Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Book of Common Prayer. In 1549, at the height of the English Reformation, a new prayer book was published containing versions of the liturgy in English. Generally believed to have been supervised by Thomas Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer was at the centre of the decade of religious turmoil that followed, and disputes over its use were one of the major causes of the English Civil War in the 1640s. The book was revised several times before the celebrated final version was published in 1662. It is still in use in many churches today, and remains not just a liturgical text of great importance but a literary work of profound beauty and influence.

With:

Diarmaid MacCulloch
Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford

Alexandra Walsham
Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge

Martin Palmer
Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education, and Culture

Producer: Thomas Morris.