Rev. Edward Burbidge's "Liturgies and Offices of the Church," ix-xix.

1.     PREFACE, ix-xix. This is an attempt to simplify the original sources for the BCP, both eastern and western sources. Rev. Burbidge believes this will raise the estimate of the devotional value of the BCP-services. Too many think it’s merely a pruning effort of medieval accretions, as merely an updated medieval product. The Prof. will trace developments from the eastern liturgy from the first century forwards, including the Clementine Liturgy of Apostolic Constitutions, as set forth in St. Cyril’s catechetical lectures of 347 A.D. He will also offer a translation to St. Chrysostom’s liturgy, drawn from an 11th century copy. It may be noted that one who uses the BCP daily at MP and EP, uses a daily prayer from St. Chrysostom. There will be engagement with Gregory 1’s liturgy ultimately coming down to the Sarum services (that Dr. Cranmer noted was so complex that one spent more time trying to figure out how to use it than understanding the contents). Specimens will be offered from Dionysius the Aeropagite, Archbishop Herman, Cardinal Ximenes’s Mozarabic Missal, and Cardinal Quignon’s Reformed Breviary. He likens the process to an archaeological dig buried beneath “successive layers of ruins” (ix). With Dr. Cranmer, Rev. Burbidge believes the BCP-services are “agreeable to the Word of God, and the primitive Church” (ix). A brief overview is given of Dr. Cranmer’s books passing, largely, through Henry Fitz-Alan the Earl and Arundel and his son-in-law, Lord Lumley, the collection that largely ends up in the British Museum.