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'THE BANGOR MISSAL' In 1549 the first Book of Common Prayer was imposed on all churches which owned the supremacy of the Crown, bringing to them, along with a simplified rite in English, uniformity of worship. Previously in Wales, in North Wales at any rate, divine service had been conducted in accordance with the liturgical practices or use of the diocese of Bangor. So much is to be gathered from a passage, usually ascribed to Archbishop Cranmer, in the Preface to that first Prayer Book, a passage which has been left untouched in substance by subsequent revisions. It runs: Heretofore there hath been great diuersitie in saying and synging in churches within this realme some folowyng Salsbury vse, some Herford vse, some the vse of Bangor, some of Yorke, & some of Lincolne When the Tractarian Movement had quickened an interest in the pre-Reformation service-books, these words suggested to William Maskell the plan, to say nothing of providing the exordium, of his Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England. Published in 18441, the work consists for the most part of an exposition in parallel columns of the Ordinary and Canon of the Mass extracted from a late edition of the reformed (Tridentine) Roman missal and from copies of such of the native mass- books as were available in print, namely, those of Sarum, York, and Hereford. No printed Bangor or Lincoln missal could be found but whereas Maskell gave up the latter use for lost, he produced a text which he claimed might reasonably be regarded as that of Bangor from a manuscript in his own possession. The manuscript has since become widely known as the' Bangor Missal.' It is a handsome folio volume of 261 vellum leaves, written in this island about the middle of the fifteenth century2 and illuminated in the characteristic style of the time. Apart from the loss of a leaf in the Sanctorale3 and the scars due to the erasure or cancellation (in accordance with the royal proclamation of 9 June, 1535, and 16 November, 1538) of every reference to the bishop of Rome' and St. Thomas of Canterbury, the manuscript is almost without blemish. More comprehensive than many missals, it embraces matter often reserved for the manual, such as the Orders of Matrimony and for the Visitation of the Sick, the Burial Service, Churching, and miscellaneous benedictions. From William Maskell it passed into the library of Henry Huth4 and Alfred Henry Huth,5 and thence, by way of the collection of John Meade Falkner,6 to the National Library of Wales, where it is N.L.W. MS. 492. 1 The third and latest (1882) edition is quoted and referred to in this article. 2 If it may be mentioned without anticipating my main conclusion, I would point out that the Sanctorale includes offices for SS. David, Chad, and Winifred, all formally added to the Sarum Calendar in 1415, as also for St. John of Beverley, added in 1416. SS. David and Chad alone appear in our Calendar. 3 After f. 32. Maskell overlooked this defect, a note on a fly-leaf at the beginning of the MS. reading Perfect, W.M." 4 The MS. contains his bookplate and is briefly described in The Huth Library, 1880, iii, p. 981. 5 Sale-cat., 6 July, 1916, lot 5036. 8 Sale-cat., 13 December, 1932, lot 296,