Thinking allowed

Coronation Liturgy Talk

on Wednesday, 22 March 2023 at 12.30 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as coronation, liturgy

Last week I par­ti­cip­ated in a “col­loqui­um” organ­ized by Prax­is on the sub­ject of the Coron­a­tion, giv­ing an intro­duct­ory talk on the ele­ments of the ser­vice or liturgy at pre­vi­ous coron­a­tions. (We don’t yet have details of the 2023 ser­vice.) The oth­er major presenter was the Very Revd Dr Dav­id Hoyle, the Dean of West­min­ster, who is closely involved in the plan­ning and will be a major par­ti­cipant at the service.

The slides I used at that talk can be found here, in two ver­sions – a large illus­trated ver­sion and a small ver­sion with no illustrations.

• illus­trated Power­Point (126MB); PDF (1.2MB); PDF with notes (588kB)
• text only Power­Point (100kB)

Both ver­sions con­tain some notes, and they can also be read in con­junc­tion with my earli­er post on the Coron­a­tion liturgy.

Addi­tion­ally a record­ing of the col­loqui­um is avail­able on You­Tube. My sec­tion starts at about 7 minutes in – do watch all the record­ing if you have time.

• record­ing

 

 

0 Comments

The Coronation Oil

on Monday, 6 March 2023 at 2.51 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as coronation, liturgical news, liturgy

The oil that will be used to anoint the king and queen at their coron­a­tion on 6 May has been con­sec­rated in Jer­u­s­alem by the Ortho­dox Pat­ri­arch of Jer­u­s­alem and the Anglic­an Arch­bish­op. The Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury’s web­site reports the details here, and that art­icle is archived below.

(more…)

0 Comments

The Coronation Liturgy

on Thursday, 2 March 2023 at 9.11 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as coronation, liturgy

This is a longer ver­sion of an art­icle pub­lished in Prax­is News of Wor­ship, March 2023.

In 973 at Bath Abbey, Edgar was crowned King of Eng­land by Dun­stan, Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury. The Coron­a­tion ser­vice in use derives dir­ectly from that com­piled by Dun­stan over a thou­sand years ago. It has gone through sev­er­al revi­sions or “recen­sions”, with the third being used through the later Middle Ages and (in trans­la­tion) for the first four Stu­arts. The last major revi­sion was made in 1689 by Wil­li­am Compton, Bish­op of Lon­don, for Wil­li­am III and Mary II, but it has been tweaked for each sub­sequent occa­sion, with new mon­archs usu­ally want­ing a short­er cere­mony than their predecessor’s, and new anthems or set­tings being com­mis­sioned. It remains to be seen how much will change in 2023, but the prin­cip­al ele­ments are clear.

The coron­a­tion is set with­in the Euchar­ist, as it has been since 973, and since 1689 most of the cere­mo­ni­al has taken place after the ser­mon and Creed (though there has been no ser­mon since 1911). There are five main elements:

1. The Recog­ni­tion
2. The Oath
3. The Anoint­ing
4. The Invest­it­ure, cul­min­at­ing in the Crowning
5. The Enthrone­ment and Homage.

The coron­a­tion of a Queen Con­sort follows.

The ser­vice begins with the entrance pro­ces­sion. Since 1626, verses from Psalm 122 (“I was glad”) have been sung, and in 1902 Sir Hubert Parry incor­por­ated into his set­ting the acclam­a­tion (“Vivat”) by the schol­ars of West­min­ster School. This set­ting is now an estab­lished tradition.

