St Enurchus, who had appeared in this form of the name in the Prayer
Book of 1604, and still earlier in the Kalendar of the _Preces Privatae_
(which had been issued, as _Regia authoritate approbatae_, in 1564), is
obviously a faulty form, arising from an error of transcription, for
St Euurtius. The first letter _u_, after the initial _E_, was read as
_n_ (the confusion of _u_ and _n_ is one of the most frequent of the
errors of copyists), and the _ti_ (in a manner not surprising to those
familiar with sixteenth century script) was apparently read as _ch_. It
may be added that Bede and Alban had also appeared in the Kalendar of
the _Preces Privatae_. We have stated that St Enurchus appears in the
Kalendar of the Prayer Book of 1604, and it was introduced then as the
only addition to the black-letter saints of the Kalendar of 1561. It is
perhaps impossible to account for its introduction; but the conjecture
has been offered that it was inserted to fill the gap caused by the
omission of the Nativity of Queen Elizabeth which had formerly occupied
Sept. 7[176].
The above are not the only errors of our present Kalendar. The revisers
of 1661 added explanatory comments to the names of the saints, and in
doing so have sometimes blundered. Thus they found ‘Cyprian’ at Sept. 26,
and they added ‘Archbishop of Carthage and Martyr.’ If they had taken
the trouble to look at the old Sarum or York Kalendars they would have
seen that the Cyprian commemorated on this day was the converted magician
of Antioch. This error is probably to be traced to Cosin’s _Devotions_
(1627).
It must be confessed that the black-letter saints of the modern English
Kalendar form by no means an ideal presentation of the worthies and
heroes of the Church Catholic. The Bishop of Salisbury (J. Wordsworth)
has some admirable remarks on the future reform of our English Kalendar
in his _Ministry of Grace_ (pp. 421-425).
Certain errors in the placing of the Golden Numbers in the Kalendar of
the Prayer Book of 1662 for the month of January were soon discovered.
They are noticed in Nicholl’s _Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer_
(1712).
Among the red-letter days of 1662 were ‘King Charles. Martyr’ (Jan.
30), ‘King Charles II. Nativity and Restoration’ (May 29), ‘Papists’
Conspiracy’ (Nov. 5). These days have the authority of the Act of
Uniformity of 1662, all of them appearing in the Book annexed to the
Act. On the authority of a Royal Warrant (Jan. 17, 1859), the legal
sufficiency of which has been questioned, these days have ceased to be
entered in the Kalendars of modern Prayer Books.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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