The Book Of Common Prayer, part 1: An English ragbag

From The London Guardian-

Steven Sample, the recently departed president of the University of Southern California, used to play a mean trick on his graduate students. He restricted MBA class reading to books that been in print for at least 250 years. Anything that had remained in constant use for that long, he argued, must have something about it. Thus airport bookstall how-to paperbacks yielded to Shakespeare, Milton and Machiavelli, all of whom students had heard of, but seldom read. For many today, including Church of England clergy, the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) occupies a similar niche in their consciousness.

Supplemented by newer liturgical compilations, the BCP remains the normative liturgy of the Church of England. It has been translated into over 150 languages. Its words have resonated through almost 450 years of English life and culture. Now it has been placed online, in its entirety, by the Church of England.

The BCP was a bold attempt, on a national level, to bring together a whole community around what was then a new concept of uniformity. This powerful notion was enacted for the Latin church 21 years later when the Council of Trent delivered the Missal of Pius V. The BCP allowed for celebrations in Latin (indeed there is one termly in Oxford to this day), but required that worship should normally be conducted "in a language understanded of the people". Vernacular liturgy was a reform for which Roman Catholics had to wait another 400 years.

More here-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/23/book-common-prayer-religion-christianity