Next the Sov­er­eign is intro­duced as the right­ful mon­arch and acclaimed by the con­greg­a­tion, a vestige of the ancient elec­tion of the mon­arch. In 1953 the Oath was moved to fol­low this, hav­ing pre­vi­ously been at a later point. The mon­arch prom­ises to pre­serve and pro­tect the Church and to obey the laws of the land. In 1953 the Present­a­tion of the Bible to the mon­arch was moved to this point hav­ing since its intro­duc­tion in 1689 been imme­di­ately after the Crown­ing. Only when the Oath has been sworn and the Euchar­ist begun does the ser­vice move on to the Anoint­ing. “Zadok the Priest” has been sung as an anthem here since 973, and Han­del’s set­ting has been used since 1727. The sov­er­eign moves to King Edward’s Chair (which holds the Stone of Scone) placed in the Cross­ing of the Abbey before the Altar, and is stripped. Under a can­opy to pro­tect their mod­esty, they are anoin­ted in the form of a cross on the head, breast, and palms (in the reverse order in 1937 and 1953). After­wards a white lin­en under­gar­ment is put on, the Colobi­um Sin­donis, and a golden robe, the Super­tu­nica, and then the Invest­it­ure begins.

The regalia now used were largely made in 1660 for Charles II, the earli­er items hav­ing been wan­tonly des­troyed by the repub­lic­an gov­ern­ment of the Com­mon­wealth. The ancient regalia, crowns, sceptres, rods and vest­ments, are thought to have been taken from the tomb of St Edward the Con­fess­or when he was trans­lated to a new shrine in 1269, and were used at every sub­sequent coron­a­tion at West­min­ster down to Charles I in 1626. These sac­red items nev­er left the Abbey, being depos­ited by the mon­arch at the end of the ser­vice, and a vestige of that tra­di­tion remains.

The Spurs are brought and touched to the monarch’s heels (in 1953 to the Queen’s hands), and then the king is girded with the Sword (in 1953 it was put in the Queen’s hands). He straight­away ungirds it and places it on the Altar as a gift to the Abbey. It is redeemed for 100 shil­lings and car­ried by one of the Peers.

Next come the Armil­ls (brace­lets) and Stole Roy­al. These were made in 1953 and their form and role has been unclear since the ori­gin­als were lost in 1649. The sov­er­eign is next ves­ted with the Robe Roy­al, a great cloak of cloth of gold embroidered with roses, thistles, and sham­rocks – and imper­i­al Roman eagles, a remind­er that from 973 the Eng­lish were copy­ing the sym­bol­ism of the Byz­antine emperor.

Each stage of the invest­it­ure is accom­pan­ied by pray­ers. Since 1689 these pray­ers have care­ful to bless the per­son receiv­ing each item, the mon­arch, rather than bless­ing the item itself.

The Orb – sym­bol­iz­ing the globe sur­moun­ted by the cross – is placed in the monarch’s hand, and imme­di­ately giv­en back and replaced on the Altar. The ring, sap­phire with a ruby cross, is put on the fourth (ring) fin­ger of the mon­arch’s right hand. His­tor­ic­ally the next item was the Crown, but since 1689 this has been the final item to be presen­ted. Next comes the Sceptre, topped with a cross, and the Rod, with a dove stand­ing on the cross at the top.

Finally, the cul­min­a­tion of the invest­it­ure, the mon­arch is crowned with St Edward’s Crown, made in 1660 to replace the lost crown taken from the saint’s tomb. The con­greg­a­tion acclaim the mon­arch “God save the King”, trum­pets sound, and a gun salute is fired from the Tower of London.

After the Crown­ing the mon­arch is sol­emnly blessed by the Arch­bish­op, and up to 1902 the Te Deum was sung at this point.

The sov­er­eign now moves from King Edward’s Chair to the Throne to be enthroned there. The Arch­bish­op and oth­er bish­ops do their Fealty togeth­er, prom­ising to be “faith­ful and true” and the Arch­bish­op kisses the king’s left cheek. Then the roy­al dukes and the oth­er peers pay their Homage and the lead­ing peers kiss his cheek. His­tor­ic­ally this has been a lengthy part of the ser­vice even when sig­ni­fic­antly shortened so that each degree (dukes, mar­quesses, earls, vis­counts and bar­ons) pays homage togeth­er, and might be fur­ther shortened in 2023.

The Queen’s Coron­a­tion fol­lows, almost unchanged since that of Mary of Mod­ena in 1685. She is anoin­ted – in recent times only on the head, but up to 1761 on the head and breast, her appar­el being opened for that pur­pose – inves­ted with a ring, and then in a sur­viv­al of the earli­er order, crowned. Finally, she receives a sceptre and a rod, and is enthroned next to the king.

