The Book of Common Prayer by Brian Cummings

Designed in the 1540s as a radical Protestant answer to Catholic 'superstition', within a century (during the English Civil Wars) radical Christians regarded the Book of Common Prayer as itself 'superstitious' and even (paradoxically) 'Papist'. In this Very Short Introduction Brian Cummings tells the fascinating history of the Book of Common Prayer, and explains why it is easily misunderstood. Today it is a global book: it was the first book printed in many languages, from north America to southern Africa, to the Indian sub-continent. When the Puritans fled to America in 1620 it was to escape the discipline imposed by of the Book of Common Prayer, yet the book came to embody official religion in America before and after Prayer became the primary instrument (at least as much as the King James Bible) of English culture, firstly in Ireland in 1551. As British imperial ambitions spread, the Book of Common More listeners have heard these prayers, it is said, than the soliloquies of Shakespeare. For nearly five centuries, it has formed the order of worship for established Christianity in England. First published in the reign of Edward VI, in 1549, it was a product of the English Reformation following the break with Rome.

The Book of Common Prayer is one of the most influential books in history.

The Book of Common Prayer by Brian Cummings