If we are to accurately analyse the nature of the development of liturgical ritualism in the first half of the nineteenth century it is essential that we look at the social
conditions in which the Church of England had found herself. The three most important scholars in the field of research into the nineteenth century Anglican liturgical development have been identified by Nigel Yates as being, S.L. Ollard, Owen Chadwick and John Shelton Reed. It is from their foundations
that I will attempt to form a modern analyses of this liturgical
revival in the Church of England.

At the beginning of the reign of Queen Victoria Great Britain was undergoing a severe social reconstruction as a result of the ministerial revolution. This great social upheaval had a dramatic impact on both the spiritual and temporal lives of its population. The Church of England when compared to other British social institutions was slow to respond to the changing social conditions of the time.

This was due in part to the conservative nature of the church with its establishment as the official religion of the state. The ritualistic changes of the nineteenth century far from being a radical departure from the traditions of the church were a revival that was entirely consistent with its historical Catholic origins. This revival not only had a dramatic effect on the spiritual practices of the Church of England but also upon the temporal existence of the people of Great Britain in this time of hardship and struggle.

Great Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century was a restless place where the development of industrial machinery was having a devastating impact upon the lives of the population in this predominately agrarian society. There was in existence a conflict for power and influence between the newly emerging generation of middle class made up of business owners and the previously dominant aristocracy of rural landlords.

At the same time wages were low and conditions were harsh for the newly emerging working class who started to fill the industrial towns and cities that were developing all over Great Britain. These social changes ultimately developed into a conservative reaction in both the religious and social institutions of Great Britain. The conservative elements of the Church of England were resistant to the social developments that were having an impact upon its status as the official church of the state. Changes to the nature of its existence were being forces upon the Church of England by both the Tory and Whig governments.

The Anglo-Catholic historian Ollard has classified the threats that faced the Church of England in the first half of the reign of Queen Victoria as coming from two areas, both stemming from the rise of liberal philosophy. There was a temporal threat to the class based nature of British society from the rise of participatory democracy based upon political liberalism and a spiritual threat posed to the elites of the Church of England from latitudinarian Erastianism.

As a part of the great social revolution of 1833, the Whig representatives for the first time seized control of the central institutions of British political power. The establishment of church and state which manifested itself in a close working relationship between Anglican divines and Tory politicians was under threat.
Through two acts of parliament they reforms attempted to establish a new order in
British society and the reaction to these laws can be seen to manifest itself in the
Victorian Liturgical Revival.

The Catholic Relief Act of 1829 was the act which was to have an impact upon the
Church of England as the established church of the state. With the act parliament sought the removal of discriminatory laws that sought to protect Great Britain form the foreign subversion actions from its Roman Catholic citizens. Ollard contends that with the subsequent election in 1833 of a Whig government which was full of Nonconformists and Roman Catholics ‘the position of the Church as a State establishment seemed doomed’.

Indeed the nature of the Church of England as a state based institution was
in great peril not form the temporal liberalism that sought to give all citizens of Great Britain social equality but also from the latitudinarian that was starting to dominate the theological domain of the Church14. But this act was just the beginning as the newly elected Whig government was to launch a major offensive against the Church of England with the Irish Temporalities Bill of 1833.

As the newly elected Whig government was undertaking wholesale reforms of British Society they moved upon the Church of England with a profound vigour. The
proposal by the Whig government to reform the Church of Ireland by abolishing ten
Bishoprics and using the proceeds to fund day to day operating expenses of the Church of Ireland was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. The forth coming reaction by members of the Church of England to this proposal was based upon the belief that,

No government would dream of annihilating ten Roman Catholic bishoprics or introducing a bill to confiscate the property of Baptist churches. Yet because the Church of England was established the government thought nothing of playing dominoes with prelates and mutilating ecclesiastical incomes. Through the Irish Temporalities Bill the Whig government and its Nonconformist and Roman Catholic supporters sought to orchestrate the disestablishment of the Church of England.