The Coron­a­tion itself is now com­plete and the Euchar­ist resumes at the offer­tory, includ­ing in 1953 a con­greg­a­tion­al hymn (Old 100th, “All people that on earth do dwell”), instead of an anthem. Tra­di­tion­ally the mon­arch makes an offer­ing of the bread and wine, an altar-cloth and a pound-weight of gold, and a queen con­sort anoth­er altar-cloth and a “mark-weight” of gold.

The ser­vice fol­lows the 1662 order, as it will in 2023, with the pray­er for the Church mil­it­ant, the Gen­er­al Con­fes­sion and the Com­fort­able Words. The Sur­sum Corda is fol­lowed by a prop­er pre­face, Sanc­tus (sung to the melody of Mer­be­cke in 1911 and 1937), Pray­er of Humble Access, and Con­sec­ra­tion. The Arch­bish­op and assist­ing clergy receive Com­mu­nion fol­lowed by the King and Queen. There is no gen­er­al com­mu­nion. The ser­vice con­tin­ues with the Lord’s Pray­er, post-com­mu­nion (‘O Lord and heav­enly Fath­er’) and the Glor­ia. The mon­arch then moves into St Edward’s Chapel, where they are dis­robed of their golden vest­ments – his­tor­ic­ally St Edward’s vest­ments and crown were not removed from the Abbey. Since 1911 the choir sings the Te Deum at this point. Finally, the mon­arch and con­sort pro­cess out through the Abbey to the west door, in vel­vet robes and the mon­arch wear­ing the Imper­i­al State Crown.

For the text of the Coron­a­tion ser­vice, as used at each coron­a­tion from 1689 to 1953 see oremus.org/coronation

 

 

12 Comments

Common Worship Almanac for 2022-23

on Tuesday, 18 October 2022 at 12.04 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as elsewhere on the net, liturgical news, liturgical texts, liturgy, software

My Alman­ac for the litur­gic­al year 2022–23, the year begin­ning Advent Sunday 2022 is now avail­able. The Alman­ac is a com­plete and cus­tom­iz­able down­load that can be added to the cal­en­dar on a desktop/laptop, a tab­let or a smart­phone provid­ing a fully-worked out cal­en­dar and lec­tion­ary accord­ing to the rules of the Church of Eng­land. Sev­er­al down­load formats are provided, giv­ing access to most cal­en­dar soft­ware on most devices.

As before, down­load is free, and dona­tions are invited.

 

What's new?

The Alman­ac is also avail­able as a web page that can be installed as a web app on smart­phones and tab­lets for easy access to all the data. New fea­tures include

• In the View tab you can toggle the dis­play of verse num­bers in the read­ings, mak­ing it sim­pler to copy and paste pas­sages to oth­er doc­u­ments in the desired format.
• Fol­low­ing the new Roy­al War­rant, updated BCP and CW pray­ers for the King and Roy­al Fam­ily are linked in the Resources tab; Acces­sion Day is now on 8 Septem­ber, rather than 6 February.
• Although not strictly a CW or BCP obser­va­tion, an entry is included this year for Coron­a­tion Day on 6 May 2023; it is expec­ted that resources for pub­lic observ­ance of the coron­a­tion will be pro­duced, and this mater­i­al will be added when it is available.
• Astro­nom­ic­al data (sun­rise, sun­set, moon rise and set and phase, sol­stices and equi­noxes) is now fully work­ing again, as is the sep­ar­ate Cross­cal cal­en­dar down­load at crosscal.oremus.org.

Donations

This Alman­ac is offered free of charge, and without war­ranty, but as you might ima­gine it takes some effort to com­pile. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to my costs then dona­tions may be made via PayP­al at paypal.me/simonkershaw. Altern­at­ively, Amazon gift vouch­ers can be pur­chased online at Amazon (amazon.co.uk) for deliv­ery by email to simon@kershaw.org.uk .

