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

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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?

The stripping of the altars by Eamon Duffy | Open Library The stripping of the altars by Eamon Duffy | Open Library

Mary and Joseph and Anne made a “worshipful processioun” to the Temple with the Child, according to the Candlemas sermon in the Speculum Sacerdotale, a phrase which reveals the extent to which popular liturgical observances had come to shape perceptions of the scriptural event which they commemorated. In the East Anglian Ludus Coventriae play of the Purification, for example, Simeon receives the child Jesus with a speech which is simply a literal verse rendering of the opening psalm of the Mass of the feast. 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.Patricia Morrison, Financial Times “Deeply imaginative, movingly written, and splendidly illustrated.

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

Along the way, we will discover how two of Calvin’s most celebrated heirs of Genevan dogmatics, Theodore Beza and Francis Turretin, received and leveraged this doctrine. The altar here becomes a surrogate for the stripped and scourged Christ – resonances which would of course not have been lost on religious conservatives during the iconoclastic destruction of altars and imagery in the reign of Edward VI. He also counters some assertions that English Catholics were half-pagan, tracing many alleged "magical amulets" and incantations to their source: Christian liturgical practice and prayer.It is the reason Love is expressed in acts of holy obedience, as we are resplendently told in the Magnificat. Every historian brings to their subject-matter a raft of experience, opinions, attitudes and assumptions that inform their perceptions, and influence both the issues they find interesting, and the questions they bring to their material. It is a variation, I think, on the pagan myth of Prometheus, who stole the divine fire, and put it at the service of his fellow man. Duffy's narrative demonstrates how centuries of religious practice evaporated in the face of fierce centralist control. The title, borrowed from one of the now-suppressed but most eloquent ceremonies of the old Latin liturgy for Holy Week, was a manifesto in itself, summarising the overall argument of the book.

The Stripping of the Altars - Wikipedia

For this edition, Duffy has written a new introduction reflecting on recent developments in our understanding of the period. In 20 essays by leading Reformed pastors and scholars, this primer explores Calvin’s life, teaching, and legacy for a new generation. In the process he uses plentiful plates and illustrations that correlate with specifics in the text and which, themselves, are a pleasure to review. The second part of Duffy's book concentrates on the accelerated implementation of Protestantism in the mid sixteenth century. The blessing of candles and procession took place immediately before the parish Mass, and, in addition to the candles offered to the priest, many others were blessed, including the great Paschal candle used in the ceremonies for the blessing of the baptismal water at Easter and Pentecost.Today, the founding and management of the Academy of Geneva serves as a valuable example for a deeper understanding of Christian higher education. I will demonstrate that munus triplex functioned as a significant polemical device to champion the centrality of the Word of God, to substantiate the emergence of the pastoral office (while supplanting the Roman Catholic Priesthood), to undermine monarchical systems of government and the papacy, and, in addition, this doctrine is later employed as evidence for anti-judaism. This magnificently produced volume must rank as one of the most important landmarks in the study of late medieval English religion to have hitherto appeared, and it is unlikely to be superseded for quite some time. 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. This seemed to me a curious, even risible suggestion, given that most modern writing about English Reformation history had been produced either from an overtly or discernibly Protestant confessional standpoint, or at any rate from within a culturally Protestant and post-Enlightenment mindset liable to influence historical judgement about the character and worth of medieval Christianity just as surely, if less obviously, as any denominational affiliation.