This interference in the internal affairs of the Church of England was not only
an attack on its establishment but also an attempt by the Whig government to promote its political agenda for the establishment of a French style separation of church and state. The spiritual liberalism which manifested itself in latitudinarian Erastianism is defined for us by Ollard as, ‘the view that neither the Church nor the Bible was the final authority in religious affairs but the state’.

This position which originated in Cromwellian England had gained immense influence in both theological and political circles at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This view was being reinforced by the revolutionary nature of the industrial revolution as it was changing the nature of British society. As a result of the application of these beliefs the church of England had developed into an elite club which was interested in what Yates calls, ‘a half-hearted survival rather than a clear vision of liturgical principles being put into practice’.


This lack of enthusiasm can be seen by the difference in the liturgical practices of the Anglican Churches of England and Ireland. In England where the latitudinarian
approach dominated, communion was only being taken quarterly and on special
occasions like Easter and Christmas. In Ireland by contrast the taking of weekly
communion was standard practice by the turn of the nineteenth century20. It was this approach to Eucharistic services by the Church of Ireland and its ministers that sparked a revived interest in the Church of England to revive its own historical practices. This approach was to have a lasting influence for the shaping of a national identity for the Church of England and its adherents and ensured an important place for the Church of Ireland in the Anglican cultural identity as the liturgical revival developed.


The issue of the role of the Anglican Church in the British state was brought to fore as a political issue as a result of the Irish Temporalities Bill. The Anglican churchmen believed fundamentally that parliament had no role in dictating the role of the Church with some like John Henry Newman believing that the state should be made subject to the church. The chief protagonist against the Whig governments reforms however was John Keble who expressed his disgust for these reforms in his famous Assize Sermon of the 14th July 1833.

Keble rallied support from the ‘the traditional high churchmen to the defence of the Anglican establishment’. It is from this sermon that the Oxford movement was founded and it was this movement which was to grow into such a spiritual force that is to have a dramatically effect the nature of spiritually in Great Britain and beyond.

John Keble was a high church minister and as result of this he held strong Tory
convictions. In his role as a minister in the Church of England he deliberately chose a simple country parish as he believed it was here that the true English spirit dwelled. In his theological opinion, the Body of Christ existed in the Church’s historical catholicity and as such attacks upon the Church of England, as exemplified by the Irish Temporalities Bill, were attacks upon the divine and sacred nature of Christ.

Through the expression of these beliefs in the Assize Sermon, Keble was able to define his two key contributions to the Oxford Movement and the Victorian Liturgical Revival. These being the belief in Apostolic Succession and in the ecclesiastical authority of the Bishops in the Church of England. Brian Martin has adequately summed up in the Latin phrase, ‘quod semper, quod oblique, quod ab omnibus’. In line with his convictions Keble was compelled to stand up and fight for the church that he believed in and love through his Assize Sermon. In this sermon he called for a revival of faith within the Church of England and by doing so he laid the foundations for the ascent of liturgical ritualism to core of Anglican liturgical practice.

Keble’s Assize Sermon of 1833 marks the beginning of a period of self examination in the Church of England in which it examined both its spiritual beliefs and the liturgical application of those beliefs. The late Bishop of Grafton, John Ashton, describe Keble as man who was, ‘modest, simple and kindly’ and his Assize Sermon has gone down in history and the foundational document of what has come to be known as the Oxford Movement.

As the church was undergoing a profound culture restructuring Keble’s Assize Sermon marked the establishment of a new culture identity not only for the Church of England but also for the people of Great Britain. The Anglo-Catholic Movement, of which the Oxford Movement was a leading member, had it’s cultural orientations in the Church of Ireland developed a new ministry that had a genuine passion and enthusiasm for the spiritual cause of the Church of England31. The key component of this new cultural identity for the Church of England was the advent of a new form of liturgical ritualism and no one held this emerging form of worship more dearly in their hearts than did Keble.

