Category Archives: Anglican

Englishing Sarum

Time and leisure being what they are, this post will be far more a set of pointers than a properly-researched orderly exposition. I’ll loop back and hit Late Sarum later—I think it more important for the purposes of the coming American Sarum conference to consider a key step in the Sarum story: its leap to the modern day.

I choose the somewhat unwieldy “Englishing” quite deliberately because I want to highlight two of its sense, both of which are fully at play. The first is that, for the Sarum materials to have an impact on the England the America of the modern day, they had to leave the language of Latin and enter the tongue of English. This is the simplest meaning of the term.

However, something else is going on here as well. As a recent commenter pointed out in regard to another topic, you can never go back again. Bringing something forward from a past time into a present gives it a whole new set of meanings based on the new context, how the present context views the past, and the purposes and ideologies involved in selecting and reviving this particular slice of the past (and not others). There was a very deliberate program of “Englishing” at work in the 19th century revival of Sarum.

One of the key movements in 19th century, particularly Victorian, England was Gothic Revival. This was a confluence on romanticism, medievalism, and nationalism that found expression in a variety of ways. The term is most commonly associated with architecture, but it stands at the heart of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) and became a major cultural force.

Pause for a moment to consider King Arthur. Unless you’re a trained medievalist, your chief exposure to King Arthur and the Round Table is fundamentally rooted in Gothic Revival forms of romanticized medievalism lavishly illustrated by some of the great painters produced by the philosophy of the PRB. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King is a classic example of how these movements filtered into the broader English consciousness.

Catholic expressions of Anglicanism (i.e., Anglo-Catholics and other folks) typically trace themselves back to the Oxford Movement—and this is correct in a general theological way. The Oxford Movement was not Anglo-Catholic, though, and readers of the Tracts are often surprised at the amount of weight given to topics like bishops and the relationship between Church and State rather than ritual or ceremonial. The movement that had more impact on the daily practice and perception of the Church of England was the Cambridge Movement which birthed the Cambridge Camden Society which would become the Ecclesiological Society and exerted a disproportionate influence on how churches were built, decorated, and appointed. The Cambridge Camden Society, founded by Blessed John Mason Neale and comrades, was explicitly and fundamentally medievalist in orientation. The majority of Neale’s hymns are translations of medieval texts and even his original compositions—like Good King Wenceslaus—are medieval in character.

It’s within this context that a renewed interest in Sarum sources began. If you check back to the previous post on editions, you’ll note that the Victorian period—the second half of the 19th century—is when the publishing really took off. Because of the ideologies surrounding the revival, “Victorian Sarum” is both more and less than “historical Sarum.” Translations and syntheses of “Sarum” practice became an odd amalgamation of 1) historical sources, 2) contemporary Roman Catholic practice, and 3) the authors’ fancy. The balance of these three components varies by author and by work, some being more grounded, some being more fanciful.

Sarum becomes a cypher for a host of things. Sarum becomes directly equated with English. Thus other regional uses like Hereford, Lincoln, Exeter, and York were both plundered for raw material when there were Sarum gaps, and were downplayed in order to keep Sarum front and center. (Christopher, Pfaff’s chapter 14 is entitled “Regional Uses and local variety” and covers the English non-Sarum material quite well.)  When Sarum is equated to English then it was given a natural antithesis: Roman. Now, a more objective view will recognize that in the heyday of the Sarum Use there was no strictly “Roman Use.” The sense I get from what little I do know of late medieval Continental uses is that many of them had their own local customs and traditions. There was no monolithic “Roman” practice from which Sarum diverged, and it was probably as unique as its neighbors. My sense is that when Rome did move to standardize, it relied on the liturgical uses of the mendicant orders—particularly the Franciscans because the orders were already trans-regional (due to the whole “wandering” bit implied in “mendicant”).

Thus, if you wanted to espouse catholic practices but still keep a certain distance from Roman Catholicism and all that stood for in pre-Victorian and Victorian England, an appeal to “Sarum” was your key. It was both medieval and catholic but conceptually not Roman Catholic. It was native and English, and not a foreign imposition. Too, there’s the “Ornaments Rubric” which deserves a massive post of its own for the role it played—or was given to play—in grandfathering in Sarum appointments and ceremonial.

