Correspondence

Correspondence

To the Editor of The Library

Sir,

I hope you will allow me to comment on two minor points raised by B. J. McMullin in his admirably penetrating review article, 'The Book of Common Prayer and the Bibliographer' (The Library, vii, 6 (2005), 425–54).

In his introductory remarks McMullin refers to the irony of 'a secular marriage service in the local park relying (unknowingly?) on the 1662 manifestation of the Anglican prayer book for expressions such as "to have and to hold", "for better for worse", "to love and to cherish", "till death us do part", "in sickness and in health", etc.' (p. 426). It is common knowledge that the fourth of those phrases is merely a 1662 modernization of 'til death vs departe', which had remained unchanged in all but spelling since Cranmer's first Book of Common Prayer of 1549. What seems to be less well known is that the only phrase of the five that may possibly have originated with Cranmer is the third: 'to loue and to cherishe'. The other four are all much older.

On 7 March 1515 a young grocer of London named George Gowsell and one Alice Imber remained behind in church after the morning mass, together with another grocer, Robert Miller, who had agreed to act as witness. When the three were alone, George and Alice exchanged handclasps, marriage vows, and a token: a noble (a coin worth 6s. 8d.), bent around a black lace. The wedding had to be secret because Alice was a ward of the City, and the couple had not sought (and evidently would not have been granted) permission to marry. On the 15th Miller made a sworn statement before the Court of Aldermen, during which he recited the words that George had spoken for Alice to repeat: 'I alys take the George to my weddyd husbond for better for worse for Richer for porer in sekenes & in helthe tyll dethe vs departe & therto I plyght the my trouthe' (Corporation of London Records Office, Rep. 3, fol. 14^r–v). And the first Book of Common Prayer was still thirty-four years in the future.

What tends to get overlooked is that even though most of the liturgy was in Latin before the Reformation, certain parts of some services (especially those for baptism and marriage) were necessarily in the vernacular: unless a celebrant understood what he or she had been asked, an answer of 'I will' would be meaningless. And by the same token the marriage vows themselves had to be intelligible to those exchanging them. So every part of Christendom had its own traditional vernacular marriage vows, and in most cases their date of origin can only be guessed.

The texts presented in parallel below are four English versions of the man's vow, taken respectively from Cranmer's 1549 Book of Common Prayer (C: STC 16267, sig. Cc2^r), a Sarum missal (S) printed in Paris in 1497 (STC 16169, sig. e1^v), a Hereford missal (H) printed in Rouen in 1502 (STC 16163, sig. N1^v), and a York manual (Y) printed in 1509, probably in Paris (STC 16160, sig. c6^r). In the Hereford version 'y' doubles as thorn and 'z' as yogh; where appropriate I have rendered them as th and gh respectively.

C I. N. take thee. N. to my wedded wife,		to haue & to holde
S I. N. take the. N. to my vvedded vvyfe.		to have and to hold.
H I N vnderfynge the. N. for my vvedded. vvyf.
Y Here I take the. N. to my wedded wyfe/		to haue and to holde
C from this day forwarde,
S fro this day forvvard
H
Y	at Bedde/ and at Borde/ For fayrer/ for fouler/
C for better, for wurse	for richer, for poorer,	in sickenes, and in health,
S for bettir for vvurs.	for richer for porer.	yn syknys an yn...