The Alman­ac has been freely avail­able for over 20 years. There is not and has nev­er been any charge for down­load­ing and using the Alman­ac — this is just an oppor­tun­ity to make a dona­tion, if you so wish. Many thanks to those of you who have donated in the past or will do so this year, par­tic­u­larly those who reg­u­larly make a dona­tion: your gen­er­os­ity is appre­ci­ated and makes the Alman­ac possible.

0 Comments

The Coronation of English and British Kings and Queens

on Saturday, 8 October 2022 at 2.13 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as coronation, history, liturgical texts, liturgy

Begin­ning with the coron­a­tion of James I in 1603 there have been six­teen Eng­lish-lan­guage coron­a­tions of Eng­lish, or from 1714 Brit­ish, mon­archs. Before that, upto and includ­ing the coron­a­tion of Eliza­beth I, the ser­vice had been con­duc­ted in Lat­in. The sev­en­teenth, for King Charles III, is sched­uled to take place on Sat­urday 6 May 2023.

As a small boy, over half a cen­tury ago, I was cap­tiv­ated by a souven­ir of the 1937 coron­a­tion of King George VI and Queen Eliza­beth which belonged to my grand­par­ents, and which con­tained the text of the ser­vice along with copi­ous illus­tra­tions and some his­tor­ic­al notes. From 1994 I have col­lec­ted cop­ies of the order of ser­vice of every coron­a­tion back to that of George IV in 1821, along with repro­duc­tions and edi­tions of the earli­er ser­vices back to 1603, as well as the music edi­tions that have been pub­lished since 1902.

For some time I have thought of pro­du­cing an his­tor­ic­al edi­tion of the coron­a­tion ser­vice with the dif­fer­ent texts in par­al­lel columns, mak­ing it easy to see the changes that have been made over the cen­tur­ies. This is a bit com­plex to pro­duce as a book (and per­haps not com­mer­cially viable) but a web page is easi­er to cre­ate, and can have oth­er help­ful fea­tures such as hid­ing or show­ing dif­fer­ent sec­tions of the page. So now there is a new page at oremus.org/coronation that con­tains the text of all the coron­a­tion ser­vices from 1953 back (cur­rently) to that of George II in 1727. Work on adding earli­er texts continues.

In each column the texts are aligned so that cor­res­pond­ing rub­rics and spoken words match across the page. Indi­vidu­al columns can be hid­den, mak­ing it easy to com­pare dif­fer­ent years. Hid­ing rows, or sec­tions of the text across all columns, is a fea­ture that will be added soon.

The coron­a­tion of King Edward VII and Queen Alex­an­dra sched­uled for June 1902 was post­poned because of the king’s ill­ness. When it did take place in August, a num­ber of modi­fic­a­tions were made to place less stress on the con­vales­cent king. Both the June and August texts are included in par­al­lel columns.

With the Coron­a­tion of King Charles and Queen Cam­illa sched­uled for next year, I hope this will be a use­ful his­tor­ic­al archive.

0 Comments

Liturgy at the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II

on Friday, 23 September 2022 at 4.34 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical texts, liturgy

The death of the head of state of a coun­try is a sig­ni­fic­ant event, even more so when that per­son has been head of state for 70 years, and is head of state of more than one coun­try. The death of Queen Eliza­beth II, guar­an­teed to come at some point, was non­ethe­less an event that touched many people, and mil­lions if not bil­lions of people around the world mourned her in some way.

For the first time, Orders of Ser­vice for the funer­al at West­min­ster Abbey, and the Com­mit­tal at St George’s Chapel, Wind­sor, were pub­lished online, enabling those watch­ing on tele­vi­sion to fol­low the text and join in if they desired.

