Common
Worship: This
replaces the Alternative Service Book; liturgies will be available
at this C of E site as they are developed. Morning Prayer, Evening
Prayer, and Night Prayer from Common Worship with with today's
readings are also
available from the Church of England
Alternative
Service Book (ASB):
several sections available
in RTF format; other Church of England liturgical resources are available
here as well.
The Shorter Prayer Book (1946) 
1928
Proposed Book of Common Prayer. Approved
by the Church, but rejected by Parliament.
Liturgies
of the Nonjurors: The
Communion office, and descriptions of these 18th-century liturgies.
1689
Proposed Book of Common Prayer: The
Liturgy of Comprehension.
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| The
Church of England is, of course, the "mother church" of
all the churches in the Anglican Communion. We have here the texts
(or links to the texts) of all Church of England Books of Common
Prayer dating back to the first, in 1549 - plus quite a bit of other
related material. Everything is presented here more or less chronologically,
starting with the newest. |
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- 1662 Book of Common Prayer:
- The complete 1662
Book of Common Prayer, in HTML format, from Lynda Howell.; also
in PDF format
(note that this is a single very large file)
- The Church of England also has the
1662 BCP online; not complete
as yet.

- The
1662 BCP, as
printed by John Baskerville in 1762; in PDF format
- The 1662 Book
as a series of B/W pictures in
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, from a 1771 printing (Griffiths
1771/2).
- The Internet Archive has
several 19th and late 18th century Books of Common Prayer online.
All are in PDF graphics and plain text
formats (the text files often have errors).
- one
from about 1892, which includes many marginal notes (Griffiths
1892/1);
- 1880's: Cambridge U Press for SPCK (Griffiths 1882/5)
- 1866; "The
Prayer Book Interleved with Historical Illustrations and Explanatory
Notes", Cambridge U. Press & Rivingtons (Griffiths 1866/3)
- 1863,
richly decorated, publ. Bickers & Bush (Griffiths 1863/22);
- 1816,
Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1816/8);
- 1811,
"The Christian's Best Companion", with notes (Griffiths 1811/18);
- about
1808, Cambridge U Press (one of the first stereotyped printings);
- and 1794,
Good & Harding, London (Griffiths 1794/9).
- Google Books also has a number of 18th and 19th century
printings online
All are as PDF
graphics and often will have lines cut off, pages out of order
and possibly missing, etc.
- one
from 1853, with
elaborate woodcut borders by Mary Byfield, publ. Pickering (Griffiths
1853/22) ;
- in
phonography (i. e., Pitman shorthand - 1853, Griffiths 1853/24);
also from
the Internet Archive, 1869 (Griffiths 1869/9);
- 1852, "with
illustrations, chiefly from the Old Masters", Oxford U Press
(Griffiths 1852/31) ;
- 1840 with
notes by Richard Mant, publ. Parker & Rivingtons (Griffiths 1840/23a);
- 1831 from
Oxford U Press;
- 1829,
Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1829/10);
- two edited with comments by Sir John Bayley
(1816,
Griffiths 1816/1 and 1824,
Griffiths 1824/1);
- 1815,
Oxford U Press (Griffiths 1815/12);
- 1809 "with
an introduction"
by Rev. Richard Warner (Griffiths 1809/13).
- 1765,
Cambridge U Press (Griffiths 1765/3);
- Holy
Communion
in large type.
- Morning Prayer
and Evening Prayer (from the 1662 book), and Compline with today's readings
are available on the Church
of England's web site.
- Variations
in the 1662 Book: Yes, there have been changes over the years -
now you can date that old Prayer Book.
- The 1662
BCP in Latin.
- The 1662
BCP in French
- The 1662
BCP in Spanish
- The 1662 BCP in Hebrew

- Portions of the 1662
BCP in Esperanto
- The 1662 Book
has been translated into many languages. Several of these
are on the web thanks to Project
Canterbury. Another site hosts the 1662 Book in Manx
Gaelic. The Internet Archive has the 1662 BCP in Arabic (1902,
Griffiths 8:9) and
"Ecclesiastical"
Greek (1923, Griffiths 45:8), both in PDF.
- Evening
Prayer in Jèrriais - a French dialect of the Channel Is.
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Title page of the
1662 BCP, as currently printed
"Griffiths" refers to books listed in David Griffiths' Bibliography
of the Book of Common Prayer. |
1559
Book of Common Prayer
The Elizabethan Book
1552
Book of Common Prayer
The second Prayer
Book of Edward VI
Merbeke's
Book of Common Prayer Noted (1550)
The Book of Common
Prayer put to music
1549
Book of Common Prayer 
The first Book of
Common Prayer
The
Order for the Communion 1548
The first communion
service in English.
Exhortation
& Litany (1544)
The first liturgy
in English
The
Sarum Missal: The
Communion service commonly used in the English Church before the Book
of Common Prayer; in Latin and English.
The Directory
for the Public Worship of God, which replaced the Book of Common Prayer
between 1645 and 1662, is more of an outline of worship than a fixed liturgy,
in keeping with its Puritan background. It is available online, from (not
surprisingly) two conservative Presbyterian groups, the Reformed
Presbyterian Church, and the Evangelical
Presbyterian Church.
Ever wonder what
those Homilies referred to in the 39 Aritcles really are? They are
actual sermons, which are now online
in ZIPped form. They are also available from the
Anglican Library. |
Title page of the
first Book of Common Prayer, 1549 |