The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

This translation is an attempt to make The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity available to the modern reader. Most people know that Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church (1533), that Thomas Cranmer composed the first Book of Common Prayer in the 1550s. Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) was a patron of both William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Richard Hooker (1554-1600). Shakespeare’s work comes to us in relatively short ‘Elizabethan English’ passages. Hooker’s work is in long complicated sentences containing double negatives, and archaic words, so that most modern readers do not want to invest the time and energy necessary to understand The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. However, the work of Cranmer and Hooker is the basis of the Anglican Church today. Together, they make the middle way between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, ‘not as a compromise for the same of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of truth’ (Prayer for Richard Hooker, Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2001 p.401).