Expedient and Experiment

The origins of the most senior office in the Church of England open to a layman, that of lay reader, are obscure. Sir Robert Phillimore confined himself to the observation that the office was ‘one of the five inferior orders of the Roman church’, adding only that in this kingdom, in churches or chapels where there is only a very small endowment, and no clergyman will take upon him the charge or cure thereof, it has been usual to admit readers, to the end that divine service in such places might not altogether be neglected. But when and how did it become ‘usual? There are no references to readers in Edward VI’s Royal Injunctions of 1547, presumably because those holding inferior Roman orders were still legally entitled to exercise their functions. Although the Protestant advances of the next six years removed all such from office there is no sign that the Edwardian regime made any attempt to appoint readers as an emergency or auxiliary measure. Probably there was no immediate need to do so: with the abolition of the chantries in 1549 most chantry priests went on to serve as ‘stipendiaries’, effectively slipping into the ranks of the unbeneficed as ‘curates’. If anything there was a glut in the clerical market between 1549 and the restoration of Catholic orders in 1553

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