Reinventing Medieval Liturgy in Victorian England: Thomas Frederick Simmons and the Lay Folks' Mass Book(Medievalism)

In 1879, Canon Thomas Frederick Simmons edited the late medieval poem now known as The Lay Folks' Mass Book creating what remains the standard edition of the text. This volume shows how Simmons' interest in the text was related profoundly to contemporary debates about worship in the Church of England, and how he used his medievalist researches as the basis for the most important attempt at Prayer Book revision between the Reformation and the twentieth century.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: Imagining the Past 1.Thomas Frederick Simmons and the Lay Folks' Mass Book 2.Re-imagining Medieval Devotion: Nineteenth-Century Conceptions of the English Church 3.Simmons and the Early English Text Society 4.Simmons as Editor: The Philologist 5. Simmons as Editor: The Liturgist 6. Simmons as Parish Priest, and Liturgical Reform in the Victorian Church of England 7.The Afterlives of the Lay Folks' Mass Book Conclusion: Liturgical Moments in Time Plates Appendix IThe Lay Folks' Mass Book: Text and Translation Appendix IIThe Lay Folks' Mass Book and the Sarum Rite Bibliography Index

About the Author :
David Jasper is a theologian with a particular interest in the nineteenth century. He is emeritus professor at the University of Glasgow, where he was formerly professor of literature and theology. Recent publications include The Language of Liturgy (2018). He has been an Anglican priest for forty-six years and is canon theologian of St. Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow. Jeremy Smith was professor of English philology at Glasgow, where he remains a senior research fellow and emeritus professor, and an honorary professor at St Andrews. His specialisms include English historical linguistics, medieval studies, and book history, combined recently in Transforming Early English (2020).

Review :
This is an excellent study, well researched, and is valuable for those who study liturgy, and the mind of the Victorian English Church, as well as the wider Romantic Movement. It is the first critical assessment of The Lay Folks' Mass Book since Simmons's edition, and places the work in its context. It also raises some questions for the contemporary Church of England. Smith and Jasper do a superb job of interpreting what Simmons was about in this work, helping readers to understand the LFMB's context and aims, and to appreciate its quality. More than that, for those whose view of Tractarianism skews toward its Roman Catholic converts, this book usefully shows how determinedly English-oriented and English-interested its other side could be and, in divines like Simmons, was.