Reinventing Medieval Liturgy in Victorian England: Thomas Frederick Simmons and the Lay Folks' Mass Book (Medievalism, 26)

In 1879, Canon Thomas Frederick Simmons edited the late medieval poem now known as The Lay Folks' Mass Book creating what remains the standard edition of the text. This volume shows how Simmons' interest in the text was related profoundly to contemporary debates about worship in the Church of England, and how he used his medievalist researches as the basis for the most important attempt at Prayer Book revision between the Reformation and the twentieth century. In 1879, the late medieval poem now known as The LayFolks' Mass Book - a guide to the Mass -- was edited for theEarly English Text Society by Canon Thomas Frederick Simmons. Itremains the standard edition of what, to modern tastes, can seem asimple work of conventional Middle English devotion. Yet, as thisbook shows, the poem had a remarkable afterlife. The authorsdemonstrate how Simmons' interest in and presentation of the textwas related profoundly to contemporary concerns and heated debatesabout worship in the Church of England, at a time when Anglicanclergymen could be imprisoned for their ritual practices. Simmons,educated at Oxford during the height of the Oxford Movement, wasrecognised by contemporaries as a leading authority on liturgy, atopic that troubled prime ministers as well as archbishops, and theauthors bring out the ways in which Simmons himself used hismedievalist researches as the basis for what was to be the mostimportant attempt at Prayer Book revision between the Reformationand the twentieth century Table of Contents 11 List of Plates 13 Preface 15 A note on citations 17 List of Abbreviations 19 Introduction: Imagining the Past 21 1. Thomas Frederick Simmons and The Lay Folks’ Mass Book 33 2. Re-imagining Medieval Devotion: Nineteenth-Century Conceptions of the English Church 47 3. Simmons and the Early English Text Society 71 4. Simmons as Editor: The Philologist 87 5. Simmons as Editor: The Liturgist 115 6. Simmons as Parish Priest, and Liturgical Reform in the Victorian Church of England 139 7. The Afterlives of The Lay Folks’ Mass Book 165 Conclusion: Liturgical Moments in Time 185 Plates 189 Appendix I: The Lay Folks’ Mass Book: Text and Translation 201 Appendix II: The Lay Folks’ Mass Book and the Sarum Rite 241 Bibliography 255 Index 269 Medievalism previous volumes 279