The Authorized or ‘King James Bible’ of 1611 is a model of straightforward English, made for reading aloud. This section of the site also includes a selection of prayers and hymns in Church English.
The Authorized or ‘King James Bible’ of 1611 is a model of straightforward English, made for reading aloud. This section of the site also includes a selection of prayers and hymns in Church English.
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This short prayer appeared in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549, as a preparation for holy communion.
Much of the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 was an elegant translation of the old Sarum Use of the mediaeval English church. This prayer, appointed for the Communion Service between the Comfortable Words and the distribution of the bread and wine, was one of the new ones. It blends passages from Mark 7:28 and John 6:56 with a traditional Roman collect and the Greek Liturgy of Saint Basil. Its name comes from the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637.
A list of all the books in the Authorized ‘King James’ translation of the Bible.
The King James or Authorized Version of the Bible has been called ‘the Book that made England’, and the tale it tells is known worldwide as the greatest story ever told. This book has shaped (for the better) our country’s language, ideas and morality for over four centuries. Read it here, complete and unabridged, including the Apocrypha.
Four short passages from the New Testament appointed to be read aloud in the English Book of Common Prayer of 1549.
In the Prayer Book of 1549, four Scriptural passages were appointed to be read out aloud as reassurance for those presenting themselves at the rail to receive Holy Communion. These are the Comfortable Words.
In 1611, a team of scholars delivered to King James I of England the new translation of the Bible that he had commissioned from them.
In 1603, King James VI of Scotland became also James I of England. A year later, he commissioned from leading scholars in the Church of England a new English translation of the Bible, to be ‘appointed to be read in churches’. After it was published in 1611, the Authorized Version quickly came to be recognised as one of the supreme masterpieces of the English tongue.
A Prayer for the Sunday after Whit Sunday.
This prayer was set as the Collect for Trinity Sunday, one week after Pentecost or Whit Sunday, in the Sarum Use, the English service book of the Middle Ages. During the Reformation, it was translated for the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, without significant alteration.
A hymn in praise of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr.
In The Man Who Would Be King (1888) by Rudyard Kipling, this hymn is sung by Dan’s friend Peachey Carnehan right at the end of the tale as he is going mad, as if it has meant something to him for a long time. It is a hymn for the Feast of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who is remembered each year on December 26th.