The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England together with the Psalter or Psalms of David pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches; and the form and manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, priests, and deacons, better known simply as The Book of Common Prayer, or even more simply the BCP was published on Whitsunday in 1549. Or, by our more common reckoning, 9 June 1549. That is today, four hundred, and sixty-seven years ago.
It is one of the true masterworks of the English language. After the King James Bible, and I would say ahead of the writings of Shakespeare, it is central to the tropes and images of what we call English. For instance some of the more obvious example listed in the Wikipedia article on the BCP:
“Speak now or forever hold your peace” from the marriage liturgy.
“Till death us do part”, from the marriage liturgy.[e]
“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” from the funeral service.
“From all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil” from the litany.
“Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” from the collect for the second Sunday of Advent.
“Evil liver” from the rubrics for Holy Communion.
“All sorts and conditions of men” from the Order for Morning Prayer.
“Peace in our time” from Morning Prayer, Versicles.
The article continues, “P.D. James wrote “We can recognize the Prayer Book’s cadences in the works of Isaac Walton and John Bunyan, in the majestic phrases of John Milton, Sir Thomas Browne and Edward Gibbon. We can see its echo in the works of such very different writers as Daniel Defoe, Thackeray, the Brontës, Coleridge, T. S. Eliot and even Dorothy L. Sayers.”(James 2011, p. 48) James herself used phrases from the Book of Common Prayer and made them into bestselling titles—Devices and Desires and The Children of Men, while Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 film Children of Men placed the phrase onto cinema marquees worldwide.”
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