Gloriana Day: Parker's Advertisements and the 'comely, decent, fair' conformity of the Elizabethan parish church
It is Gloriana Day.
In 1604, the year after Elizabeth I's death, the obscure commemoration of St. Evurtius on 7th September was added to the Prayer Book Kalendar. It marked the day on which Gloriana had been born in 1533.
Today, in other words, is a day to give thanks for the Elizabethan Settlement.
Last year on Gloriana Day, laudable Practice rejoiced in Elizabeth's Prayer Book, the Book of Common Prayer 1559, the liturgy which carried the "mellow light" of the Elizabethan Settlement. This year we turn to the Book of Advertisements, issued by Archbishop Parker in 1566. The opening extract above demonstrates how the Advertisements captured Elizabeth's desire for the peace and unity of her Church and realm. As Torrance Kirby notes, the Advertisements were the "direct response" by the bishops to Elizabeth's wise insistence that conformity was essential for ecclesial peace and unity.
There was much about the Advertisements which illustrated how the Elizabethan Settlement maintained a particular vocation for cathedrals and collegiate churches: the singing of the liturgy, the cope to be worn at the Holy Communion, the Communion to be administered one Sunday "every month at the least". This, of course, was to have enduring significance for Anglicanism.
However, the Advertisements also - and, I think, perhaps more importantly - bring us to the Elizabethan vision of decent conformity in the parish church. In her excellent study Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England, Judith Maltby challenges the focus of historical studies on "the spiritually disgruntled", failing "to treat the religious concerns of conforming English Christians with the same seriousness and respect that their godly neighbours have typically enjoyed from historians of the post-Reformation church". In the Advertisements we can see the concerns of Conformity and how they were to find expression in the parish church. On this Gloriana Day, we consider three particular aspects of the Conformity in the parish church, set forth in the Advertisements.
'Quiet instruction and edification'
We begin with the preaching in the Elizabethan parish church. Those clergy authorised to preach were to deliver sermons which conformed to the doctrine "established by public authority", that is, the Articles of Religion. Here was the centre of doctrinal gravity in the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline Church, to which the successive Supreme Governors - Elizabeth, James, Charles - consistently recalled preachers as a means of securing ecclesial peace:
And since those Articles of the Christian religion to which assent was given by the bishops in lawful and holy synod convened and celebrated by command and authority of our most serene princess, Elizabeth, were without doubt collected from the holy books of Old and New Testament, and in all respects agree with the heavenly doctrine which is contained in them; since, too, the book of public prayers, and book of the consecration of archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, contain nothing contrary to this same doctrine, whoever shall be sent to teach the people shall confirm the authority and faith of those Articles not only in their sermons but also by subscription. Whoever does otherwise, and perplexes the people with contrary doctrine, shall be excommunicated - Canon 6, concerning preachers, Canons of 1571;
That no preacher ... do take occasion, by the expounding of any text of Scripture whatsoever, to fall into any set discourse, or commonplace (otherwise than by opening the coherence and division of his text), which shall not be comprehended and warranted in essence, substance, effect or natural inference within some one of the Articles of Religion set forth 1562 - Directions Concerning Preachers, 1622;
That therefore in these both curious and unhappy differences, which have for so many hundred years, in different times and places, exercised the Church of Christ, We will, that all further curious search be laid aside, and these disputes shut up in God's promises, as they be generally set forth to us in the holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of the Articles of the Church of England according to them. And that no man hereafter shall either print, or preach, to draw the Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and full meaning thereof - The King's Declaration, prefixed to the Articles of Religion, 1628.
One purpose of the Articles of Religion, therefore, was to secure what the Advertisements described as "the quiet instruction and edification of the people". Conformity of preachers to the Articles - not teaching less than the doctrine of the Articles, nor preaching more than the doctrine of the Articles - was also a means of ensuring obedience to the Advertisements' exhortation "to use sobriety and discretion in teaching the people, namely, in matters of controversy", for "sobriety and discretion" characterised how the Articles addressed the "curious and unhappy differences". The pulpit of the Elizabethan parish was for "quiet instruction and edification", not for stirring up contentious, divisive theological controversy.
