoints proper psalms at the Offices on Christmas, Easter Sunday, Ascension Day, and Pentecost. Furthermore, proper lessons are appointed for Wednesday in Holy Week until Easter Tuesday and for Ascension Day, Pentecost, and the morning of Trinity Sunday. Thus, it *does* provide for a limited number of proper lessons within the moveable section around Easter. It’s noteworthy, though, that in the main even these days don’t effect the OT lessons. In Holy Week, the OT lessons are preempted by the reading of Lamentations, but the Easter week, Ascension, and Pentecost propers are only for the NT lessons, maintaining the continuous reading of the OT. So—retaining as much of the OT as possible while still marking the days seems to be a key consideration.

In addition to the temporal days noted above, there are twelve other days that have appointed proper lessons. The in-course readings continue on the next day, so that no chapters are omitted.  Too, the OT cycle is disturbed as little as possible; of the twelve days, only 5 provide first (OT) lessons for MP & EP while a 6th (Innocents) gives only a proper first OT lesson in the morning, not the evening. The days are:

• Circumcision
• Epiphany
• Conversion of Paul (NT only)
• Philip & James (NT only)
• Barnabas (NT only)
• Nativity of John the Baptist
• Peter (NT only)
• All Saints
• Christmas
• Stephen (NT only)
• John (NT only)
• Inn (1 OT only)

Where NT only lessons are provided they are from Acts with the exception of John who receives his from Revelation.

Daniel’s chapters run to a total of 14. Canonical Daniel runs to 12 chapters indicating the inclusion of Susanna as ch 13 and Bel & the Dragon as ch 14.

On the 1552 Lectionary

I had said that I had found no changes to the Scriptures appointed between the 1549 and 1552 lectionaries. Upon further probing, I found some!

In the month of March, there are some oddities in the reading of Joshua. In the 1549 book, Joshua begins on the 15 at MP and continues sequentially through EP of the 26th. In the 1552 book, Joshua begins on the 15th at MP but the 16th heralds a shift… Joshua 3 is read at MP—and is repeated at EP! This arrangement will continue with the same chapters appointed for MP and EP until the 23rd where Joshua 10 is appointed at MP and Joshua 11 follows at EP. On the next day we have Joshua 12 at MP, then Joshua 20 at EP. The rest of the book finishes out regularly by EP of the 26th.

So, what’s happened is this: Joshua 13-19 has been excised. This is the section that describes in mind-numbing detail which families and clans of the Children of Israel get which cities and plots to boundary stones and such as they settle in the land.  However, dropping seven chapters would wreak havoc on the carefully constructed pattern for the rest of the year. In order to drop this section with a minimal impact to the cycle, the more overtly edifying historical chapters were recycled.

There is also some fancy-footing around Ezra and Nehemiah (referred to here as 1 and 2 Esdras). In the 1549 lectionary, Ezra begins at EP of May 29th and the two books are read straight through with Nehemiah 13 ending at EP of June 9th; Esther begins on the 10th. In the 1552 lectionary, 2 Kings 25 is reduplicated for EP on the 29th and Ezra begins at MP on the 30th.  Ezra 4 is appointed for both May 30th EP and June 1st MP. Ezra 5 is read at EP on June 1st, then chs 6-8 are duplicated at both MP and EP until Ezra 9 and 10 appear at MP and EP of June 5th. The subsequent reading of Nehemiah skips chs 2, 7, and 10-12. With these omissions, Nehemiah 13 falls at EP of June 9th; Esther begins on the 10th.

In short, Ezra is artificially expanded so as to skip the enumeration of peoples and tribes who returned from exile in Nehemiah. I do find odd the choice to skip ch 2 which is a narrative about the granting of permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem; if anything I’d expect the dropping of ch 3 which details which people are to rebuild which sections of the wall.

Both of these changes (i.e., to Joshua and Nehemiah) are retained in the 1559 lectionary.

When we get to the Daily Office lectionary of the 1559 BCP, the lectionary takes its first major turn away from the lines laid down by Cranmer ten years before. Where the 1552 book had introduced proper lessons for several of the holy days, this book goes a far sight further and appoints lessons for all the Sundays of the year.

The Sunday lessons are quite interesting for what they do and don’t do. First, only two lessons are appointed for each Sunday, the OT lessons for Morning and Evening Prayer. Thus, the in-course reading of the NT is not disrupted. This ensures that edifying lessons are selected on the day when the greatest number of congregants will be present in church.