As a person who was proudly brought up in the sacred and ancient rhythms of the High Church of England Keble held strong opinions in regard to the superior position that was given to the Bishop of Rome in the continental Catholic Church. Keble’s belief was that all bishop of Christ’s Universal Church were equal in stature and no one bishop should be treated superior to any other. According to Martin Keble rejected in the strongest terms the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation as ‘a snare and delusion’ and believed that the doctrine of carnal presence was a ‘sanctioned cannibalistic rite’.

Although ‘there was much in Roman Catholic practice and in its ritual which Keble could see was backed by the authority of history’ Keble saw in the Church of England and its Roman counterpart a common membership of the Universal
Church of Christ. And as such both had, in his opinion, an equally legitimate claim
upon apostolic succession which resulted in both churches sharing a divine and
legitimate spiritual authority.


What Keble did have, when compared to others of his time, was a deep seated
theological passion for the historical Reformed Doctrine of the Church of England.
These beliefs which are based upon Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer
form the foundation for the uniqueness of the Anglican cultural identity and Keble’s
passion for them were so profound that he dedicated a book of poetry to these spiritual rhythms which he called The Christian Year. Keble passion for Cranmer’s spiritual rhythms can be seen in his writings contained within The Christian Year,
In darkness and in weariness
The Traveller on his way must press,
No gleam to watch on tree or tower,
Whiling away the lonesome hour.
Sun of my soul! Thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou be near:
Oh! May no earth-born cloud arise
To hide Thee from thy servant’s eyes.

With these beliefs Keble provided the Oxford Movement and hence the whole of the Victorian Liturgical Revival with a philosophical mind that established in the words of Owen Chadwick, ‘the moral ideal that was essential and integral to its theological development’.

What Keble achieved above all else was the establishment of a
platform for which the Church of England and the British people could build a bridge for which they could bring themselves out of there self imposed spiritual and cultural isolation with the formation of the Oxford Movement.


The origins of the Oxford Movement has been traced back to six men who were in close contact with each in the Oriel College senior common room at Oxford University. These six being John Keble, John Henry Newman, Edward Pusey, Richard Froude, Hugh Rose and William Palmer. This group of High Church Oxford academics obtained the support of the conservative High Churchmen of their day who were anxious about the radical social changes that were taking place in Great Britain and the resulting loss of cultural identity for the Church of England.

This group pf men included men from Evangelical backgrounds like Newman and Pusey from which, according to Yates, the Oxford Movement, ‘obtained their practice of frequent communion, fostering and penitence’. The collective actualisation of their personal views in regards to the temporal reforms affecting the Church of England came with their call for a conference to discuss a response to Keble’s’ call to arms in his Assize Sermon. This conference which was held at Hugh Rose’s rectory at Hadleigh led to the establishment of an organisation known as the Association of Friends of the Church. Through which the participants sought to develop a plan to defend the Church of England against its secular
attackers and it is this group of gentlemen who have come to be known as the founding fathers of the Oxford Movemen.


The Hadleigh Conference was to loom large in the future developments of the liturgical revival in the first half of the nineteenth century. After the foundation of the Association of Friends at the Hadleigh conference Froude and Palmer returned to Oriel College and sought out Keble and Newman who were absent form the get together. They brought with them a set of radical ideas for the establishment of a new movement to engage those who attempting to change the established nature of the Church of England.

There was some dissent from Keble about the form in which this was to be done but they were all in general agreement on the four main principles on which their new movement was stand. These four foundational principles of the Oxford Movement being in the words of Chadwick,

First, they would proclaim the doctrine of apostolic succession.
Second, it is sinful to allow persons or bodies not members of the church to interfere in matters spiritual.
Third, it is desirable to make the church more popular. Fourth, they will protest against all attempts to separate church from state, while they will steadily contemplate the possibility of disestablishment and begin to prepare for it.

As a result of this impromptu get together at Oriel College the Oxford Movement was born with a plan to defend the Church of England against the social reforms that were taking place in Great Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century. These men who rallied to the defence of the Church of England were not without their differences but they worked together effectively to take on the array of social forces that were attacking the cultural identity and integrity of the church both spiritually and temporally.