There’s quite a lot more to say here. Actually, there are probably several book-length studies that could written here. I don’t know if any have and would love to hear if you know of any…

In any case, given the current concerns, I want to point to just three resources. These are what I consider to be the three central works on Sarum/English ceremonial from the end of the 19th century and that have done the most to create what is referred to variable as the Sarum or English Use:

  • Vernon Staley’s Ceremonies of the English Church
  • W. H. Frere’s Principals of Religious Ceremonial
  • Percy Dearmer’s Parson’s Handbook

Each of these is available for download from Google Books and each deserves a post in their own right.

Formation and the Ecclesia Anglicana

One of the perennial Anglo-Catholic hobbies  is constructing and maintaining an acceptable myth of origins. That is to say, if you are going to argue that there is a historical and theological validity to the use of certain catholic principles, doctrines, and ceremonies—but not others—within Anglican churches, you need to have some reason to hand that accounts for it.

One of the classic favorites is the notion of the Ecclesia Anglicana. This is the concept that English Christianity is just a bit different from Roman Catholic Christianity—always has been, always will be—and that the Anglican Churches are simply the current expression of this separate but equal way of being. As a result, adherents of this view claim a certain freedom by identifying the differences between Roman and English practice.

I’ve always quite liked this notion in a big-picture kind of way, but have had all sorts of problems with it on a historical level. It’s one thing to assert it with a side-order of nostalgic Victorian nationalism, it’s another entirely to document it in a convincing fashion in the historical and liturgical record.

It’s with this background (a love for the concept but a weighty skepticism concerning its historical realities) that I surprised myself last night while washing dishes by coming up with a potential liturgical-historical argument in favor of it…

If you’re going to argue a difference between “English” and “Roman,” liturgical and historical evidence supports an approach that sees “Western” as a super-category made up of a number of related theological and liturgical traditions one of which is “English” and one (actually several that fuse into one) which becomes dominant as “Roman.” Part of the question, then, is in the matter of definitions: what’s “English” and what’s “Roman” and how are these situated in relation to what’s “Western”?

Then, once that’s been teased out, what are the things that can be identified as granting a fundamental theological distinction between them? (Understanding liturgy in its proper place as the kinetic side of the theological coin…)

One way to crack the nut is to point to the formative aspects of the liturgy, and I’d approach it this way. The Sarum strand is identifiably and recognizably English in locale granted that its roots straddle both French and earlier English practice. When you compare Sarum sources against Continental Western texts and the materials designated “Roman” by the Council of Trent, one of the differences that you find is the Mass Gospel Lectionary. If I recall correctly (and this came to me while washing dishes, mind you, and I haven’t consulted my tomes yet), there are differences at least in Advent, Epiphany, and in post-Pentecost.

What makes this difference major and important is not the Mass, however—it’s the Office. The Mass Gospel Lectionary appears in the third nocturn of the Night Office and determines the patristic homily found therein. A different Mass Gospel lectionary suggests that the nocturn lessons may be different with the possible result that the Sarum-using folk were being formed by reading different patristic texts at different times and were being formed and normed differently than their “Roman” brethren. If you are trying to argue for a theological and practical difference between the Ecclesia Anglicana and the Roman Church especially defined by its Tridentine liturgy, one of the best ways to do it would be a thorough audit of the nocturn texts.

Come to think of it, I recall that in Advent, at least, the second nocturn readings don’t quite cohere either. I seem to recall a Maximus of Turin text where the Tridentine/Roman sources have the Jerome text on Isaiah quoted below. The significance there is that the Sarum source seems to be drawing on an older “Western” strand as the Maximus likely is a hold-over from Paul the Deacon, the official Night Office collection from the Carolingian period.

So—to make a sustained and historically verifiable argument for a theologically distinct Ecclesia Anglicana one possible route could be a thorough comparison of the Night Office texts between the English and Continental sources. What you’d have to find in order to make a strong case is greater coherence between Sarum, Hereford, and York sources (perhaps Hyde Abbey as well?) than what you find in Continental sources, particularly those that feed into the Tridentine Breviary. Then, if you could further isolate a difference in perspective—so, a preponderance of a particular father or set of fathers over others—between “English” and “Roman” breviaries, then I’d be willing to give more credence to the notion of a theologically distinct Ecclesia Anglicana that contains demonstrable theological and formational tendencies from its Continental counterparts.

Brief Anglican Covenant Thought

Much ink, real and virtual, has been spilt over the Anglican Covenant. I’ve largely stopped commenting on the on-going inter-Anglican feuds but can’t resist just one little comment here…

The Archbishop of Canterbury is right: the Covenant has no ability to change what any one church does. It cannot make anybody do or not do anything. If we want to have either girl bishops or gay bishops, a Covenant will and can do absolutely nothing about it.

