The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England,1400-1580

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Duffy examines the factors that contributed to the close lay engagement with the structures of late medieval Catholicism: the liturgy that was widely understood even though it was in Latin; the impact of literacy and printing on lay religious knowledge; the conventions and contents of lay prayer; the relation of orthodox religious practice and magic; the Mass and the cult of the saints; and lay belief about death and the afterlife.

The Stripping of the Altars - Yale University Press

The texts prescribed for the feast in breviary and missal emphasize the Christmas paradoxes of the strength of the eternal God displayed in the fragility of the new-born child, of the appearance of the divine light in the darkness of human sin, of renewal and rebirth in the dead time of the year, and of the new life of Heaven manifested to Simeon’s, and the world’s, old age. Duffy's thesis is that, contrary to what has been taught and generally believed about the Protestant Reformation in England, satisfaction with the Roman Catholic "traditional" religion, its fêtes, rituals and observances was almost universal at the time of the Reformation and that the Reformation, itself, was imposed upon the people by royal and civil authority, not popular will. On Maundy Thursday, after the Mass of the Last Supper and procession with the Host to the Altar of Repose, the other altars in the church were ritually stripped of their altar cloths and ornaments in preparation for the stark liturgy of Good Friday, while the ministers and choir recited Psalm 21, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It is more than mnemonic; the Last Supper itself is not merely “remembered” in the liturgical events of the Triduum, or in the repetitions of the daily Mass. This important and provocative book offers a fundamental challenge to much that has been written about the pre-Reformation church.Following hard upon this antiphon is the recitation of Psalm XXI, the Deus meus: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

Washing of the Altar – The Episcopal Church Washing of the Altar – The Episcopal Church

And, third, at about the same time, I absorbed a brilliant anthropological work, which drew some of its most telling material from the recent upheavals in the English Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council. He then tells the story of the destruction of that Church - the stripping of the altars - from Henry VIII's break with the papacy until the Elizabethan settlement.At the end of the Maundy Thursday liturgy in Methodist parishes, the chancel is traditionally stripped; black paraments are sometimes added for Good Friday as black is the liturgical colour of Good Friday in the Methodist Churches. We publish history, politics, current affairs, art, architecture, biography and pretty much everything else. Glossary definitions provided courtesy of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY,(All Rights reserved) from “ An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church, A User Friendly Reference for Episcopalians,” Don S. What is beyond argument, however, is that the spectrum of Candlemas observances evident in these sources testifies to a profound and widespread lay assimilation and deployment of the imagery, actions, and significance of the liturgy of the feast.

Stripping of the Altar - Wikipedia Stripping of the Altar - Wikipedia

The imagery of light in the ceremonies was derived from Simeon’s song, in which the child Jesus is hailed as “a light to lighten the Gentiles”. For the audience, the whole play would have been inescapably redolent of the familiar Candlemas liturgy, and in essence an extension of it. During Silent Meditation and The Reproaches, persons may be invited to come forward informally to kneel briefly before the cross or touch it. Duffy uncovers a succession of records, notes and images that individually reveal an assortment of changes to liturgy and custom but taken together build up to demonstrate a colossal change in English religious practice.Reading about the changes which came about in the reigns of HenryVIIIth, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth was extremely informative. It is the reason Pride is the queen bee in the hive of the deadly sins; and in humility, Love becomes its opposite, theological virtue.