For future ref­er­ence, cop­ies of these Orders of Ser­vice are attached to this post:

• • Funer­al Service
  • Com­mit­tal Service

0 Comments

Stations of the Cross

on Friday, 4 March 2022 at 3.59 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical texts, liturgy, reflection

Sta­tions of the Cross is a tra­di­tion­al devo­tion for Lent, and espe­cially for Holy Week. It ori­gin­ated in Jer­sualem, where pil­grims would lit­er­ally walk along the route from the centre of the city to the tra­di­tion­al place of Christ’s exe­cu­tion, stop­ping en route to recall vari­ous incid­ents recor­ded in the gos­pels, or else­where in the tra­di­tion. The num­ber and names of the sta­tions were later codi­fied at four­teen (to which a fif­teenth sta­tion of the Resur­rec­tion was added in more recent times). Many sets of words and pray­ers have been writ­ten to acccom­pany the walk. I com­piled this par­tic­u­lar set for an ecu­men­ic­al ser­vice in my home par­ish, and sub­sequently pub­lished them on the Think­ing Anglic­ans blog. It envis­ages a scen­ario in which some of those who par­ti­cip­ated in or wit­nessed the ori­gin­al events are gathered to remem­ber what happened on that day.

1. Pil­ate con­demns Jesus to death
2. Jesus takes up his cross
3. Jesus falls the first time
4. Jesus meets his mother
5. Simon helps Jesus carry the cross
6. Veron­ica wipes the face of Jesus
7. Jesus falls the second time
8. Jesus speaks to the women of Jerusalem
9. Jesus falls the third time
10. Jesus is stripped of his garments
11. Jesus is nailed to the cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross
13. Jesus is taken down from the cross
14. Jesus is placed in the tomb
15. Jesus is risen

0 Comments

Common Worship Almanac for 2021-22

on Monday, 11 October 2021 at 9.48 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as elsewhere on the net, liturgical news, liturgical texts, liturgy, software

My Alman­ac for the litur­gic­al year 2021–22, the year begin­ning Advent Sunday 2021 is now avail­able. The Alman­ac is a com­plete and cus­tom­iz­able down­load that can be added to the cal­en­dar on a desktop/laptop, a tab­let or a smart­phone provid­ing a fully-worked out cal­en­dar and lec­tion­ary accord­ing to the rules of the Church of Eng­land. Sev­er­al down­load formats are provided, giv­ing access to most cal­en­dar soft­ware on most devices.

As before, down­load is free, and dona­tions are invited.

What's new?

The Alman­ac is also avail­able as a web page that can be installed as a web app on smart­phones and tab­lets for easy access to all the data. New fea­tures include

• the Down­load tab now shows a live pre­view of the data that will be added to your cal­en­dar; as you select options from the menus the live pre­view auto­mat­ic­ally reflects your choices
• in the View tab you can toggle the dis­play of verse num­bers in the read­ings, mak­ing it sim­pler to copy and paste pas­sages to oth­er doc­u­ments in the desired format
• in the View tab the bible read­ings now have an addi­tion­al link to the NIV text at Bible Gate­way, as well as dis­play­ing the NRSV text (or the Com­mon Wor­ship psal­ter for psalms)
• a new short­er format for sub­scrip­tion links (old-style links con­tin­ue to work as well)

Donations

This Alman­ac is offered free of charge, and without war­ranty, but as you might ima­gine it takes some effort to com­pile. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to my costs then dona­tions may be made via PayP­al at paypal.me/simonkershaw. Altern­at­ively, Amazon gift vouch­ers can be pur­chased online at Amazon (amazon.co.uk) for deliv­ery by email to simon@kershaw.org.uk .

The Alman­ac has been freely avail­able for over 20 years. There is not and has nev­er been any charge for down­load­ing and using the Alman­ac — this is just an oppor­tun­ity to make a dona­tion, if you so wish. Many thanks to those of you who have donated in the past or will do so this year, par­tic­u­larly those who reg­u­larly make a dona­tion: your gen­er­os­ity is appre­ci­ated and makes the Alman­ac possible.

0 Comments

Little Gidding Pilgrimage 2020

on Friday, 2 October 2020 at 4.33 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as Little Gidding, liturgy

Each year the Friends of Little Gid­ding, of which I am the Chair, organ­izes a Pil­grim­age to Little Gid­ding. For the last few years this has taken the form of a walk from Leighton Broms­wold to Little Gid­ding, with stops (or ‘sta­tions’) for short reflec­tions along the way. The day begins with a cel­eb­ra­tion of the Euchar­ist at Leighton Broms­wold, and ends with Even­song at Little Gid­ding fol­lowed by Tea.