To actualise their plan in a political format Newman reached back into his Evangelical roots to devise a radical idea for the Church of England. The newly formed Oxford Movement would start publishing a series of tracts on spiritual matters affecting the church and with which they were concerned.


The Oxford Movement through the Tracts for the Times46 attempted to make the
nature of their campaign more spiritual and less political. It was through The Tracts
for the Times that Newman rose to the fore, as the chief contributor providing a body of academic texts for the members and supporters of the Oxfords Movement to use in their campaign. The provision of Tracts enabled the Oxford Movement to argue and promote their position in an open and intellectual public forum and through these Tracts they sought to turn the Church of England, ‘upside down or- as the writers of the Tracts themselves believed- right side up’47.

The Tracts for the Times began to appear in September 1833 and lasted until a great controversy in 1841 where the ninetieth tract brought this series of publications to an end. This last and final tract saw the defection of Newman to the Roman Catholic camp where he was to receive sainthood for providing the inspiration behind the Vatican II reforms.

As the campaign progressed for the Oxford Movement Newman slipped into the
leadership position based upon his ability of articulating the position of the Oxford
Movement. Newman had prolifically written most of the ninety tracts over a short
period of three years and also delivered some high charged sermons at St Mary the Virgin Chapel at Oxford University. It was through Newman’s sermons at St Mary’s that were based upon the object lessons of the Tracts that led to the development of a new generation of ministers known affectionately as Tractarians.

It was these ministers who were to develop into the first generation of Anglo-Catholic clergymen.
As Moody explains,
The Tracts were anonymous… and they were circulated without cost to the recipients, all carrying the refrain that there must be a ‘second reformation’ in the Anglican Church to bring it back to the traditional standards of the seventeenth century…
The Tracts stated principles to be believed, but the sermons explained and elaborated on these principles in their moral and spiritual aspects.

The action of Newman were an attempt to apply evangelical techniques to a spiritual campaign of High Church Anglicanism through the use of ‘discussion, writing, preaching and correspondence’. Newman’s efforts helped the church of England refocus it liturgical practices on its historical Catholic foundations51.

The views contained within The Tracts for the Times helped focus the attention of
Anglican clergy on the historical truth that the Church of England by its Episcopal
nature was the inheritor of a fine and noble Catholic heritage. The Tracts focussed on the issues which upmost in the minds of the members of the Oxford Movement,
Apostolic Succession, fasting, the work of the clergy, and the Thirty-Nine Articles’.

Some of the early devotees of the Oxford Movement, as a result of analysing the
theological ideas in the Tracts for the Times, became interested in reviving the
traditional liturgical ritualism of the Church of England’s heritage. They hoped by
re-engaging in liturgical ritualism that they could reinstate a sense of reverence in the ceremonial life in the Church of England. What Newman uniquely provided the Oxford Movement with was a body of writing that supplied a theological justification for the revival of liturgical ritualism.

This formalised an ascetic of holiness based upon the traditional and historical practices of the Catholic origins of the Church of England. Whilst Newman was able to establish a romantic poetry at the centre of liturgical worship for the Oxford Movement through a body of writings called The tracts for the Times Pusey was able to provide it with a spiritual direction through his learned leadership of the movement.


Pr. Pusey was not a theologian who liked to experiment with traditional theology, he was a conservative man of the Anglican establishment who was in a position of
authority as a Professor of History at Oxford University. Pusey’s academic
contributions to liturgical revival was through a 1838 translation of St Augustine’s
Confessions and through his editorship of the 1841 Library of Anglo-Catholic
Theology in his he sought to develop the ideas of seventeenth century High Church
Anglican divines.

Chadwick describes Pusey as a ‘man of aristocracy, a man of wealth
and place; of rare and conscientious learning and accuracy, but withal a simple,
unworldly, otherworldly soul, with a simple unquestioning faith’57. Towards the end of 1834 an event took place by which the course of the Oxford Movement was to change, an that event was the ascension of Pr. Pusey to the leadership position within that movement.

