British state prayers, fasts and thanksgivings 1540s to 1940s

从16世纪40年代到20世纪40年代的400年里，英国君主和英国政府召集全国人民进行特殊的公共崇拜。这些场合大多没有被研究过，它们的悠久历史——早期现代和近代之间的显著连续性——仍然模糊不清。该项目首次汇集了这些特殊纪念活动的信息和文本，定义了它们的性质和目的，并展示了它们更广泛的宗教、政治和文化意义。在国家受到威胁或庆祝的时候（如阴谋、恶劣天气、军事胜利、王室出生），国家在普通的教堂仪式中增加了特别的祈祷。在特别焦虑或重大的时刻（战争、流行病、饥荒、叛乱失败、和平条约、王室禧年），人们会留出一整天来禁食、羞辱或感恩，用特殊的礼拜仪式取代祈祷书的服务。有些场合——查理一世的“殉难”、复辟、火药叛乱和光荣革命、君主登基——成为了一年一度的宗教纪念活动。直到19世纪50年代，特殊的“日子”通常被规定为工作日，要求停止世俗的工作。在二十世纪初，他们被重新作为国家祈祷日，在星期日举行，最后一次是在1947年。国教祈祷和国教日是全国性的活动，英格兰和威尔士的每个教区都有国教祈祷和国教日，苏格兰和爱尔兰从17世纪开始也有国教祈祷和国教日。它们是重要的场合，具有丰富的意义、目的和后果。最基本的是，它们记录了公众宗教、道德、政治和社会焦虑或庆祝的高峰。更深入地说，国家命令和祈祷形式表达了官方对特定世俗事件和自然事件的宗教信仰。它们是政府的力量和坚持的主要证据，政府承认上帝对英国（后来的英国）的监督，并相信特殊的天意干预可以通过全体人民的联合祈祷来缓解或促进。国家祈祷和国定日是形成国家认同观念的核心在新教，虔诚和神圣的天意方面，并有助于巩固英国国家的观念。它们具有相当大的政治和社会意义，向当地社区传播新闻，并促使官方批准参与公共问题。与每年的纪念活动一起，它们阐明了教会与国家的关系：行使王权，部长对宗教事务的决定，以及高级神职人员（在苏格兰是大会）在公共生活中的作用。在政治争论的时候，它们长期以来引起了国教和非国教之间的紧张关系，直到20世纪成为普世合作的机会。虽然研究了年度纪念活动的特点，但很少研究特殊场合，没有清单存在，也从未调查过它们的全部历史。这个项目将出版一个版本，其中载有祈祷者和祈祷日的完整清单（编号约450）和祈祷顺序和形式的摘录。一个合著的专著将分析这些文本，产生它们的条件和它们所引起的反应，揭示很多关于宗教和政治教义，国家意识形态的“投射”，以及大众的宗教信仰。它将为特定的政治和宗教事件以及英国新教国家与教会联盟的特征提供一个新的视角。一卷论文将探讨他们在四个世纪的政治，宗教和文化研究的更广泛的意义。

For four hundred years, from the 1540s to the 1940s, English monarchs and British governments summoned the nation to special acts of public worship. Most of these occasions are unstudied, and their long history -- a remarkable continuity between early-modern and recent times -- remains obscure. This project brings together for the first time information and texts for these special observances, defines their nature and purposes, and demonstrates their wider religious, political and cultural significance.At times of national threat or celebration (e.g. conspiracies, bad weather, military victories, royal births) the state added special prayers to ordinary church services. At especially anxious or momentous times (war, epidemics, dearth; defeat of rebellions, peace treaties, royal jubilees) whole days were set aside for either fasting and humiliation or thanksgiving, with special liturgies superseding the Prayer Book services. Some occasions -- Charles I's 'martyrdom', the Restoration, Gunpowder Treason and the Glorious Revolution, the monarch's accession -- became annual religious commemorations. Until the 1850s, special 'days' were usually ordered for weekdays, requiring cessation of secular work. In the early twentieth century they were revived as national days of prayer, held on Sundays, the last in 1947. State prayers and days were national events, reaching into every parish in England and Wales, and from the seventeenth century Scotland and Ireland. They were significant occasions, rich in meaning, purpose and consequence. Most basically, they register peaks of public religious, moral, political and social anxiety or celebration. More deeply, the state orders and forms of prayer express official religious belief about particular secular events and natural occurrences. They are prime evidence for the force and persistence of government acknowledgement of divine superintendence over the English, later British, nation, and belief in special providential interventions that could be assuaged or prompted by the united prayers of the whole people. State prayers and days were central in shaping ideas of national identity in terms of Protestantism, godliness and divine providence, and helped consolidate the idea of a British state. They had considerable political and social significance, in communicating news to local communities and eliciting officially sanctioned participation in public issues. Together with the annual commemorations they illuminate church-state relations: exercise of the royal supremacy, ministerial decisions on religious matters, and the higher clergy's (in Scotland the General Assembly's) role in public life. At times occasions of political contention, they long aroused tension between the established churches and dissenters, until becoming opportunities for ecumenical co-operation in the twentieth century.Although features of the annual commemorations have been examined, few special occasions have been studied, no list exists and their full history has never been investigated. This project will produce an edition containing a complete list of prayers and days (numbering c. 450) and extracts from the orders and forms of prayer. A co-authored monograph will analyse these texts, the conditions which produced them and the responses they evoked, revealing much about religious and political doctrine, state ideological 'projection', and popular religiosity. It will provide a fresh perspective on particular political and religious episodes and on the character of the British Protestant alliance between state and church. A volume of essays will explore their wider significance for studies in politics, religion and culture over the four centuries.