Reinventing Medieval Liturgy in Victorian England - (Medievalism) by David Jasper & Jeremy J Smith (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In 1879, the late medieval poem now known as The Lay Folks' Mass Book - a guide to the Mass -- was edited for the Early English Text Society by Canon Thomas Frederick Simmons. It remains the standard edition of what, to modern tastes, can seem a simple work of conventional Middle English devotion. Yet, as this book shows, the poem had a remarkable afterlife. The authors demonstrate how Simmons' interest in and presentation of the text was related profoundly to contemporary concerns and heated debates about worship in the Church of England, at a time when Anglican clergymen could be imprisoned for their ritual practices. Simmons, educated at Oxford during the height of the Oxford Movement, was recognised by contemporaries as a leading authority on liturgy, a topic that troubled prime ministers as well as archbishops, and the authors bring out the ways in which Simmons himself used his medievalist researches as the basis for what was to be the most important attempt at Prayer Book revision between the Reformation and the twentieth century.

Review Quotes

Smith and Jasper do a superb job of interpreting what Simmons was about in this work, helping readers to understand the LFMB's context and aims, and to appreciate its quality. More than that, for those whose view of Tractarianism skews toward its Roman Catholic converts, this book usefully shows how determinedly English-oriented and English-interested its other side could be and, in divines like Simmons, was.-- "CHURCH HISTORY"

This is an excellent study, well researched, and is valuable for those who study liturgy, and the mind of the Victorian English Church, as well as the wider Romantic Movement. It is the first critical assessment of The Lay Folks' Mass Book since Simmons's edition, and places the work in its context. It also raises some questions for the contemporary Church of England.-- "International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church"