Melting flesh, living words

Abstract

This essay argues that the Book of Common Prayer offered new ways to think about the flesh in Reformation England. Whereas the medieval liturgy emphasized the physical vitalism of Christ’s body and blood, the Anglican liturgy defined ‘flesh’ in the context of an ecclesiastical community characterized by linguistic transparency and textual communion. To chart this movement from fleshly presence to spiritual mystery, I show how the rubrics, ornamentations and texts of both the medieval Mass books and the reformed Book of Common Prayer iterated contrasting conceptions of the flesh that emerged from traditional and reformed sacramental theologies. I conclude by showing how secular institutions, namely the anatomy theater and the early modern stage, pressured such a reformation of the flesh by making the physical materiality of flesh, blood and wounds the focus of their spectacles.