British state prayers, fasts and thanksgivings 1540s to 1940s
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: History
Abstract
For four hundred years, from the 1540s to the 1940s, English monarchs and British governments summoned the nation to special acts of public worship. Most of these occasions are unstudied, and their long history -- a remarkable continuity between early-modern and recent times -- remains obscure. This project brings together for the first time information and texts for these special observances, defines their nature and purposes, and demonstrates their wider religious, political and cultural significance.
At times of national threat or celebration (e.g. conspiracies, bad weather, military victories, royal births) the state added special prayers to ordinary church services. At especially anxious or momentous times (war, epidemics, dearth; defeat of rebellions, peace treaties, royal jubilees) whole days were set aside for either fasting and humiliation or thanksgiving, with special liturgies superseding the Prayer Book services. Some occasions -- Charles I's 'martyrdom', the Restoration, Gunpowder Treason and the Glorious Revolution, the monarch's accession -- became annual religious commemorations. Until the 1850s, special 'days' were usually ordered for weekdays, requiring cessation of secular work. In the early twentieth century they were revived as national days of prayer, held on Sundays, the last in 1947.
State prayers and days were national events, reaching into every parish in England and Wales, and from the seventeenth century Scotland and Ireland. They were significant occasions, rich in meaning, purpose and consequence. Most basically, they register peaks of public religious, moral, political and social anxiety or celebration. More deeply, the state orders and forms of prayer express official religious belief about particular secular events and natural occurrences. They are prime evidence for the force and persistence of government acknowledgement of divine superintendence over the English, later British, nation, and belief in special providential interventions that could be assuaged or prompted by the united prayers of the whole people. State prayers and days were central in shaping ideas of national identity in terms of Protestantism, godliness and divine providence, and helped consolidate the idea of a British state. They had considerable political and social significance, in communicating news to local communities and eliciting officially sanctioned participation in public issues. Together with the annual commemorations they illuminate church-state relations: exercise of the royal supremacy, ministerial decisions on religious matters, and the higher clergy's (in Scotland the General Assembly's) role in public life. At times occasions of political contention, they long aroused tension between the established churches and dissenters, until becoming opportunities for ecumenical co-operation in the twentieth century.
Although features of the annual commemorations have been examined, few special occasions have been studied, no list exists and their full history has never been investigated. This project will produce an edition containing a complete list of prayers and days (numbering c. 450) and extracts from the orders and forms of prayer. A co-authored monograph will analyse these texts, the conditions which produced them and the responses they evoked, revealing much about religious and political doctrine, state ideological 'projection', and popular religiosity. It will provide a fresh perspective on particular political and religious episodes and on the character of the British Protestant alliance between state and church. A volume of essays will explore their wider significance for studies in politics, religion and culture over the four centuries.
At times of national threat or celebration (e.g. conspiracies, bad weather, military victories, royal births) the state added special prayers to ordinary church services. At especially anxious or momentous times (war, epidemics, dearth; defeat of rebellions, peace treaties, royal jubilees) whole days were set aside for either fasting and humiliation or thanksgiving, with special liturgies superseding the Prayer Book services. Some occasions -- Charles I's 'martyrdom', the Restoration, Gunpowder Treason and the Glorious Revolution, the monarch's accession -- became annual religious commemorations. Until the 1850s, special 'days' were usually ordered for weekdays, requiring cessation of secular work. In the early twentieth century they were revived as national days of prayer, held on Sundays, the last in 1947.
State prayers and days were national events, reaching into every parish in England and Wales, and from the seventeenth century Scotland and Ireland. They were significant occasions, rich in meaning, purpose and consequence. Most basically, they register peaks of public religious, moral, political and social anxiety or celebration. More deeply, the state orders and forms of prayer express official religious belief about particular secular events and natural occurrences. They are prime evidence for the force and persistence of government acknowledgement of divine superintendence over the English, later British, nation, and belief in special providential interventions that could be assuaged or prompted by the united prayers of the whole people. State prayers and days were central in shaping ideas of national identity in terms of Protestantism, godliness and divine providence, and helped consolidate the idea of a British state. They had considerable political and social significance, in communicating news to local communities and eliciting officially sanctioned participation in public issues. Together with the annual commemorations they illuminate church-state relations: exercise of the royal supremacy, ministerial decisions on religious matters, and the higher clergy's (in Scotland the General Assembly's) role in public life. At times occasions of political contention, they long aroused tension between the established churches and dissenters, until becoming opportunities for ecumenical co-operation in the twentieth century.
