The Book of Common Order, originally titled The Forme of Prayers, is a liturgical book by John Knox written for use in the Reformed denomination. The text was composed in Geneva in 1556 and was adopted by the Church of Scotland in 1562. In 1567, Séon Carsuel (John Carswell) translated the book into Scottish Gaelic under the title Foirm na n-Urrnuidheadh. His translation became the first Gaelic text to be printed in Scotland. In 1996 the Church of Scotland produced "Leabhar Sheirbheisean", a Gaelic supplement to the Book of Common Order.
History
Composition in Frankfurt and Geneva
When Mary I ascended to the throne in July 1553 upon the death of Edward VI, she began a campaign to restore Catholicism to England. Several hundred wealthy Protestants fled Britain, and around 200 settled in Frankfurt in June 1554. The group in Frankfurt included a mix of Anglicans and Calvinists, and John Knox was called on to serve as their minister. The congregation was unable to agree whether to use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer or John Calvin's Catéchisme de l'Église de Genève, as translated by William Huycke in 1550 as The Form of Common Prayers Used in the Churches of Geneva. The congregation decided to write a new liturgical book, and in January 1555 Knox and three other Calvinists composed a text based on Huycke's translation. The Anglican component of the group disliked the text and it went largely unused. A new group consisting of the Calvinists Knox and Whittingham, and the Anglicans Parry and Lever wrote another text, based on the Book of Common Prayer, that was accepted by the congregation. In March of that year, a new contingent of Anglicans arrived and forced Knox out.
Knox moved to Geneva, and along with a group of English exiles, formed a new congregation at Notre-Dame-la-Neuve Chapel. The congregation devised a new liturgy based on the rejected manuscript the Knox group wrote in January 1555. The text was printed by Jean Crespin and was completed on 10 February 1556 under the title The Forme of Prayers.
Adoption in Scotland
After Mary I died in November 1558, the Protestant exiles began to return to Britain and brought with the Forme of Prayers. Knox returned to Scotland in May 1560. By 1562 the new Church of Scotland adopted the text, which is called the Book of Common Order. The first Scottish editions were printed in 1564.
The Genevan Book of Order, sometimes called The Order of Geneva or Knox's Liturgy, is a directory for public worship in the Reformed Church of Scotland. In 1557 the Scottish Protestant lords in council enjoined the use of the English Common Prayer, i.e. the Second Book of Edward VI of 1552. Meanwhile, at Frankfurt, among the English Protestant exiles, there was a controversy between the upholders of the English liturgy and the French Reformed Order of Worship. By way of compromise, John Knox and other ministers drew up a new liturgy based upon earlier Continental Reformed Services, which was not deemed satisfactory, but which on his removal to Geneva he published in 1556 for the use of the English congregations in that city.
The Geneva book made its way to Scotland and was used by some Reformed congregations there. Knox's return in 1559 strengthened its position, and in 1562 the General Assembly enjoined the uniform use of it as the Book of Our Common Order in the administration of the Sacraments and Solemnization of Marriages and Burials of the Dead. In 1564 a new and enlarged edition was printed in Edinburgh, and the Assembly ordered that every Minister, exhorter and reader should have a copy and use the Order contained therein not only for marriage and the sacraments but also in prayer, thus ousting the hitherto permissible use of the Second Book of Edward VI at ordinary service.