Second, it solidifies the place of the liturgical year by making it more visible. In contrast to the earlier books, a reader know needed to be aware of what Sunday they were approaching in order to correctly discern the reading.

Third, the OT lessons were apparently selected with the older lectionary system in mind to a degree. Lessons from Isaiah are selected from Advent through the Sundays after Epiphany. Then the lectionary starts with Genesis on Septuagesima. Selected lessons run until the middle of Lent where it shifts into Exodus. The Easter season gets bits from Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Sundays after Trinity quickly transition to the Historical books: after one Sunday of Joshua, and one of Judges it moves into 1 Samuel [nb: it’s listed as 1 Kings but you’ll note that it proceeds to 4 Kings indicating that their English Bible is following the Vulgate book naming conventions]. The Samuel-Kings complex is read through the 13 Sunday after Trinity when we make a turn into prophets. Select bits are read from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, Micah, and Habakkuk. Then, at EP of the 21st Sunday after Trinity, it moves to Proverbs where it stays until the start of Advent.

In the old Office lectionary—whether we’re talking about the scheme of Ordo XIII or the Sarum Breviary—the summer was given over to History, Wisdom, and the Minor Prophets (plus Ezekiel). The 1559 system doesn’t follow that exactly, but makes general motions in that direction along with the classic placement of Genesis and Exodus with Pre-Lent and Lent. (The Old English students reading will note that Ælfric’s reading for Mid-Lent Sunday in the Lives of the Saints is actually a quick recap of Moses and the Exodus.)

Apparently, some of these selections were displeasing to the queen. On January 22nd, 1561 she sent a letter to her Ecclesiastical Commissioners requesting them: ” to peruse the order of the said lessons throughout the whole yere, and to cause some new calendars to be imprinted, whereby such chapters or parcells of less edification may be removed, and other more profitable may supply their roomes…” (Cardwell, Documentary Annals, 1.262). Given the date, such a request may not be entirely surprising: MP on the 19th was Gen 34 (the rape of Dinah and subsequent post-circumcision slaughtering of a town), MP on the 20th was Gen 36  (the genealogies of Esau and Edom), MP on the 21st was Gen 38 (Onan and Tamar’s seduction of her father-in-law Judah).

New kalendars were indeed drawn up by Parker (+Canterbury) and Grindal (+London) but only a three minor changes were made to the Sundays and Feast days; the major change was the restoration of a fair number of Sarum black-letter feast days. No change was made to the in course reading schedule that I know of. Indeed, a comparison of the 1552 and 1559 in-course schedule shows no changes whatsoever.

There is one other area where changes were made, though, and that’s in the Proper Lessons for Holy Days. As noted previously, readings—typically from Acts—were appointed as the second lesson at MP for some feast days in order that the passages about certain saints would be read on their days. What we see here is a far more thorough revision of how saints’ days were celebrated. The second lessons were left as printed in the in-course reading. This table changes the first lesson at MP and consistently appoints lessons from the Wisdom books: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,  Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and Job in an oddly in course selection. (Feasts of Our Lord and the weekdays around Easter tend to get typological passages such as Gen 22—the sacrifice of Isaac—for Good Friday.)

The appearance of the Sunday table and the alterations to the Proper Lessons table may reflect a certain relaxing of the discipline of the lectionary. There was a certain easing of the Act of Uniformity around the selection of lessons and the introduction to the Second Book of Homilies (1562) allows clergy to:swap out readings at their discretion:

And where it may so chance some one or other Chapter of the Old Testament to fall in order to be read upon the Sundays or Holy days, which were better to be changed with some other of the New Testament of more edification, it shall be well done to spend your time to consider well of such Chapters before hand, whereby your prudence and diligence in your office may appear, so that your people may have cause to glorify God for you, and be the readier to embrace your labors, to your better commendation, to the discharge of your consciences and their own.

So—the original pattern laid down by Cranmer was kept for yearly in-course reading, but new options were available for Sundays, Holy Days, and cases where the lessons were seen as unfit for public consumption.

One final item to consider is the theological message of appointed Sunday readings. What did this say about what was to be the main public service on Sundays—the Mass or the Office? It’s a question that deserves more investigation but, to me, it looks like a move to either suggest a shift or to reinforce a practice that had already occurred.