A GOODLY PRIMER IN ENGLISH, NEWLY CORRECTED AND PRINTED, With certain godly Meditations and Prayers added to the same, very necessary and profitable for all them that right assuredly understand not the Latin and Greek Tongues. Cum privilegio regali. Church of England. Liturgy and ritual. Primer THREE PRIMERS PUT FORTH IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. VIZ. I. A GOODLY PRYMER, 1535. II. THE MANUAL OF PRAYERS OR THE PRYMER IN ENGLISH, 1539. III. KING HENRY'S PRIMER, 1545. MINNESOTA OXFORD, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. CAMP PREFACE. THE first of the three Primers contained in this volume was printed in 1535: and though it was by no means the earliest book, which bore the name of Primer, it has been selected for republication on account of its antiquity, and the importance of its contents. The word Primer appears to have been in use long before the date mentioned above, and to have been applied to a first or elementary book, which was put into the hands of children a. The term was perhaps sometimes applied to a mere spelling-book, or to any book which was used for teaching children to read : but it seems generally to have conveyed the notion of religious instruction. The lessons were taken from the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Ave Maria, or from some other common formulary, with short and easy explanations, for the use of young beginners, or for private devotion. In course of time, the word came to have a still more limited meaning, as applied to offices of religion, and was analogous to the modern term Prayer-Book, with the exception that a Primer was a At the beginning of the second Primer printed in this volume, we find the following sentence: " I have here set forth a rude work, whom it hath pleased me to call the Manual of Prayers, because it is so commonly had in hand with the people, which before was called the Prymer, because (I suppose) that it " is the first book that the tender youth was instructed in." 66 a JUN 4 '24 Allen 2,64 314581 |