It was Pusey who was to provide the Oxford Movement with the intellectual armaments and with a a high class sophistication that it needed. In the words of the late Bishop of Newcastle Reginald Stephen, ‘no recruit could have been more welcome and more useful’ for the Oxford Movement in its attempt top build a new culture identity for the Church of England. As the embodiment of the spirit of the Oxford Movement through his bringing of an educated passion for all things Catholic in the Church of England from the enclosed walls of Oxford University to the home and hearts of ordinary people Pusey has helped establish a new cultural identity for the people of Great Britain. The ritualistic movement with its ideas spreading widening and deepening as the years wore on was facing difficulties. In 1843 Newman left for Rome and Pusey was suspended from preaching at the Chapels of Oxford from raising the controversial issues that were contained in The Tracts for the Times.


The suspension of Pusey from the pulpits of Oxford University turned out to be a
blessing in disguise for the Oxford Movement as he was availed when they received a distress call form the Vicar of Leeds. The City of Leeds was a city that was undergoing a rapid development and was suffering the difficulties that came about as a result of industrialisation. Pusey was to help the Anglican cause in this city by personally financing the building of St Saviour’s church in Leeds which immediately became what Nicolas Groves calls, ‘the focus for ritualism and controversy’.

This resulted in the development of a second generation of clergy centred around St Saviour’s at Leeds which began to take on the inequalities of the working class society that were living in at Leeds. It was this second generation who about the death of the Oxford Movement in early 1840’s who were to form the basis for the newly a new movement of Tractarian ministers. These ministers blended the passion derived from Keble poetry, the Evangelical technique of Newman and the Catholic social critique of Pusey into the emerging Anglo-Catholic Movement.


As the ritualistic movement developed and evolved the corporate spirituality of the
church gained a greater prominence when compared to the dull and boring
individualistic spirituality that is characteristic of Evangelicalism. The founding fathers of the Oxford Movement believed that they could change the Church of England from a dry social club into a reverent spiritual institution where mystical reverence could inspire people to worship in the holiness of the Lord61.

This approach is explained by Chadwick, ‘the Tractarians wanted the churches to be less like halls of preaching and more like temples where the mystic incense of the heart rose before a throne’. It was these gentlemen who in the words of demanded little more than public worship be conducted reverently and in compliance with the rubrics of the 1662 Prayer Book’. In their agenda the fathers of the Oxford Movement were more than successful for they not only helped established a liturgical revival in the Church of England but also established a new cultural identity of the people of Great Britain.

Their great legacy is still being felt today around the world in through the use of their model of liturgical ritualism not only in the Church of England but in many other denominations as well. The scared agenda of Oxford Movement can be seen to be applied in the historically based liturgical ritualism that has come to define their adherents. Chadwick summarises the theological legacy of the Oxford Movement when he states,

1. High thoughts of the two Sacraments.
2. High estimate of Episcopacy as God’s ordinance.
3. High estimate of the visible church as the Body wherein we are made and continue to be members of Christ.
4. Regard for ordinances, as directing our devotions and disciplining us, such as daily prayers, fast and feasts, etc.
5. Regard for the visible part of devotion, such as the decoration of the house of God, which acts insensibly on the mind.
6. Reverence for and deference to the ancient Church, of which our own Church is looked upon as the representative to us and whose views and doctrines we interpret our own Church… in a word, reference to the ancient Church, instead of the Reformers, as the ultimate expounder of the meaning of our Church’64


These beliefs were nothing more than the redefining by the Oxford Movement in a
contemporary context the ancient values of the Christian Church65. However what was new to the Church of England was the temporal application of these theological positions which was to transform the nature of its worship and cultural identity. This happened with the passing of the leadership of the liturgical revival form the hands of the academics of the Oxford Movement in the hands of the church ministers of the Anglo-Catholic Movement.


