Forgotten English Rituals

Cover image: Detail from the Tapestry ‘Confirmation from the Seven Sacraments’ woven in wool and silk, Tournai, 1470-1475.
©Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Used in compliance with the non-commercial terms and conditions.

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ABSTRACT

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) is commonly thought to have inaugurated the first substantial, official, and widespread use of vernacular languages in the administration of the sacraments within the western, Latin rites of the Roman Catholic Church. While it is true that the entire Rituale Romanum (Roman Ritual) was universally permitted to be translated into the vernacular for the first time in 1964, there is a long tradition of officially authorized vernacular in the ritual that deserves to be more fully explored. This work seeks to provide the first thorough study of these topics across several historical periods:

• Part 1 (20 pages) provides a brief overview of Christian ritual books in general and the Roman Ritual in particular. This part also summarizes the Liturgical Movement’s advocacy for vernacular reform and the spread of vernacular rituals throughout the globe between 1920 and 1950.
  
  
• Part 2 (47 pages) studies the origins, demise, and cover-up of the landmark American Collectio Rituum of 1954. This groundbreaking ritual book, now all but forgotten, permitted the sacraments and blessings of the ritual to be administered almost exclusively in English.
  
  
• Part 3 (23 pages) showcases the history of rituals with officially permitted English and other European vernaculars before 1954. First, the vernacular content of twenty-one English-language ritual books is analyzed. These rituals were published between 1738 and 1962 and used in England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. The vernacular content of twenty-six European rituals is likewise analyzed. These rituals were published between 1450 and 1929 and contain English, German, French, Czech, Hungarian, Spanish, and other vernaculars.
  
  
• Part 4 (58 pages) features fifty-three photo illustrations of the different rituals studied in this paper.
  
  
• Appendices (38 pages) contain the detailed content analysis tables for the surveys, described in Part 3, as well as a bibliographic catalog of vernacular rituals.
  

The following is a short illustrated summary of the paper, in article form. This summary was originally published at the New Liturgical Movement and is given here for the benefit of readers who wish for an introduction to the research before reading the paper.

Forgotten English Rituals – Summary

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