Edwardine Ordinals

The Edwardine Ordinals are two ordinals primarily written by Thomas Cranmer as influenced by Martin Bucer and first published under Edward VI, the first in 1550 and the second in 1552, for the Church of England. Both liturgical books were intended to replace the ordination liturgies contained within medieval pontificals in use before the English Reformation.

The 1550 ordinal was authorized the year following the first Book of Common Prayer's introduction. The 1552 ordinal's introduction coincided with that of the second Book of Common Prayer. Both prayer books were also largely prepared by Cranmer. The ordinals provided the basis for most Anglican ordination rites until the 20th century and contributed to the development of the Anglican priesthood from "sacerdotal" and "intercessory" into a "preaching, catechizing, and protestant ministry". They also formed the basis for both the Vestiarian Controversy and, much later, some of the debate over the validity of Anglican holy orders and the subsequent 1896 papal bull Apostolicae curae where they were declared "absolutely null and utterly void" by the Catholic Church.

Medieval ordination liturgies

The word ordinal in the medieval period, rather than applying to a liturgical book containing the rites of ordination, was the title given to a text associated with the recitation of the canonical hours that was eventually assimilated into the breviary. While it is the typical modern name in reference to texts containing ordinations, it was probably not until John Bramhall's 1636 The Consecration and Succession of Protestant Bishops Justified that ordinal was used in this context.

Prior to the English Reformation, the liturgies of ordination–for the conferral of holy orders–in the Latin liturgical rites were contained within several versions the pontifical, most prominently the Roman Pontificals of the Roman Rite and the Sarum Pontifical of the Sarum Use.