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Nature’s Scourges: The Natural World and Special Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings, 1541–1866*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Alasdair Raffe
Alasdair Raffe*
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, special prayers, fasts and thanksgivings were an important means by which the Established Churches of England, Scotland and Ireland responded to natural occurrences. Although war prompted the largest number of special religious observances in this period, environmental calamities – instances of plague, famine, drought, earthquakes and storms — led civil and ecclesiastical authorities to order prayers, or to call national fast days, requiring subjects to cease work and attend worship on a specific day. Natural blessings, such as seasonable rain, successful harvests and the abatement of plague, were also marked by prayers, and sometimes by days of national thanksgiving. In Reformation England, the appointment of special observances can be traced back to 1541, when Henry VIII ordered Archbishop Cranmer to organize prayers in response to drought. Henry’s successors developed the practice of ordering special prayers and days in response to natural events and man-made calamities. In Scotland, national fasts were observed at the appointment of the church courts from 1566; they were not regularly under the control of the Crown until the Restoration period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 46: God’s Bounty? The Churches and the Natural World , 2010 , pp. 237 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2010

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Footnotes

*

The research for this paper derives from the project on ‘British State Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings, 1540s-1940s’, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project team is preparing an edition of all the orders and prayers relating to fasts, thanksgivings and other special observances from the Reformation to the twentieth century. I am grateful to my collaborators, Philip Williamson, Natalie Mears and Stephen Taylor.

References

1 London, LPL, MS. Cranmer Register, I, fol. 18r.

2 Ian, W. Hazlett, P., ‘Playing God’s Card: Knox and Fasting, 1565–66’, in Mason, Roger A., ed., John Knox and the British Reformations (Aldershot, 1998), 176–98.Google Scholar

3 The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1st ser., ed. Burton, J. H. and Masson, D., 14 vols (Edinburgh, 1877-98), 6: 156–57.Google Scholar

4 Steele, Robert, A Bibliography of Royal Proclamations of the Tudor and Stuart Sovereigns, 1485–1714, 2 vols (Oxford, 1910), 2: nos 266, 481, 485, 554.Google Scholar

5 The most recent investigation of this subject, which discusses much of the previous literature, is Philip Williamson, ‘State Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings: Public Worship in Britain 1830–1897’, P&P, no. 200 (August 2008), 169–222.

6 In Scodand, a form of prayer written for the fast of 1566 was used until the 1630S, after which the Established Church eschewed set forms.

7 Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic (Harmondsworth, 1973), 126–28 Google Scholar; Walsham, Alexandra, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999), 333–34 Google Scholar; Burns, William E., An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, Politics and Providence in England, 1657-1727 (Manchester, 2002).Google Scholar

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14 The main sources used to compile this list were Clay, William Keatinge, ed., Liturgical Services: Liturgies and Occasional Forms of Prayer set forth in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, PS (Cambridge, 1847)Google Scholar; Calderwood, David, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, ed. Thomson, Thomas and Laing, David, 8 vols. Wodrow Society (1842-49); Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, MDCXXXVIII-MDCCCXLII (Edinburgh, 1843)Google Scholar; Steele, Bibliography of Royal Proclamations; ESTC, <http://estc.bl.uk>; the LPL catalogue; and the London Gazette.

15 See, e.g., The Cavses of this General Fast, to begin the first Sabbath of August nixt, 1595 (Edinburgh, 1595).

16 Williamson,‘State Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings’, 172—73.

17 A Form of Prayer and Thanksgiuing to Almighty God; to be used in all Churches and Chapels in England and Wales … on Sunday the Seventeenth Day of October 1847 (London, 1847), 5.

18 A Fourme to be used in Common Prayer Twyse Aweke, and also an Order of Publique Fast, to be used every Wednesday in the Weeke, during this Time of Mortality (London, 1563), sig. Aiir.

19 A Form of Prayer, to be used upon the Twelfth of June (London, 1661), sig. [B4]v.

20 A Form of Prayer, to be used … upon Friday the Sixth Day of February next (London, 1756), 7

21 A Form of Prayer, to be used in all Churches and Chappels throughout the Kingdom of Ireland, upon Friday the Sixth Day of February next (Dublin, 1756), 7.

22 A Form of Prayer, to be used in all Churches and Chapels throughout those Parts of the United Kingdom called England and Ireland, on Wednesday the Twenty-first Day of March 1832 (Berwick-upon-Tweed, 1832), 4.

23 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 95, 137.

24 A Declaration of His Highnesse the Lord Protector for a Day of Publick Thanksgiving (London, 1658), 5.

25 Causes of a Solemn National Fast and Humiliation, unanimously agreed upon by the Commission appointed by the late General Assembly (Edinburgh, 1696).

26 Acts of the General Assembly, 290, 435 (1700 and 1709 respectively).

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28 Slack, Paul, The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England (London, 1985), 230–31; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 101–02.Google Scholar

29 Fourme to be used in Common Prayer, sig. Aiiv.

30 A Forme of Common Prayer, together with an Order of Fasting (London, 1625), sig.[03]r.

31 Larkin, James, ed., Stuart Royal Proclamations. 2: Royal Proclamations of King Charles I, 1625–1646 (Oxford, 1983), 539.Google Scholar

32 Walsham, Providence, 164–65.

33 Fourme to be used in Common Prayer, sig. Biiir.

34 Certaine Prayers collected out of a Forme of Godly Meditations (London, 1603), sig.[C4]r.

35 Form of Prayer … on Wednesday the Twenty-first Day of March 1832, 5.

36 A Proclamation, for a Publick General Past throughout the Kingdom of Scotland (Edin burgh, 1665).

37 Edinburgh, NAS, Commission of the General Assembly registers, CH1/3/11, fol. 282.

38 Fourme to be used in Common Prayer, sig. Ciiir.

39 Forme of Common Prayer, together with an Order of Fasting, sig. 02v.

40 By the King. A Proclamation for a General Fast through England and Wales, and the Town of Barwick [sic] upon Tweed, on Wednesday the Tenth of October next (London, 1666).

41 Gray, Peter, ‘“Potatoes and Providence”: British Government Responses to the Great Famine’, Bullán 1 (1994), 75–90, at 84.Google Scholar

42 A Prayer of Thanksgiving to Almighty God; for the great Blessing, which, in His Mercy and Goodness, he hath Vouchsafed to this Nation, in our Favourable and Abundant Harvest (London, 1796), 4.

43 Clay, , ed., Liturgical Services, 567. See also Mears, Natalie, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge, 2005), 163–66.Google Scholar

44 Proclamation for a Fast on the Tenth of October.

45 By the King, A Proclamation, for a General Fast throughout the Realm of England (London, 1661).

46 London Evening Post, no. 4126, 20–23 April 1754.

47 Individual bishops in the Church of England responded to natural events by appointing prayers in their dioceses after this date: see, e.g., TheTimes, 29 June 1882, 8e.