English Use

English Use is a term used in Anglican liturgical writing, especially by Percy Dearmer and writers associated with the Alcuin Club, for a Prayer Book form of catholic ceremonial grounded in the historical worship of the Church of England. It is closely connected with the Ornaments Rubric, medieval English precedent, and the desire to conduct Anglican worship according to the Book of Common Prayer without simply copying contemporary Roman ceremonial.

In Dearmer's usage, English Use was not a separate rite replacing the Prayer Book. It was a way of interpreting and carrying out Prayer Book worship with attention to English liturgical inheritance. The title page of Dearmer's Parson's Handbook describes the book as giving practical directions for parish churches and services "according to The English Use as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer."

Meaning

English Use names a ceremonial and liturgical ideal rather than a single fixed medieval service book. It looks to the English Church's own inherited customs, especially those visible in late medieval English worship and in the early Prayer Book tradition, but it applies them within Anglican Prayer Book worship.

Dearmer contrasted English Use with two opposite tendencies. On one side was ceremonial reduction that ignored the Prayer Book's historical and ceremonial assumptions. On the other was the wholesale importation of Roman ceremonial. English Use sought a third path: catholic, historical, English, and Prayer Book governed.

Dearmer's Argument

Dearmer's introduction to The Parson's Handbook says that the book was written to remedy liturgical "confusion, lawlessness, and vulgarity" in the Church. His criticism was aimed both at ignorance of liturgical history and at inconsistent practice.

In his discussion of the Prayer Book prefaces, Dearmer argued that the Church of England claimed the right to set forward an English use for its own people while condemning no other nations. He read the Prayer Book as a simplification of primitive and medieval worship rather than as the creation of an entirely new Protestant ceremonial.

His chapter on vestments and colours gives one of his clearest statements of the term:

No doubt, had the word Sarum never been introduced, the loyal Anglican clergy would have used the words English Use, and the hitherto untried plan of honestly obeying the Prayer Book would have become general, to the honour of the Church and the confusion of her enemies.

This passage shows that English Use was not simply another name for Sarum Use. Dearmer thought Sarum evidence was important, but he treated the Prayer Book as the governing Anglican authority.

Relation to Sarum Use

The medieval Use of Sarum was one of the principal sources used by English Use writers, but the two should be distinguished. Sarum Use was a medieval diocesan and cathedral use associated with Salisbury and influential in pre-Reformation England. English Use, as an Anglican term, refers to a post-Reformation Prayer Book ceremonial ideal that drew on Sarum and other English evidence without replacing the Prayer Book with a medieval missal.

This distinction was important in Anglo-Catholic debates. Some clergy looked to continental Roman models for ceremonial. Dearmer and other English Use writers argued instead that the Church of England had its own historical ceremonial inheritance, and that the Prayer Book should be obeyed in light of that inheritance.

Alcuin Club

The Alcuin Club gave scholarly and practical support to the same broad movement. A Directory of Ceremonial (1921) was prepared in response to requests for a guide to public worship that would be practical for different parishes while remaining faithful to the Catholic tradition received by the Church of England.

The Directory recognised The Parson's Handbook as an important earlier work, while offering its own concise ceremonial guidance. Together, Dearmer and Alcuin Club writers helped make English Use a recognizable stream within Anglican liturgical practice.

Features

English Use is commonly associated with:

• obedience to the Prayer Book and its rubrics;
• appeal to the Ornaments Rubric;
• use of traditional vestments and ordered ceremonial;
• attention to medieval English and early Prayer Book precedent;
• reluctance to identify catholic worship with contemporary Roman ceremonial alone;
• concern for beauty, reverence, clarity, and congregational worship.

These features could vary in practice. English Use was never merely a diagram of movements at the altar. It was a liturgical judgement about how the English Church's own history should inform worship in the Prayer Book tradition.

Influence

English Use influenced Church of England parish worship, Anglican ceremonial manuals, church furnishing and vestment design, and later Prayer Book Catholic practice. Its influence is visible wherever Anglican ceremonial appeals to Dearmer, the Alcuin Club, the Warham Guild, medieval English precedent, or the Prayer Book's ornaments rather than to Roman ceremonial books alone.

In American Anglican contexts, English Use often had to be adapted to different Prayer Books, including the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. Such adaptation typically preserves the English Use concern for eastward prayer, ordered ministers, reverent ceremonial, and historical Anglican identity while allowing the American rite to govern the text and sequence of worship.

See Also

• Percy Dearmer
• Alcuin Club
• Book of Common Prayer
• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Alcuin Ceremonial for the 1928 American Prayer Book
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)

External Links

• Percy Dearmer, The Parson's Handbook (1899)
• Alcuin Club, A Directory of Ceremonial (1921)
• Alcuin Club, Ceremonial Pictured in Photographs