The events of 2020 made this format impossible, and instead we held an online event with a num­ber of pre-recor­ded seg­ments and some ‘live’ read­ings and pray­ers, as well as a little inter­ac­tion between those tak­ing part. Fol­low me as I walk from Leighton Broms­wold to Little Gid­ding, intro­du­cing the vari­ous stop­ping points, and talk­ing about the Fer­rars’ exper­i­ence of the dev­ast­at­ing plague that hit Lon­don in 1625, and that forced them to leave the City and move to Little Gid­ding, while Fiona Bramp­ton, Chap­lain at Little Gid­ding, reflects on the impact of COVID-19 on us today.

Foot­age of me and video edit­ing by Alex­an­der Ker­shaw. Foot­age of Fiona filmed on my iPhone, and edited into the video by me, along with ‘live’ read­ings and pray­ers recor­ded via Zoom.

0 Comments

2020-21 Almanac for Common Worship and BCP

on Thursday, 17 September 2020 at 5.31 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as elsewhere on the net, liturgical news, liturgical texts, liturgy, software

Now avail­able for the year begin­ning Advent Sunday 2020: Alman­ac, the cal­en­dar, lec­tion­ary and col­lects accord­ing to the cal­en­dar of the Church of Eng­land, for Com­mon Wor­ship and for the Book of Com­mon Pray­er. Down­load to your cal­en­dar or use the web app.

Down­load is free, dona­tions are invited.

What's new?

The Alman­ac web page has been com­pre­hens­ively updated since last year to make it easi­er and more use­ful. Updates include

• the down­load page and the daily view have been integ­rated into a single tabbed page
• the oremus Bible Browser (which includes the full NRSV, the AV, and the psal­ters from the pray­er book and Com­mon Wor­ship) is added on anoth­er tab
• a resources tab provides dir­ect links to all the offi­cial Com­mon Wor­ship texts, hymn sug­ges­tions (with links through to Hym­nQuest) and some oth­er litur­gic­al resources
• the Alman­ac daily view includes sun­rise and sun­set times, which can be cus­tom­ized to your location
• on phones and tab­lets you can add an Alman­ac icon or tile to your screen so that it is access­ible like an app (details in the Help tab), and you can swipe for­wards and back­wards through the days, and through bible pas­sages in the Bible tab

As usu­al, the Alman­ac is avail­able in a num­ber of formats for adding to Microsoft Out­look, Apple Cal­en­dar, iPhone or iPad, Google Cal­en­dar and oth­er cal­en­dar applic­a­tions. It can be synced from a desktop cal­en­dar to a tab­let or smart­phone (includ­ing Apple iPads and iPhones, Android phones and tab­lets, and Win­dows Sur­face tab­lets). There is also a csv format, which can be opened in a spread­sheet for fur­ther manipulation.

Nat­ur­ally I hope that the Alman­ac is free of errors, but I dis­claim respons­ib­il­ity for the effects of any errors. My liab­il­ity is lim­ited to provid­ing a cor­rec­ted file for import, at my own con­veni­ence. Please help by noti­fy­ing me of pos­sible errors.

Donations

This Alman­ac is offered free of charge, and without war­ranty, but as you might ima­gine it takes some effort to com­pile. If you would like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to my costs then dona­tions may be made via PayP­al at paypal.me/simonkershaw. Altern­at­ively, Amazon gift vouch­ers can be pur­chased online at Amazon (amazon.co.uk) for deliv­ery by email to simon@kershaw.org.uk .

The Alman­ac web page car­ries the date 8 Septem­ber 2000, so, as the Beatles sang, “it was twenty years ago” that I first provided a digit­al litur­gic­al cal­en­dar, which in a couple of years evolved into a fully worked-out lec­tion­ary. There is not and has nev­er been any charge for down­load­ing and using the Alman­ac — this is just an oppor­tun­ity to make a dona­tion, if you so wish. Many thanks to those of you who have donated in the past or will do so this year, par­tic­u­larly those who reg­u­larly make a dona­tion: your gen­er­os­ity is appre­ci­ated and makes the Alman­ac possible.

 

1 Comment