All the Covenant can do is more completely describe what other parties do about how one particular church acts.

A Covenant cannot and will not limit the actions of the Episcopal Church.

Take a look at the vote numbers from England’s General Synod for a second:

Bishops 39 for 0 against 1 abstention
Clergy 145 for 32 against 11 abstentions
Laity 147 for 25 against 8 abstentions

The passage of the motion for the Covenant to be sent to the dioceses for discussion and ratification was not half-hearted or narrow.

There are two ways to look at the Covenant: 1) a relatively province-neutral organizational scheme or 2) a referendum on North American actions. It seems that most of the rhetoric from the major players see it as the second. If this is true, then the English vote should be seen as a wake-up call to the Episcopal Church. Whether we’re doing the right things or not, our sister church has sent us a message—our actions will have consequences. Our response should be appropriate. That is, continued argument against the Covenant is, to my mind, pointless because it reads as a continuing argument for American exceptionalism, a statement that we don’t want to live up to the consequences of our actions.

A New Publishing Model?

I’ve got a couple of writing projects I’ve been working on that may be developing into books. Bits and pieces of these have appeared here on the blog in various forms. One is a practical guide to the liturgical year, the other is a text on liturgical/lectionary spirituality. I pitched the first to Church Publishing a little while back; they said that they were interested but that the timing wasn’t right. Of course, now we hear that there’s been a great deal of change at Church Publishing including a significant reduction of staff and therefore capability.

What does this bode for liturgical works for an Anglican audience? I don’t know for sure.

If I had to guess, however, it would indicate that the chance of being published through Church Publishing is shrinking. Furthermore, I’d imagine that they’re more likely to pick up works that are in line with the national church’s liturgical direction as exemplified by Enriching Our Worship. Material like mine with plenteous references to earlier times and other church traditions (e.g. the Missals…) may not be what they’ll be interested in publishing.

Where, then, to go? Will LTP start picking up the slack? Or is it time to look for a new model?

I’ve been following with interest the Simple English Propers Project as reported by Chant Cafe, NLM, and the CMAA. They just completed a fund-raising campaign which raised money for the completion of the project; the resulting work will, if I understand it rightly, be distributed freely on-line and for the cost of printing at Lulu. This was acheived through the use of digital micro-patronage–collections of $5, $10, $20 and, I’d assume, some larger donations that when pooled made it a viable project.

Now, there’s a certain cachet lacking in that it’s not produced by an official press. For the purpose of, say, a typical academic resume, a self-published work of this sort would have the credibility of—well—a blog posting. And the resulting work may lack something in not having the eye of an experienced editor looking it over. On the other hand…it works. It’s a means for circulating ideas, and particularly ideas that lack the financial viability need in the modern publishing market.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the patronage idea recently. I’d actually been considering making a standing announcement that I’d be willing to code a traditional calendar version of the breviary that would accept the use of pre/non-Vatican II lectionaries like the American or English ’28 versions or even the classical prayer book forms that don’t work with the current post-Vatican II scheme if I could get a patron, parish, or group of parishes to underwrite it. But that hadn’t bubbled to the putting-it-into-practice phase.

So here’s the thing: traditional print publishers are having a hard time. This is bad for niche writing and publishing. Nevertheless, there’s still interest in niche materials. Patronage, particularly in the form of digital micro-patronage, may represent a way forward for the production of work for which an author/editor deserves compensation but which can then be freely/cheaply circulated.

Thoughts?

 

SCP Meeting

I had a terrific time at the annual convention of the Society of Catholic Priests last week. My time there was regrettably short; since M is the eponymous “catholic priest” in the family, I stayed here with the kids, just popping up from Thursday evening and Friday morning while the in-laws came down to watch the girls. In any case, I got to meet people, some old friends, some blog readers I’ve known of for a while but never met in the flesh, and some new friends.

I think the presentation went quite well. I was speaking on Communion Without Baptism and my intention was to lay out the situation as I see it in order to foster a conversation. It worked as we had a spirited yet collegial discussion. And, yes, while most of the people at the conference were representing the traditional position, there were some who questioned it. I don’t know if any minds were changed but I think we all left with a better sense of where we were and where the the other arguments are located.

