Conformist Preaching and the Lectionary in the Church of England, 1645–1660: The View from John Evelyn's Diary

This article is about lectionary usage in the Church of England during the Prayer Book proscription of 1645–60 from the perspective of John Evelyn's Diary . After the Prayer Book was outlawed, those loyal to the Prayer Book liturgy found several ways to circumvent Parliament's restrictions. Key among those coping mechanisms was preaching. John Evelyn's Diary records the dates and texts of the sermons he heard in this period, allowing readers to follow whether preachers were using the lectionary. This article argues that, while it was an important ancillary liturgical text, the lectionary did not form the source of the Scripture used in the majority of conformist sermons Evelyn heard during this period. Rather, a different ancillary text—the calendar—was central to conformist preaching. As a result, the liturgical calendar played a bigger role in an emergent Anglican identity in this period than the practice of lectionary-based preaching.