CREATING a worship book that could be understood by all people was one of the drivers for Thomas Cranmer’s great liturgical project begun in the 16th century; but this concern with ordinary language is one that lingers.
Alternative services were introduced in England from 1966 onwards, against a backdrop of alarmingly fast social change, and liturgical reforms in the wider Church in the wake of Vatican II. One of the main concerns of liturgical renewal was to create liturgies that were a modern, simpler, humbler alternative to what was thought of as the outdated and incomprehensible Tudor English of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). But was this a valid aim?
The 1985 report Faith in the City was an attempt by the Church to draw attention to the plight of the urban working class during a period of rapid de-industrialisation and mass unemployment. The report contained plenty of self-criticism, describing the failure of a middle-class Church to speak the language of its working-class people. The Prayer Book, although not mentioned specifically, by implication was an example of liturgy that demonstrably did not — or so it was assumed.
THE acclaimed author Jeanette Winterson grew up in Accrington in the 1960s and ’70s. In her autobiography, Why be Happy When You Can be Normal? (Grove Atlantic, 2011), she writes about the use of language among the working-class families in that part of northern England — people who regularly heard the King James Bible at church and at home: “There was still a ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ or ‘tha’ in daily speech for us, the language didn’t seem too difficult.”
It wasn’t only the north-west: the screenwriter Dennis Potter, whose father was a miner and who was raised in rural Gloucestershire, said that the speech where he grew up was “so buttered with ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ . . . that it could almost be said to be a dialect”. Perhaps some working-class communities didn’t find the language of the BCP quite so alien after all.
Winterson argues that the 17th-century religious language with which she was familiar was a conduit to understanding other languages from the same era, namely Shakespeare. She writes: “It was a useful continuity, destroyed by the well-meaning, well-educated types who didn’t think of the consequences for the wider culture to have modern Bibles with the language stripped out.”
The main consequence was that working-class people, who went to state schools and ended their education when they were still children, lost for ever any meaningful connection that they might have had to their English-language heritage. We might ponder the words of the King, in 2011, when, as Prince Charles, he addressed the King James Bible Trust: “I’ve never really understood who it was that decided that, for people who aren’t very good at reading, the best things to read are those written by people who aren’t very good at writing!”
The current educational picture is discouraging: literacy rates are falling, young people’s enjoyment of reading is at crisis point, and there has been a decline in general language competency nationally. Thirty-five per cent of 16-year-olds failed to achieve a grade 4 or above in English language in 2024, statistics published by the Department for Education and Ofqual show; a survey by the National Literacy Trust suggested that only one in three eight- to 18-year-olds said that they enjoyed reading in their free time. The reasons for this were varied: they included lack of time and increased screen use, but another factor was “limited access to high-quality reading materials”.
WHAT is considered to be of high quality will vary greatly, but assumptions about the difficulty of language, and of what people from deprived backgrounds are capable of understanding, are, at best, hugely unhelpful. At worst, they commit the sin of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
It is a prejudice further evidenced by declining interest in language competency more widely. In 2021, Ofsted reported that the proportion of boys, disadvantaged pupils, and those with special educational needs showed very low engagement with languages after Key Stage 3: “It is clear that pupils in England often perceive languages to be difficult.” A significant factor that Ofsted identified was the Government’s decision, last year, to make the study of languages at GCSE optional.
Earlier this year, a scheme aimed at expanding the teaching of Latin in state schools was scrapped, in a cost-cutting exercise: a move that was widely condemned by academics from leading universities. As the gap between state and private-school achievement widens further, areas of learning which are considered the sole province of the privileged become ever more likely to be so.
If 17th-century English in worship is roundly regarded as the province of the Oxbridge-educated and the similarly privileged, it is worth considering why this might be. There is a vicious circularity to this issue which is worth examining.
Rather than regarding it as an elitist artefact from a bygone age, could the BCP (and the King James Bible) enrich and even improve the language skills of young people today?
We understand the value of learning Shakespeare, particularly when it is taught in an immersive environment, such as that delivered by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Research carried out in conjunction with the University of Warwick showed that this approach to studying Shakespeare significantly improved student language-acquisition and skills. Hearing Shakespearean language spoken out loud particularly benefited boys who had been considered “disengaged” or “low-level learners.”
The Prayer Book Society runs a Cranmer Awards competition every year, where children and teenagers are invited to recite passages from the 1662 BCP from memory (Comment, 15 March 2024). In an internet age of dwindling concentration spans and under-reliance on memory, this seems like a radical endeavour, testing the potential for the Tudor English of the Prayer Book to enhance the learning of young people. It is an initiative that could be emulated and taken up more broadly by educators, widening the exposure of young people to traditional language, particularly in state schools and deprived areas.
The value of the BCP is usually assessed in relation to Common Worship; but this is an unfair comparison, like comparing the car key with the 1000-page manual. In this age of multiculturalism and sweeping diversity, we need both to keep the Church on the road. The Prayer Book has a value all of its own, not least because it is the key to understanding so much of English-language heritage.
Jayne Manfredi is an Anglican deacon, writer, and radio broadcaster.
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