Although features of the annual commemorations have been examined, few special occasions have been studied, no list exists and their full history has never been investigated. This project will produce an edition containing a complete list of prayers and days (numbering c. 450) and extracts from the orders and forms of prayer. A co-authored monograph will analyse these texts, the conditions which produced them and the responses they evoked, revealing much about religious and political doctrine, state ideological 'projection', and popular religiosity. It will provide a fresh perspective on particular political and religious episodes and on the character of the British Protestant alliance between state and church. A volume of essays will explore their wider significance for studies in politics, religion and culture over the four centuries.
Organisations
Publications
Williamson P
(2008)
State Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings: Public Worship in Britain 1830-1897
in Past & Present
Mears N
(2012)
Public Worship and Political Participation in Elizabethan England
in Journal of British Studies
Williamson P
(2013)
National Days of Prayer: The Churches, the State and Public Worship in Britain, 1899-1957
in The English Historical Review
Raffe A
(2016)
Nature's Scourges: The Natural World and Special Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings, 1541-1866
in Studies in Church History
Hardwick J
(2018)
Special Worship in the British Empire: From the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries
in Studies in Church History
MEARS N
(2020)
The 'Holy Days' of Queen Elizabeth I
in History
Description | Arise therefore unto our help: Public worship and days of prayer in England, 1547-1640 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |
Description | Authority, reception and resistance: fast days in England and Scotland, 1640-1720 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
Description | British state prayers, fasts and thanksgiving, 1540s to 1940 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
Description | Churchill and the churches: worship and wartime morale 1940-1945 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | There is no study of occasions of special worship in Britain during the Second World War. This paper explained how Churchill and his government became involved in, and enthusiasts for, national days of prayer and organisation of special prayers. A paper delivered to the modenr British History seminar at the Institute of Historical Research |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
Description | Coronation, Prayer Book and People 1660-1953 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | A review of the changing character of coronations, more especially how from 1902 coronations were marked by special services organised in all parish churches of the Church of England and the Church of Scotland Scotland, and in many churches and chapels of other religious denominations. A public lecture, in a lecture series which accompanied the exhibition in Lambeth Palace Library on 'Royal devotion: monarchy and the Book of Common Prayer', May-July 2012 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
Description | Daily Telegraph, 26 June 2010: column by Christopher Howse on Taylor's chapter on the 1789 thanksgiving. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
Description | Fasts and thanksgivings in Ireland |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | The first examination of occasions of special worship Ireland over the period from the 16th to the 19th centuries |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
Description | Fasts and thanksgivings: Special national worship from early modern England to modern Britain |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
Description | Fasts and thanksgivings: public worship in Reformation Britain and its afterlife |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
Description | Fasts, thanksgiving, preaching and the re-emergence of presbyterianism in Scotland |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
Description | Getting the message across: the problems of distributing materials for national days of prayer |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
Description | Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day... - Self-interest and authority in mid seventeenth-century England |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2009 |
Description | National Workshop in International perspective: Conference in Durham, April 2010. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
Description | National days of prayer: the churches, the state and public workshop in Britain 1899-1957 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |
Description | Nature's scourges: the natural world and special prayers, fasts and thanksgivings, 1543-1866 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |
Description | Paul's Cross and nationwide special worship, 1533-1642 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | A study of how occasions of special worship were observed in one of the chief national preaching venues in England from the Refomation to the civil war A paper read at the conference on 'Paul's Cross and the culture of persuasion, 1520-1640' |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
Description | Prayers and the future |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2011 |
Description | Public worship and political participation in Elizabethan England |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
Description | Reformatorisch Dagblad (Netherlands), 3 November 2008: reporting on the project's work on special occasions of national worship. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |
Description | Reformatorish Dagblad (Netherlands), 11 March 2008, reporting on the issues raised by the call for papers for the project conference. |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |
Description | Royalty and religion: the British monarchy 1860-2012 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | A paper reviewing how major royal occasions were from the late Victorian period observed in all localities in the form of special services or special prayers, a practice which has continued into the present. A paper delivered to a conference on the modern British monarchy |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012 |
Description | Special worship and political participation in Elizabethan England |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2010 |
Description | The politics of fasts and thanksgivings: some English and Scottish comparisons |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Scientific meeting (conference/symposium etc.) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Participants in your research or patient groups |
Results and Impact | Information taken from Final Report |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |