The Book of Common Prayer
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    The Book of Common Prayer
Church of England

 

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)   new

1928 Proposed Book of Common Prayer. Approved by the Church, but rejected by Parliament.    updated

Liturgies of the Nonjurors: The Communion office, and descriptions of these 18th-century liturgies.

1689 Proposed Book of Common Prayer: The Liturgy of Comprehension.
 

 

 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.

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.     new!
  • 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   new
  • 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.
     

1662 Book of Common Prayer
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

Last Updated: 7 Sept. 2007

Web author: Charles Wohlers U. S. EnglandScotlandIrelandWalesCanadaWorld