I had several requests for the text itself and I will be making it available once I get it filled in and smoothed out. So—I’m in the midst of finishing that off and preparing another presentation on letters of ascetic instruction comparing Jerome’s Letter 53 and Aelfric’s Letter to Sigeweard. Welcome to busy season…

St Clement’s Online

I received a note the other day from Paul Goings, frequent commenter, long-time friend of the blog, and one of the people I go to when I have questions on liturgy. There are now two blogs connected with events at St. Clement’s, Philly, the great bastion of Anglo-Papalism in the Episcopal Church.

The rector’s blog is www.reidandwrite.com and while liturgically traditionalist he takes a more liberal position on some of the questions of the day.

The other is the new S Clement’s Church Blog and so far has an assortment of passages from classic Anglo-Catholic authors and sermons from former rectors. I assume that it will follow a more Anglo-Papalist line on questions of the day.

I don’t know what will be in the offing there, but I’d love to see some discussions and descriptions of the usual liturgical goings-on. That is, what exactly does “Anglo-Papalist” look like there—both now and in former days—in terms of kalendars, schedules, ceremonial, etc.?

And Then There Were Two (Updated)

Anglo-Catholic parishes in the Episcopal Church in Baltimore…

This has been rumored for a while and I’d heard through unofficial channels but it is now officially announced: Mount Calvary is seeking to leave the Episcopal Church and join the Roman ex-Anglican Ordinariate. This comes as no surprise to those who know the church or the rector.

I’ve heard from off-line sources further rumors that they are in negotiations with the diocese to purchase the property. All I can say is, with the way that the Roman Church closes down low-attendance parishes, it would be a tragedy if they left and were able to buy the building only to have their new church close them down and consolidate them into some 1970’s space…

Update: The parish voted this weekend to join the Ordinariate. According to some sources, both votes (one for leaving, one for joining the Ordinariate) were about 85%. The upshot is that the remaining 15% have decided to remain within the Episcopal Church. Thus, the remaining congregation will be retaining the property. Legal difficulties will, no doubt, ensue.

Cafe Piece on Christ and Culture

I have a new piece up at the Cafe. I’ll be interested to see what kind of response it receives… Long-time readers here know my positions:

  • I don’t believe in an infallible church (where YF and I part ways) and thus the Church is responsible for remaining attentive to the Spirit and how the Gospel is working its way both in the church and in the culture (to the degree that these can be separated which is never completely as human institutions inevitably partake of the cultures in which they are embedded…)
  • I’m a firm believer in the ordination of women. I believe that, based on what I see in Scripture and what the tradition has taught on the nature of the Spirit, neither the presence or absence of a penis has anything to do with how the Holy Spirit is able to work through an individual for the up-building of the greater community.
  • I strongly believe that Christian morality is rooted in a virtue-based character ethic. That’s what I see in the New Testament—I see all of Paul’s arguments pointing that way and this is, in particular, his understanding of the now-abrogated Mosaic Law. This is also how significant strands of historic Christian thought—especially the western monastic ones—understood these texts. On the basis of that, I believe that clergy have a responsibility to model chastity to their communities in their household/family relationships. And that goes for M and myself as much as it does for anyone else. Gay and straight Christians all have a responsibility to demonstrate faithful love; of course it’s not easy—but it still has to be done.
  • In some ways our current American culture is moving in these directions as well—promoting equality for women and a wider acceptance of non-heterosexual relationships; there are things that the church has to and needs to learn from the culture about the nature of the Gospel. But it is just as certain that there are movements in the culture that directly contradict the Gospel and that, particularly in the realm of human sexuality, go against a Gospel-rooted virtue-based character ethic. The church doesn’t need to learn or teach these. Just because the church and culture agree on points doesn’t mean we agree in all points or—and this is key—agree for the same reason.
  • It frustrates me when I see public figures in the church not sufficiently distinguishing cultural movement from Gospel movement. There’s no doubt that our leadership is liberal and it moves along with the more liberal elements of the culture. But we must not elide the Gospel with the culture especially where there is insufficient overlap.
  • On the contrary side, it frustrates me when I hear conservatives talking about Gospel values and biblical models and the paradigms that they espouse are right out of white-bread 1950’s Americana. Yes, it’s what you may have been raised in but that doesn’t mean it fulfills the Gospel more purely than the current state of things.

Turning of the Seasons

So, the seasons are definitely changing.

School has started, activities are ramping up for the girls, the air during morning walks to school with G has become more crisp.

Football season has started. I’ve never really paid much attention to this one before but living a few streets away from a major football stadium has brought it to my attention in a whole new way and greatly complicates both errands and parking.

