Letter: Anglican language

Sir: As well as in university colleges and halls (Oxford and Cambridge are not specifically named), the Canon Law of the Church of England (Canon B 42) allows the use of Latin versions of the Book of Common Prayer in the Convocation of the province, university churches, the colleges of Westminster, Eton and Winchester "and in such other places of religious and sound learning as the bishop or other Ordinary may permit" (letter, 8 November).

The Act of Uniformity of 1548, which introduced the first English Prayer Book of 1549, permitted all of the services except "the Holy Communion commonly called the Mass" to be said in Greek, Latin or Hebrew in the universities, and for any man to read Mattins or Evensong in those or "any other strange tongue" he might understand.

The Act of Uniformity of 1662, which introduced the current version, instructed the Bishops of Hereford, St David's, Asaph, Bangor and Llandaff to have the Prayer Book translated into Welsh, and to use that language wherever it was the common tongue. The translation appeared in 1664.

Authorised French translations of the Book of Common Prayer were published in London in 1616 and 1667 for use in the Channel Islands, which are "annexed to the diocese of Winchester". I have one printed at the Oxford University Press in 1839.

The Rev ALAN WALKER

London NW11