As for those many parish clergy not authorised to preach - whose ministry Hooker would robustly defend for providing "the service of publique prayer, to minister the sacraments unto the people, to solemnize mariage, to visit the sick and burie the dead, to instruct by reading although by preachinge they be not as yeat able to benefit and feed Christes flock" (LEP V.81.5) - the Advertisements declared they were to "read gravely and aptly" from the Book of Homilies. Here too, then, in parishes without clergy authorised to preach, "quiet instruction and edification" was to be heard, as the "godly and wholesome Doctrine" of the Homilies (Article XXXV) was read by the parson.
'The reverent estimation of the holy sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper'
The Injunctions issued at the outset of Elizabeth's reign, commencing her religious settlement, had required "that the Sacrament be duly and reverently ministered". This concern for reverent administration of the Sacraments in the parish church was repeated in the Advertisements, instructing clergy "that they set out in their preaching the reverent estimation of the holy sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper", including "exciting the people to the often and devout receiving of the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ". A deeply reverent sacramental piety was integral to Conformity, in which Christening and the Communion shaped the parish as the Body of Christ. Words from Jewel's A Treatise of the Sacraments come to mind:
Baptism therefore is our regeneration or new birth, whereby we are born anew in Christ, and are made the Sons of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. It is the Sacrament of the remission of sins, and of that washing which we have in the blood of Christ ...
We say, and believe, that we receive the body and blood of Christ truly, and not a figure or sign; but even that body which suffered death on the Cross, and that blood which was shed for the forgiveness of sins.
This reverence for the holy Sacraments found expression in the Advertisements pointing to "such form as is already prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer", the decent rites of Elizabeth's Prayer Book:
Almighty and everlastinge God, we moste hartely thancke the, for that thou doest vouchsafe to fede us, whiche have duly received these holy misteries, with the spiritual fode of the moste precious body and bloude of thy sonne, our saviour Jesus Christ ...
We yelde the harty thankes most merciful father, that it hathe pleased thee to regenerate this enfant with thy holy spirite, to receyve him for thine owne childe by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy congregacion.
The Prayer Book form for the administration the Sacraments also required ceremonies which contributed to and encouraged reverence for these mysteries. And so the Advertisements declared "that all communicants do receive kneeling, and as is appointed by the laws of the realm and the queen's majesty's Injunctions". The alternatives to kneeling to receive the Holy Communion, as Cranmer had said to the Privy Council in 1552, "rather import a contemptuous then a reverent receiving of the sacrament". Likewise, the Advertisements instructed that "the font be not removed, nor that the curate do baptize in parish churches in any basons", ensuring that the dignity of Baptism was reflected in its administration from the font in the parish church.
As Maltby has shown, such reverence in the administration of the Sacraments took deep root. Laity, as she notes from the records of Elizabethan and Jacobean church courts, "desire[d] to receive Communion according to the lawful ceremonies and liturgy of the church". Similarly, "conforming parishioners wanted Baptism, like Holy Communion, to be administered lawfully".
Conformity in the Elizabethan parish church provided for reverence for the Sacraments, in which doctrine, liturgy, and ceremonies combined to nurture and sustain a warm sacramental piety, at once reverent and homely.
As set forth in the 'Homily for Repayring and keeping cleane, and comely adorning of Churches', the Elizabethan parish church was to fittingly reflect such a reverent and homely piety:
Gods house the Church is well adorned, with places conuenient to sit in, with the Pulpit for the preacher, with the Lords table, for the ministration of his holy supper, with the Font to Christen in, and also is kept cleane, comely, and sweetly ...
The Advertisements further expounded how the parish church was to be comely for the ministration of the Holy Communion:
the parish provide a decent table standing on a frame for the Communion Table ... they shall decently cover with carpet, silk, or other decent covering, and with a fair linen cloth (at the time of the ministration) the Communion Table.
