Use of Sarum

The Use of Sarum (or Use of Salisbury, also known as the Sarum Rite) is the

In 1078,

The Use of Sarum refers not only to the text and rubrics of the Mass, but also the calendar of saints, feasts and fast days, the readings and other liturgical practices. For example, on Maundy Thursday individuals who had been excommunicated for serious sins and then confessed were publicly received back into communion in the Reconciliation of the Penitents ceremony.^[5][6]

The revisions during Osmund's episcopate resulted in the compilation of a new missal, breviary, and other liturgical manuals, which came to be used throughout southern England, Wales, and parts of Ireland.^[7]

Some

Masses according to the Use of Sarum were similar to the

There was considerable variation from diocese to diocese, or even church to church, in the details of the rubrics: the place where the Epistle was sung, for instance, varied enormously; from a lectern at the altar, from a lectern in the quire, to the feature described as the 'pulpitum', a word used ambiguously for the place of reading (a pulpit) or for the rood screen. Some scholars thought that the readings were proclaimed from the top of the rood screen, which was most unlikely given the tiny access doors to the rood loft in most churches. This would not have permitted dignified access for a vested Gospel procession.^{[citation needed]}

The procession then vested for Mass. Sarum had a well-developed series of colours of

Some of the prayers of the Mass are unique, such as the priest's preparation prayers for Holy Communion. Some ceremonies differ from the Tridentine Mass, though they are not unknown in other forms of the western rites: the offering of the bread and wine was (as in the Dominican and other rites) made by one act. These distinctions have been evaluated as "of the most trifling character."^[16] The chalice was prepared between the readings of the Epistle and the Gospel. In addition, in common with many monastic rites, after the Elevation the celebrant stood with his arms outstretched in the form of a cross; the Particle was put into the chalice after the Agnus Dei. It is probable that communion under one kind was followed by a 'rinse' of unconsecrated wine. The first chapter of St John's Gospel was read while the priest made his way back to the sacristy.^[17] Two candles on the altar were customary, though others were placed around it and on the rood screen. The Sarum missal calls for a low bow as an act of reverence, rather than the genuflection.^[18]

Notably, there are no prayers or rubrics in the extant texts that show how lay communion was performed.^[19]: 101

Even after the

In spite of interest in the Sarum Use, its publication in Latin sources from the sixteenth century and earlier has inhibited its modern adoption. Several academic projects are gradually improving its accessibility. From 2009 to 2013, Bangor University produced a series of films and other resources as part of The Experience of Worship research project.^[25][26] In 2006, McMaster University launched an ongoing project to create an edition and English translation of the complete Sarum Use with its original plainsong, resulting in the publication of over 10,000 musical works, and expected to be completed in 2022.^[27]

The ritual of Sarum Use has influenced even churches that do not use its text, obscuring understanding of the original:

The modern fame of the Use of Sarum is to a great extent an accidental product of the political and religious preoccupations of 19th-century English ecclesiastics and ecclesiologists. The Use certainly deserves attention and respect as an outstanding intellectual achievement, but it is far from unique, and the fascination that it has exerted still threatens to limit rather than increase our understanding of the medieval English Church.^[1]

Many of the ornaments and ceremonial practices associated with the Sarum rite—though not the full liturgy itself—were revived in the Anglican Communion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as part of the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement in the Church of England. Some Anglo-Catholics wanted to find a traditional formal liturgy that was characteristically "English" rather than "Roman." They took advantage of the 'Ornaments Rubric' of 1559, which directed that English churches were to use "...such Ornaments of the Church, and of the Ministers thereof, at all Times of their Ministration, shall be retained, and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the Authority of Parliament, in the Second Year of the Reign of Edward VI of England," i.e. January 1548 - January 1549, before the First Prayer Book came into effect in June of the latter year (which authorized the use of traditional vestments and was quite explicit that the priest shall wear an alb, vestment (chasuble) or cope and that the deacons shall be vested in albs and tunicles (dalmatics). However, there was a tendency to read back Victorian centralizing tendencies into mediaeval texts, and so a rather rubrical spirit was applied to liturgical discoveries.

Chief among the proponents of Sarum customs was the Anglican priest Percy Dearmer, who put these into practice (according to his own interpretation) at his parish of St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill, in London. He explained them at length in The Parson's Handbook, which ran through several editions.^[28] This style of worship has been retained in some present-day Anglican churches and monastic institutions, where it is known as "English Use" (Dearmer's term) or "Prayer Book Catholicism".

Several prayers from the Use of Sarum were incorporated by the Roman Catholic Church into a liturgy formed for former Anglicans now in communion with Rome. One example being the Collect for Purity, which can be found in Divine Worship: The Missal (the missal in use in the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans in the Catholic Church).

• Edith Wharton refers to the "Sarum Rule" in Book I of her 1905 novel The House of Mirth.