In praise of 1552: an avant-garde liturgical genealogy

Againe, as touching the Communion booke, you knowe what quarels are picked against it, although for mine owne opinion there is not the like this day extant in Christendome ...

In his 1588 sermon, Bancroft's praise for the BCP 1559 is significant because, of course, 1559 was 1552 with minor amendments.  Hence the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity was a voiding of the repeal by Mary's Parliament of the Edwardine Act of Uniformity requiring the use of the 1552 book.  The Elizabethan Act understood itself to be a restoration of BCP 1552:

in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book, so authorized by Parliament in the said fifth and sixth years of the reign of King Edward VI, with one alteration or addition of certain lessons to be used on every Sunday in the year, and the form of the Litany altered and corrected, and two sentences only added in the delivery of the sacrament to the communicants, and none other or otherwise.

When Bancroft praises "the Communion booke", therefore, he is praising 1552 with minimal changes.  This is also seen in his account of the revision of the 1549 liturgy.  There is no sense at all of a 'decline' with the revision of 1549.  Bancroft does point to Bucer's assessment of the 1549 book as containing nothing contrary to Scripture, but also notes the Reformer's caution:

Some things indeed there are, saith he, ... 'Which except a man do charitably interpret, may seeme not sufficiently to agree with the word of God'. And in another place; ... 'Which may be snatched of unquiet men to breed matter of contention'.

This leads to the 1552 revision:

Vpon this occasion the booke was againe carefully survaied and almost in every point (which then was so cavilled at and wrested) corrected and amended.

Rather than being a revision to lament, a supposed 'loss' of 1549, 1552 is for Bancroft a defining point in the Edwardine Reformation, a defining point not abandoned in the face of the Marian regime:

King Edward died, Queene Marie succeeded. The booke is condemned, but yet God raised up meanes for the defence of it.

He quotes from defences of the 1552 book during Mary's reign, including this anonymous writer:

Then (meaning in K.Edwards daies) the common praier was rightlie used, and the Sacraments were plainlie administred according to Christs institution, and the rule of his holie worde.

The scene is thus set for Eizabeth's accession and "the saide booke in some points bettered ... againe through Gods favor and hir goodnes restored unto us".  1552, in other words, is at the centre of this account of "the Communion booke" of the ecclesia Anglicana.  There is no hint whatsoever of a preference for 1549 or regret for the changes in 1552.  Rather, 1552, with the minor amendments of 1559, is for Bancroft a cause for praise.  Indeed, so much does he regard 1559 to be de facto 1552 that he describes "this booke" as that earlier defended by "Cranmer, Ridley, Bucer, Peter Matir".

In other words, here is an avant-garde conformist liturgical genealogy which challenges the liturgical genealogy which was to emanate from the Usagers amongst the Non-Jurors, become accepted Anglo-Catholic orthodoxy, and is now almost de rigueur amongst liturgists: 1549 as the high point, 1552/9 as a lamentable decline, 1662 as a barely marginal improvement.  Bancroft sets forth an alternative genealogy, in which 1552-59 is at the centre of the Anglican liturgical experience, an order to be celebrated "as good and Godlie", "our Communion booke" (emphasis added).

What makes this avant-garde conformist liturgical genealogy particularly significant is that, with 1662 standing in continuity with 1552-59, it reflects historic Anglican experience, doctrine, and spirituality in a way which is not the case with a genealogy focussed on 1549.  1549 may hold an attraction for liturgists, but it has not defined doctrine or shaped spirituality in any way comparable to 1552-1559-1662.  And even when aspects of 1549 have been used in, for example, 18th century Scottish rites and PECUSA 1789, 1662 has remained the doctrinal norm for interpreting these liturgies, with virtualist or receptionist theologies standard.  Of course, 1549 itself expressed (as Cranmer made abundantly clear) a robustly Reformed Eucharistic doctrine, contrary to the contentions of some of its latter-day admirers.  1552 ensured that 1549's concerns and emphases were clarified in a form and an order which took deep root in the affections of popular Anglican piety over centuries.  It is right, therefore, that it stands at the heart of Anglican liturgical genealogy.