The program year at church is also ramping up. I’ve been asked to serve as assistant director of altar guild and there are plans in the works for some Christian Ed work as well—we’re going to start a Sunday morning spiritual formation program for adults as well as children; I’m just trying to figure a way that it doesn’t conflict with choir for those who want to do both.

Solemn High Mass season started too. We did the Solemnity of the Holy Cross as our big kick-off event on Sunday so I was in my tunicle and Lil’ G was boat-girl. Things went well, God was duly worshiped, and the congregation edified in Word and Sacrament. Expect more postings that relate to the altar guild matters as I’ve found a number of the classic manuals for cheap through Amazon and perusing those will probably spark posting topics. I’ve also broken down and ordered a copy of Fortescue; Smokey Mary’s is what I consider a Novus Ordo Anglo-Catholic place, St George’s was straight-up Ritual Notes, so I’ve never needed Fortescue. From what I’m discovering about the Bal’mer Missal tradition, it’s much more heavily Fortescue than Ritual Notes.

Conference Watch: American Sarum

This is one of those items that entered my in-box at the height of the moving trauma; I shelved it with an intention to get back to it later.

Later has arrived.

There’s a conference slated for January 14th through the 17th in Bronxville, New York entitled American Sarum. As the name suggests, it’s a conference dedicated to the exploration of an American form of the English Use. For those fuzzy on this particular liturgical tradition, I’ll lay out what little I know of it—and welcome correction from the better informed.

The English Use is predominately the brain-child of Percy Dearmer (affectionately referred to as the Blessed Percy). The Blessed Percy was not himself a research scholar but was a well-read popularizer of the work of Frere, Palmer, and that whole body of scholars who investigated medieval English liturgy at the end of the nineteenth century and published works for the Alcuin Club, the Henry Bradshaw Society, and the Plainsong & Medieval Music Society.

The main thought here was this: if Anglican rites need new ceremonial and liturgical blood—and the one-two punch of the Oxford and Cambridge Movements (particularly the latter) convinced many they did—then why ape contemporary Roman Catholic ways? Why not return to the traditions and uses of the pre-Reformation English Church centered in the Sarum liturgy?

Blessed Percy set out to present a ceremonial and liturgy guide to Sarum enhancements for the Prayer Book (as he was English this, of course, means the 1662 BCP). The chief vehicle for this concept was the Parson’s Handbook which attracted a certain following in its day. This style of Sarum enrichment came to be known as the English Use. It was also sometimes known as English Museum Use and, indeed, the main criticism leveled at it was that it was fundamentally an antiquarian’s head-trip; that is, it was created de novo from old liturgical documents and did not reflect a living tradition. Instead, it was a romanticized version of a High Medieval mass with the BCP standing in for the text; how and if it spoke to its new time and place was a different story.

For whatever reason, it pretty much remained the English Use and didn’t cross the pond much. There are a few churches in America that use a form of the English/Sarum Use: one is Christ Church, Bronxville where the conference is being held, another is St John’s in the Village in my neck of the woods (and where I can be found when I’m not at the Advent).

The American Sarum conference seeks to reopen the old questions:

In an age when it is increasingly difficult to define what it means to be Anglican and many Anglicans look to Rome for answers, this conference will take a good look at the origins of our liturgical and musical Anglican heritage and dare to redefine what it means to be an Anglican. The conference will include a hard look at our history from architectural, liturgical, and musical perspectives. Discussions and re-creations of early liturgical practices will provide liturgical and musical insights that are intrinsically English and completely relevant to the liturgies of the 21st century. It is not a matter of “putting the Anglo back in Anglo-Catholic.” Those who will benefit from this experience include all musicians and clergy that identify as Anglo-Catholic, but it will be of particular interest and use to those who do not identify themselves as Anglo-Catholic. This is a conference for everyone, regardless of one’s own “high” or “low” churchmanship, who loves and respects our common Anglican heritage.

The presenters include some top-notch names like Dr. John Harper—yes, that Dr. John Harper—as well as some friends of mine. I showed M the provisional  schedule and we quickly agreed that we have to go.

Whatever you think of the English/Sarum Use—and to be honest I haven’t made up my mind—it will be an opportunity to think through some of the old important questions with some new voices at the table: What does it mean to be Anglican? What place do history and heritage hold in our modern proclamation of the Gospel? Do I prefer apparels or lace on my albs and amices?