This new generation known as the Anglo-Catholic Movement were to blend together the theological insights of the Oxford Movement with the antiquarian architectural revival that was taking place at Cambridge University with the Camden Society. These High Churchmen stood behind a theology that was based upon ‘the German philosophy of the Romantic Age with its religious idealism and its cult of historical development and its admiration for medieval Christendom'.

The Camden Society was to blend the philosophy of European Romanticism with the medieval liturgical practice of the Church of England and this movement was to develop to such a degree that it was to have an enormous impact upon the theological practice of the Church of England. It was the Camden Society along with the Oxford Movement that can be seen as the two main organisations that were too pioneer changes in the liturgical practice of the Church of England during the nineteenth century.

The Camden Society was formed in 1837 as an undergraduate student society at
Cambridge University, dedicated to the historical study of the church architecture and design in Great Britain. The foundational leader of the Camden Society was John Mason Neale, better known for his translation of ancient Greek and Latin prose in hymns, who neglected his studies at university to pursue his antiquarian hobby of church aesthetics.

Whilst Newman and Pusey asked how the doctrinal authority of the Church of England might be bets applied, the question Neale asked was, what is the best
way to bring people to worship in the church. This undergraduate society developed into a more formal society in May of 1839 when Neale and a senior tutor from Trinity College, Thomas Thorpe, constituted formally the Camden Society. Neale was its first leader and Thorp became its patron as it devoted into such an influential institution that within a few years it was to boast in the words of Chadwick, ‘two archbishops, sixteen bishops, thirty-one peers or M.P.s, twenty-one archdeacons and rural deans, sixteen architects, and more than 700 ordinary members’. The cultural influence of the Camden Society can seen in the architecture and design of Anglican churches both in Great Britain and abroad.


The members of the Camden Society were interested in conducting research into all the aesthetic aspects of church architecture and design in Great Britain. It was through the aesthetics of the Church of England that they believed that people might be brought to worship in the splendour of holiness. As Yates explains,
The principle aims of the Cambridge Camden society was to promote the restoration of existing churches, the building of new ones, and the furnishing of both according to its own interpretation of what was correct Gothic architecture’.

As a result of the research of the Camden Society a greater emphasis was placed on the design of church buildings and on the ornaments vestments that were utilised in liturgical worship. The Camden Society was responsible for the introduction of Neo-Gothic architecture and design principles into the Church of England. As such the Camden Society were responsible for establishing a new cultural identity for the Church of England which was uniquely British. This cultural identity was then exported to all corners of the globe as the British Empire expanded during the reign of Queen Victoria and this uniquely British cultural form was used as a connection ]from the British people viewed the rest of the world.


The chief protagonist in defining a set of guiding Neo-Gothic architectural and design principles for church buildings was Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin73. The Camden Society rightly believed that Pugin was correct in his description of the Gothic form as the only true Christian system of architecture and design and they set to work on its introduction in all its aspects of church life74. The Neo-Gothic design theory of Pugin is expressed in around one hundred and fifty buildings he personally designed and many thousands around the world which were based upon his work.

The most significant books which Pugin authored were the 1836 design book Contrasts and the 1843 architectural book An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England. One of the more controversial tasks that the Camden Society set itself too was refurbished churches based upon Neo-Gothic design principle. This can seen through there rebuilding of chancels, a fondness for pointed arches and for the establishment frescoes instead of plain whitewashed walls. These changes were not only have an impact upon the nature of worship in the Church of England by helping it establish a new identity but they were also having an impact upon the lives of ordinary people who worshiped in them.

The influence of Pugin’s Neo-Gothic principles of church architecture and design on the Camden Society were immense. The members of the Camden society earnestly started on a campaign which was to seek change in the internal arrangements of churches. These changes started with the clearing of pews from the chancels so that they might establish proper sanctuaries which contained a raised altar as the central feature of the church. These developments are described by Yates,

Later they advocated the introduction of lecterns, choir stalls in the chapel with robed choristers, lighted candles and frontals on the altar, screens, side chapels, organs removed form the west and gallery to an organ chamber off the chancel, Sedalia and priscinae, credence tables, represented stained glass. These measures were indeed an antiquarian return to the church structures of the
medieval Catholic church in England shortly before the radical changes of the English reformation.