This was to be repeated in the Canons of 1604:
Whereas we have no doubt, but that in all Churches within the Realm of England, convenient and decent Tables are provided and placed for the Celebration of the holy Communion, We appoint that the same Tables shall from time to time be kept and repaired in sufficient and seemly manner, and covered in time of Divine Service with a Carpet of Silk or other decent Stuff thought meet by the Ordinary of the place, if any question be made of it, and with a fair Linen Cloth at the Time of the Ministration, as becometh that Table ...
Here was a decent reverence for the Lord's Table, on which was set forth and celebrated "holy mysteries".
The attire of the minister also contributed to the decent reverence accompanying ministration of the Sacraments and the reading of common prayer:
that every minister saying any public prayers, or ministering the sacraments or other rites of the Church, shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves.
Hooker would later defend the surplice "for comeliness sake" (LEP V.29.1), finding precedent for its use in patristic recognition of the "dignity and estimation of white apparel", being "fair and handsome" and superior to any other vestment "basely thought of" (V.29.3). What is more, he would point to the surplice being "suited so fitly with that lightsome affection of joy" of the triumphant saints and angels:
and so lively resembleth the glory of the Saints in heaven, together with the beauty wherein Angels have appeared unto men, if they were left to their own choice and would choose any, could not easily devise a garment of more decency for such a service (V.29.5).
In the Elizabethan parish church, the surplice was comely, decent, and fitting, an expression of the reverence in which common prayer and ministration of the sacraments was to be held. Again, the Canons of 1604 would repeat the Advertisements in requiring the minister to wear the surplice:
Every Minister saying the Publick Prayers, or Ministering the Sacraments, or other Rites of the Church, shall wear a decent and comely Surplice with Sleeves ...
The Communion Table respectfully covered, for here - in the words of the Elizabethan Injunctions - "these holy mysteries, being the sacraments of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ" were administered; a plain white cloth also upon the Table when the holy Sacrament was administered, for it is - in the words of the second exhortation in the 1559 Communion, "suche a heavenly Table"; the minister vested in surplice when reading common prayer and ministering the sacraments, reflecting the dignity of these ordinances. Such was the decent, comely, fair conformity of an Elizabethan parish church, maintained in the Jacobean church, the "mean" celebrated by Herbert:
A fine aspect in fit array,
Neither too mean nor yet too gay,
Shows who is best.
Outlandish looks may not compare,
For all they either painted are,
Or else undress'd.
Conclusion
The Advertisements were no incoherent imposition upon the Reformed church of the Elizabethan Settlement. Rather, they exemplified key characteristics and concerns of the Elizabethan Settlement, characteristics and concerns which continued to define the Jacobean and Caroline church, were maintained in the face of divisive agitation, and which have profoundly shaped the Anglican ethos.
As Torrance Kirby has brilliantly argued, MacCulloch's suggestion that the conformity in rites and ceremonies required by the Elizabethan Settlement was somehow "a 'theological cuckoo in the nest'" is (ironically) merely to restate "the old Tractarian canard that the Elizabethan Church of England sought to achieve a middle way between Rome and Geneva". Instead, Kirby points to such conformity echoing the interventions of Vermigli and Bullinger during the vestiarian controversy. The Advertisements, therefore, were no dilution of the Protestant nature of the Elizabethan Settlement. In fact, as Kirby states:
the architects of the Elizabethan Settlement may have succeeded in framing an order of the most impeccable ecclesiological orthodoxy approved by the two pre-eminent divines of the Schola Tigurina.
Indeed, there is a distinct echo of this in the introduction to the Advertisements:
these orders and rules ensuing have been thought meet and convenient to be used and followed: not yet prescribing these rules as laws equivalent with the eternal word of God, and as of necessity to bind the consciences of her subjects in the nature of them considered in themselves; or as they should add any efficacy or more holiness to the virtue of public prayer, and to the sacraments, but as temporal orders mere ecclesiastical, without any vain superstition, and as rules in some part of discipline concerning decency, distinction, and order for the time.
(The illustrations are from Richard Day A Booke of Christian Prayers, 1578, reputedly derived from a devotional work for private use by Elizabeth I. Note how the illustrations for Communion and Christening points to a deeply Conformist piety: the parson wearing surplice and cap; the communicants kneeling; the Prayer Book and font at the Christening.)
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