As an eighteenth-centuryist by training and an Anglican priest by vocation, I am sorry to say I had never run across Fr. Woodforde’s diary. But I have dutifull

As an eighteenth-centuryist by training and an Anglican priest by vocation, I am sorry to say I had never run across Fr. Woodforde’s diary. But I have dutifully ordered a copy and look forward to digging into it. I did find it interesting to note that he “noted down prayers for the recently deceased.” This certainly would not have been a feature of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer which he would have used, and, in fact, many of the English reformers had taken great pains to try to stamp out prayers for the dead. But here is a country parson in what is generally considered one of the low points of the English Church praying for the dead. Guess it goes to show that, regardless of what the official position may be on such matters, there is still a residual observance of such forms of obsequy. (And it’s worth noting that the vast majority of BCPs have come around on that question and have re-introduced prayers for the dead.) For anyone interested in the observances of another country priest, I highly recommend Eamon Duffy’s Voices of Morebath, a diary of a priest who recorded his life before the Reformation, then through the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and (IIRC) into the reign of Elizabeth. It’s a fascinating account of a priest trying to do his best amidst the “changes and chances” of those turbulent times. Fascinating reading.