The Camden Society’s battle for reverence to be restored to the Church of England through its architecture and aesthetic design was progressing parallel to the Oxford Movements liturgical reforms. The Camden Society was answering many style questions that the Oxford Movement had raised about how to restore the dignity of the Church of England and of how to worship in the splendour of holiness.

The beliefs and practices of the Camden society were soon to propel them into the age of controversies of the Anglican Church and this would ultimately lead to their demise. St Sepulchre’s Church in Cambridge, also known as the Round Church, was a historical church that has been dated to around the eleventh century. When its tower fell upon its naive the Camden Society enthusiastically undertook the restoration of this historically import church. The Camden Society under Thorp’s guidance not only cleaned and restored both the naïve and the tower but also removed the pews from the chancel and refurbished the naive to suit Pugin’s model of Neo-Gothic church design. They installed a stone altar and credence table in the style of a Roman altar for human sacrifice and this was to cause a major controversy in the Church of England.

The installation of a stone altar and credence table in St Sepulchre’s Church Cambridge was repugnant to its then Vicar R.R. Faulkner who appealed to the Ecclesiastical Courts to overturn the decision to install them in an Anglican church. The verdict of the Ecclesiastical Court is described by the current Vicar of St Sepulchre’s the Rev. Mark Ashton when he states, ‘Faulkner won a great battle in fighting the Camden Society in the Court of Arches that the Church of England could not have a stone altar’. The Court of Arches decision had a devastating effect on the Camden society an ultimately proved to be their downfall as this extended legal battle ultimately sent them bankrupt but the liturgical reveal was to go in other parishes. If anything the defeat of Camden society in the Ecclesiastical Court helped publicise the newly emerging Anglo-Catholic movement that was staring to spreading throughout Great Britain.


The thread that linked the Camden Society with the Oxford Movement was their
common search for a historical authority for the Church of England in its Catholic
origins. The common purpose of these two organisations saw there ideas more to a certain extent with the practices of the Anglo-Catholic ministers who were not a
coherent group of ministers but several groups who wished the Church of England to develop towards a Catholic direction.

The Anglo-Catholic movement was a movement that was defined by the fact that it contains many ordinary clergymen who utilise the controversial liturgical practices that were developed by the Oxford Movement and the Camden Society. These liturgical practices were slow to develop and by the 1840s were, according to Yates,
restricted largely to intoning the services, having lighted candles on the altar and preaching in the surplice, but even these limited innovations were regarded as popish and were enough to cause riots in Exeter in 1845 and 1848, at East Grinstead between 1848 and 1857, at St Barnabas’, Pimlico, in 1850-1 and another London church, St-George’s-in-theEast, in 1859-60.85 Whilst these liturgical developments are by today’s standards only simple and common
measures they were very controversial in there day, yet more controversial practices were soon to be developed. The Anglo-Catholic ministers that were adopting these historical liturgical practices in their churches were rightfully labelled as ritualists.

Many of them took offence to the use of the term which they felt labelled them as
people who were only interested in the ritual and not the spiritual meaning behind the ritual. The main point of the ritualists developments was to bring into line the
liturgical practice of the Church of England into line with the practices of the historical Roman Catholic Church in England. It was from these developments that a standard set of liturgical practices was to develop into a set format which was to raise the standards of reverence in all forms of worship in the Church of England as well as to provide a unique set of practices which help provide a cultural definition for Anglicanism in general.

