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The Parson's Handbook is a book byPercy Dearmer, first published in 1899, that was fundamental to the development ofliturgy in theChurch of England and throughout theAnglican Communion.
When he wrote the book, Dearmer was an assistant priest at the Berkeley Chapel in Mayfair.[1]
The 19th-centuryOxford Movement brought thehigh church within the Church of England into a place of confident leadership of the mainstream of the church. By the end of that century, many were struggling to find suitable forms of worship that were at once obedient to the letter of theBook of Common Prayer (if not its intention) and reflected the desire to a return to more Catholic forms of ritual and ceremonial. Some in the church took on board much of the ritual of theTridentine Mass. Dearmer and other members of theAlcuin Club decried this wholesale adaptation of Italianate forms, and they campaigned for a revived English Catholicism that was rooted in pre-Reformation ritual, especially in theSarum Use – something they termed theAnglican Use orEnglish Use.The Parson's Handbook is Dearmer's brotherly advice to fellow churchmen about the correct way to conduct proper and fitting English worship. Dearmer's writing style is strong: he disparages customs he finds quaint or misguided, and makes good use of his subtle wit. Although Dearmer's directions would have originally been considered high church, the popularity of the handbook has made them normative. This norm has been influential throughout those portions of the Anglican Communion that have been open to the development of a more Catholic ritual.
The handbook was first published by Grant Richards in 1899.Oxford University Press published their first edition in 1907. The twelfth edition was published in 1932, four years before Dearmer's death. The final, 13th edition of 1965 was extensively revised and rewritten by Cyril Pocknee, a former pupil of Dearmer's.
The chapter headings according to the 13th revised edition are:
