Produced by Elaine A. Laizure
The Acts of Uniformity
Their Scope and Effect
By
1900
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The following paper, read at Oxfordbefore certain members of the University,in November, 1899, is published at therequest of some who heard it.
The Acts of Uniformity are incidents in a greatmovement. They are far from being the most importantof its incidents. Their importance has perhapsbeen exaggerated, and their purport is commonlymisunderstood. My object is to place them in theirtrue relation to other incidents. It is useless to studythem apart; they cannot be understood except asdetails of a connected history. I shall confine myself,however, to a narrow, question: assuming the generalhistory, I shall ask how the several Acts of Uniformitycome into it, with what purpose and with what ultimateeffect. To study immediate effects would be toengage in too wide an inquiry.
We owe thanks to the men who drafted thestatutes of the sixteenth century for their long argumentativepreambles. These are invaluable as showingthe occasion and purpose of the Acts. We shall notgo to them for an uncoloured record of facts—theirunsupported assertions will hardly, indeed, be taken asevidence for facts at all; but they tell us to what factsthe legislator wished to call attention, and in whatlight he would have them regarded. The preambleof the first Act of Uniformity is among the mostilluminating, and with its help we can assemble thefacts in relation to which the purport of the Act mustbe determined.
We are in the year 1548. Important changes inmatters of religion had taken place; greater changeswere in prospect. The processions before High Masson Sundays and Festivals, conspicuous and popularceremonies, had been stopped on rather flimsy grounds,and a Litany in English substituted—the "EnglishProcession," as it was called. Many images in thechurches had been destroyed, as superstitious; thecensing of those remaining had ceased. The peculiarceremonies of Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, and PalmSunday had been omitted in many places. A chapterof the Bible in English was being read after thelessons at Mattins, and at Evensong after Magnificat.
It was not very clear by what authority theseinnovations had been made. There had been royalproclamations and injunctions; episcopal injunctionsand orders on visitation. There was another change,perhaps the most striking of all, in which Parliamenthad intervened. The first Act of the first Parliamentof Edward VI. required the administration of the HolySacrament of the Altar in both kinds. No penaltieswere annexed, though elsewhere in the same statutesevere penalties were appointed for depravers of theSacrament. Convocation had concurred, adopting onDecember 2, 1547, a resolution of some sort in favourof communion in both kinds. [1] The records are tooscanty to show exactly what was done. An Order ofthe Communion with English prayers, to be insertedin the usual order of the Mass, was afterwards published,and brought into general use, on the commandapparently of the King and his Council. Nothingwas said in the Act of Parliament about the mode ofgiving communion, and therefore,
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