Book of Common Prayer Imposed

June 9, 1549

Thomas Cranmer's English-language Book of Common Prayer became mandatory in every parish church in England. The cadences of morning and evening prayer, the marriage service, and the burial rite would echo through English literature for four centuries, even as peasants in Devon and Cornwall rose in armed protest. Cranmer's sonorous prose shaped the English language as profoundly as Shakespeare, its cadences echoing in Anglican worship worldwide.