'Decently and demurely read': the wisdom of Mrs. Grantly and a postliterate age

The services were decently and demurely read in their parish churches, chanting was confined to the cathedral, and the science of intoning was unknown. One young man who had come direct from Oxford as a curate to Plumstead had, after the lapse of two or three Sundays, made a faint attempt, much to the bewilderment of the poorer part of the congregation. Dr. Grantly had not been present on the occasion, but Mrs. Grantly, who had her own opinion on the subject, immediately after the service expressed a hope that the young gentleman had not been taken ill, and offered to send him all kinds of condiments supposed to be good for a sore throat. After that there had been no more intoning at Plumstead Episcopi.

It is an amusing incident from Barchester Towers, Trollope's 1857 novel. Amusing as it is, it also reflects mid-19th century Anglican experience. We hear something of Mrs. Grantly in the 1862 edition of Reading the Liturgy, a work which originally had the subtitle "addressed to the Younger Clergy and Candidates for Holy Orders", by the Rev'd John Henry Howlett (1781–1867). Here a warning was issued, after the manner of Mrs. Grantly:

many young Clergymen attempt to intone. The result frequently is a great deal of harsh dissonant sound, very annoying to those among the congregation who are gifted with musical ears. It should be remembered that Intoning is an accomplishment which, like reading, is not generally to be acquired without instruction and practice.

What makes this particularly interesting is that the warning is not to be found in Howlett's original 1826 edition. The warning, in other words, addresses the post-1833 context, in which Tractarian and Ecclesiologist influence led to the introduction of intoning in parish services. This is seen in Directorium Anglicancum (1858), with its insistence that 'said' in the Prayer Book rubrics meant 'intoned' - " this mode of saying the service (viz., intoning or monotoning it)". Regarding Morning and Evening Prayer, it was stated:

The service ought either to be said (monotoned) throughout, or chanted.

This even, rather oddly, applied to the lessons. According to Directorium Anglicanum, the 1662 rubric regarding the lessons - "Then shall be read distinctly with an audible voice the First Lesson" - actually meant 'chant':

“Read distinctly with an audible voice:” this evidently refers to reading according to musical notation with the “clara vox,” that is, the lessons are to be read in a chanting tone

Likewise, in Deformation and Reformation (c.1870) the famous plates not only contrast the Georgian parish church with the ideal of the Ecclesiologists. They also, not least through depictions of the choir in surplices in the Victorian 'Reformation', contrast the said service of "the latter days of the Georgian era" - grim and dismal, of course - with the beauty of the mid-Victorian sung service. 

Both Directorium Anglicancum and Deformation and Reformation were attempts to demean the service "decently and demurely read in ... parish churches". Trollope's Mrs. Grantly - wife, of course, to a sound High Churchman - is a reminder that the innovation of intoning in parish churches was a cause of controversy. Howlett's reference to "a great deal of harsh dissonant sound" points to how the practice could unfavourably contrast with "decently and demurely read".

An echo of Mrs. Grantly - just prior to Trollope's publication of his novel - was also to be found in an example from the Scottish Episcopal Church, noted by Ian Meredith in his excellent study of 19th century Irish Episcopalians in the West of Scotland, Lost and Forgotten (2017). When in 1851 a clergyman in charge of a church built to minister to poorer Irish Episcopalians in Glasgow introduced intoning to services, Bishop Trower (Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway, 1848-59) communicated his displeasure:

the intoning or chanting of the liturgy ... Trower felt was 'generally unsuited ... and especially in Glasgow'. Singing the service he admitted might be appropriate in cathedrals and collegiate churches, but he gave his 'plain and unequivocal counsel against an unwise and hurtful course'.

The wisdom of Bishop Trower evoked an older tradition, not only in Scottish Episcopalianism but across the Protestant Episcopal churches of these Islands and beyond, that divine service in parish church should be said - indeed, read. As Trower movingly articulated, the innovation of intoning in parish services disordered the rhythms and communal norms of an older, established piety. 

We must note, of course, that in Barchester, and as Bishop Trower accepts, choral services are appropriate for cathedrals and collegiate churches (which we might take as also equating to those parishes with an established and vibrant choral tradition). In other words, this post is not at all challenging the Anglican choral tradition - it is, however, urging that it exist alongside the noble tradition of parish said services.

Howlett, challenging those who, after Directorium Anglicanum, "contend that the word 'say,' used in the Rubric, means 'intone'", offered a rationale for the older piety. He demonstrated how Morning Prayer suited a "dignified, authoritative style of reading, rather than melancholy intoning":

The Exhortation is to be "said," but the character of it is such as to be much less suited to a mournful monotone than to plain reading, varied according to the sense, or rather to an extemporaneous way of speaking. In the General Confession, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creeds those parts of the Services in which the congregation is directed to accompany, or follow the Minister, it is better for both parties to pronounce in unison ... The Absolution is to be "pronounced." The nature of the subject seems to require, not melancholy intoning, but a solemn, dignified delivery ... as the Prayers and Collects are to be "said" by the Minister alone, certainly that mode of delivery will be best which makes the deepest impression on the understanding and hearts of the hearers. Least of all is there any sufficient reason for "intoning " the Grace, or the Lord's Prayer before the Sermon, or the concluding Blessing.

There are good reasons for 21st century Anglicans to re-engage with this older tradition of reading the service, not least as the Victorian assumption regarding chanting and robed choirs is now unrealistic in many places. To maintain Anglican worshipping communities in many areas, there is surely a pressing need to gladly follow the example of the unfortunate curate at Plumstead Episcopi and recover with gratitude the said service.

Another reason has also come to mind. In a recent Washington Post article exploring the increasing numbers of a particular younger demographic embracing Roman Catholicism, it was suggested that "the age of Instagram and TikTok favours Catholicism", whereas Protestantism is floundering in an "image-forward and postliterate" cultural context:

An old stereotype has it that Protestantism is for people who read books, and Catholicism is for people who want spectacle. Say hello to Gen Z.

There is much to challenge in the article's analysis. If, however, the broad suggestion has at least some merit, that Protestantism (or, more accurately, particular forms of Protestantism) favours text over image, literacy over 'spectacle', there surely is cultural space for and cultural significance in a piety which offers an alternative to the "postliterate", in which divine service is read by minister and congregation, following the Prayer Book in our hands. 

If, then, the chanting of the service tends towards 'spectacle', reading the service, from the shared text of the Book of Common Prayer, might be, in some (not - of course - in all) places, a way of valuing and offering something different and important in an "image-forward and postliterate" cultural context. It can be a way in which words, read and said, draw us in heart, mind, and soul into rhythms of prayer and praise in and through the Logos, He who said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life".

(The first picture is of Angela Pleasence - who died on 10th April - playing Mrs. Grantly in the 1982 BBC production 'The Barchester Chronicles'.)