In 1858 the publication of the Directorium Anglicanum87 gave directions for the use of Catholic ceremonial within the context of the Book of Common Prayer88. The liturgical developments that resulted from the liturgical revivalist movement settled into a pattern so that by the 1860s the Anglo-Catholic parishes could be identified by the use of what has come to known as the six-points services. These six-points of Anglo-Catholicism being,

1. The taking of the eastward position at the Eucharist.
2. The wearing of full Eucharist vestments.
3. The mixing of water with the wine in the chalice.
4. The use of lighted candles on the altar.
5. The use of unleavened of wafer bread in the Eucharist, and
6. The use of incense during services.

The adoption of these Catholic liturgical practices have become the defining
characteristic for Anglo-Catholic parishes from the time of Queen Victoria. The three most popular of these liturgical developments are the use of candles, then mix of wine with water and the facing of an eastward direction for the Eucharist.The wearing of vestments was a major victory for the Anglo-Catholic movement as now it is seen as a standard in both high and low churches for the minister to wear such attire.


The ritualistic movement of the nineteenth century has left an indelible legacy for the Church of England with their greatest contribution being the addition of choral music. The uplifting nature of their ritualised services were complemented by the
implementation of a new style of music into the worship of the Church of England
which was a first for any church in the world. This musical development included the translation of the writings of the ancient Greek and Latin fathers of the church into a musical format by none other than John Mason Neale founder of the Camden Society.

Also many of the Calvinist and Evangelical Hymns were adapted for use by choirs in ritualised services. These both old and new were bundled together and put into print with the publication of Hymns Ancient and Modern93, which is still in use today by many churches both high and low church. The ritualistic use of choral music in the Church of England in which the splendour of holiness is the central characteristic of worship has come to separate high from low church. The development of a new type music especially for use in ritualistic services made the services of the liturgical revival the most power and moving services of their day. This ritualistic use of choral music has spread throughout the whole Anglican Communion and is an essential defining cultural characteristic of the Church of England and its people.

As the ideas and practices of ritualistic movement spread from the inner sanctum to the outer periphery of British society the realised that the current musical used in church services were not going to have an impact upon the lives of the working class.They brought in the newly published Hymns Ancient and Modern which the working class took to and as a result these hymns and the musical format what they support has become as defining cultural characteristic of the people of Great Britain both rich and poor.

As Bowen explains, their use of ceremonial in presenting the Gospel was essentially a means of bringing colour and vividness into the drab courts and alley ways of the slums’. In bringing men and women to worship from the slums of England the Anglo-Catholic movement wished to have an impact not only upon the spiritual live but also upon there temporal existence. They successfully utilised the ritualistic methods both ancient and modern to transform the lives of the working class by adding meaning into there lives. They also proving the working class with clothing, food an through the establishment of educational institutions they help change there financial situation as well.

So therefore in conclusion the ritualistic liturgical revival of the first half of the
nineteenth century successfully restored to the Church of England a deep seated
reverence for worship with a practice were men and women both rich and poor may be able to obtain a mystical immersion in holy splendour of the Lord our God. From its early beginnings in the hallowed halls of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge the ritualistic movement dramatically improved the form of worship in the Church of England.

They achieved their agenda successfully through the restoration of a historical Catholic liturgy based wholly within the social identity of the Anglican tradition with the only addition being the use of choral hymns in their ritualised services.These achievements weren’t without there difficulties but they provided the Church of England with a liturgical spirituality that is second to none in the whole of Christendom. This religious identity for the Church of England also doubles as a cultural identity for the people of Great Britain and it is one that they can truly be proud of.

For this this the founding fathers of the oxford Movement and the Cambridge Camden Society can be thanked and praised for their persistence in resorting a decency and reverence in the liturgical practices of the Church of England. The ritualistic developments of the first half of the nineteenth century have been summed up in the six-points of Anglo-Catholicism and these liturgical developments have transformed have transformed the Church of England into a truly spiritual institution. As a result of its outstanding success the ritualistic liturgical revival has built an everlasting spiritual bridge between the Protestantism of Great Britain and the Catholicism of continental Europe. In this way the liturgical developments of the ritualistic movement have become a via media in which people from both Protestant and Catholic traditions are able to cross and communicate with one another with ease.