Evensong Explained, with Notes on Matins and the Litany
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Evensong Explained, with Notes on Matins and the Litany Project Canterbury Evensong Explained, with Notes on Matins and the Litany by W.K. Lowther Clarke London: SPCK, 1922. Source: http://anglicanhistory.org/liturgy/clarke_evensong.html EVENSONG is a popular service in the true sense of the term "popular." Especially when the psalms and lessons have a clear and appropriate message, it appeals to the people in a wonderful way, refreshing the soul and informing the mind. But we shall enjoy the service still more if we understand it. This pamphlet is an attempt to explain how we got our Evensong, and what the service means. Matins could be treated in the same way, but is not so suitable for our purpose, since those who attend churches where the sung Eucharist is the chief Sunday morning service are not so familiar with it as with Evensong. THE ORIGIN OF EVENSONG.—It is sometimes said that Matins and Evensong came from the monks. In a sense this is true, but the offices from which our modern services are derived were used by other priests than those in monasteries, and in a simpler form by pious lay folk in their private devotions. The great Churchman mainly responsible for our Morning and Evening Prayer was Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary; under Mary, as every schoolboy knows, he was burned to death at Oxford. Now Cranmer found a system of prayers for different times of the day, called the Hours, observed most fully in the monasteries, but to a large extent outside them too, which, in spite of its beauty, was unsuitable for general use because (i) there were far more services than people could be expected to attend; (ii) not enough Scripture was read; (iii) the public services were in Latin-we have a relic of this in the titles of the psalms in our Prayer-Book; and (iv) they were too elaborate for simple people to follow. Let us now look at the services as they were held in their completest form in the monasteries. At midnight the monks were roused from sleep and proceeded from the dormitory to the church, where they said the first prayers of the new day. This service was rather long and included several lessons from the Bible. When it was over they went back to bed until dawn, when they had the next service, called Lauds (that is, Praises), followed by another called Prime. We may reckon these two as one. The rest of the day was marked by services at the third, sixth, and ninth hours—counting from six o'clock—to which the names Terce, Sext, Nones were given, from the Latin words tertia, sexta, nona, meaning the third, sixth, and ninth hours. This makes five services, leaving out the daily Mass, of which we are not thinking here. The other two were Vespers at sunset, and Compline (so called because it completed the day) last thing at night. Special importance was attached to the number seven, and to the midnight rising, because of the words of the psalms: "Seven times a day will I praise Thee," and " At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto Thee." Out of these seven or eight services Cranmer made our Matins and Evensong. The early morning offices were turned into Matins, the three day offices were not used, and Vespers and Compline formed Evensong, as we shall see presently. We may ask next, Where did the monks get their services? The services used in the monasteries had been altered in the course of time, but were, nevertheless, essentially the same as those used in monasteries 1,200 years before, and these in their turn go back to the earliest age of the Church. The Apostles themselves had services consisting of psalms, Scripture readings and prayers, out of which was formed the first part of the primitive Liturgy. From this Ante-Communion, as we call it, the Old Testament lesson has dropped out, and all that is left of the psalm-singing is the "Glory be to Thee, O God," before the Gospel, unless we say that the modern hymns represent the psalms. When the need for extra services arose, the model was at hand in the Ante-Communion, which was thus the link between the Apostles and the monks. But where did the Apostles get their services? They were the very services which they had attended in company with our Lord in the synagogues at Capernaum and elsewhere. And if we push our inquiries still further back, we reach the time when the Jews were exiled to Babylon, far away from their beloved temple, and learned to sing the Lord's song in a strange land, without an altar or sacrifice. Of course, the Church gave a Christian turn to the old Jewish worship, but the framework of the service was the same. The Eucharist which Christ bade us do in remembrance of Him is the greatest possible act of worship, but Matins and Evensong must be reverenced and loved because they are a modern form of the worship which Christ and His Apostles offered to God. CRANMER'S WORK.—We have seen that Matins and Evensong, though dating from the Reformation in their present form, are yet derived from services which go back to the very first age of the Church, and even beyond that to the Jewish Synagogue. Let us now see exactly how Evensong was made up from the old Latin services of Vespers and Compline. Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury in Henry VIII,'s reign, was a great scholar, and produced magnificent translations of the old prayers. But something more than translating was necessary; the services had to be simplified and improved. The chief contents of each service were: (i) psalms and a canticle, (ii) a lesson from Scripture, (iii) the Lord's Prayer and other prayers, (iv) versicles and responses. In respect of the psalms and lessons Cranmer made some important changes. Compline had fixed psalms, in the same way as we have Psalm 95, "O come, let us sing unto the Lord," always at Matins, and at Vespers the psalms were always taken from Psalms 111 to 150. In order that the congregation might get to know the whole psalter, it was now divided into sixty parts, to be used at Morning and Evening Prayer on the thirty days of the month. At all the old services, except the midnight office, the lesson was very short, only a verse or two being read, and though changes were made to suit the seasons, yet very little Scripture was brought before the worshippers. To remedy this it was now arranged that two long lessons from Old and New Testaments should be read at each service. These were the greatest changes. Let us now examine Evensong as it left Cranmer's hands and appeared in the first English Prayer-Book, published in 1549. It began with the Lord's Prayer. This had been the invariable beginning of every office, but the prayer was said softly by the priest only. Then came the opening versicles and responses, taken almost word for word from the old services. Psalms and lessons formed the bulk of the service, as explained above, but they were arranged on a different plan from the old one. The Magnificat came from Vespers; Nunc Dimittis came from Compline, and so did the Creed. The second Lord's Prayer and concluding versicles and responses were taken straight from the old services. The first collect was that of the week, the second a Vespers prayer, and the third—"Lighten our darkness"—was the collect of Compline. This, then, was the service, distinctly shorter than at present. Three years later the second edition of the Prayer-Book appeared, and the opportunity was taken to prefix the first part of the service. You have only got to read this carefully, and you will see that the style is different from that of the short collects and responses. It is not a translation from old books, but a free composition in the language of the day. The idea was that after a sentence from the Bible to strike the note of the service, the people should be reminded of the purposes of public worship, and should then confess their sins and receive the assurance of God's forgiveness of sinners. This part is really a penitential introduction to the actual service. At a later period the various prayers after the third collect were composed and placed in their present position. You will now understand several things which may have puzzled you. It has become a common thing to say the first part of the service in a natural voice, and for the organ not to be heard until "O Lord, open Thou our lips"; and for the last prayers also to be said without any intrusion of music. This is not a fad, but a careful following out of the purpose of the office as shown in its history. Again, the clergy frequently omit some of the first part of the service, and change the last part, substituting other prayers. We have seen the reason for this. The central part is the actual office, the first part being an introduction and the last a supplement. There is a demand nowadays for more variety in our services. This is best met by exercising freedom in the opening and closing parts and keeping the middle, which is practically all from the Bible, untouched.