The Edwardine Ordinals are two ordinals primarily written by Thomas Cranmer as influenced by Martin Bucer and first published under Edward VI, the first in 1550 and the second in 1552, for the Church of England. Both liturgical books were intended to replace the ordination liturgies contained within medieval pontificals in use before the English Reformation.
Title page of the 1550 Edwardine Ordinal
An early 16th-century illuminated Roman Pontifical
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury
Edward VI, who authorized the production of both ordinals, was 9 years old when he became king in 1547.
An ordinal, in a modern context, is a liturgical book that contains the rites and prayers for the ordination and consecration to the Holy Orders of deacons, priests, and bishops in multiple Christian denominations, especially the Edwardine Ordinals within Anglicanism. The term "ordinal" has been applied to the prayers and ceremonies for ordinations in the Catholic Church, where the pontificals of the Latin liturgical rites typically compile them along with other liturgies exclusive to bishops. In medieval liturgies, ordinals supplied instruction on how to use the various books necessary to celebrate a liturgy and added rubrical direction.
Copies of the Scottish Liturgy 1982 and 2006 edition of the Scottish Ordinal 1984
