'For all sorts and conditions of men': The social life of the Book of Common Prayer during the long eighteenth century: Or, bringing the history of religion and social history together

Revisionist interpretations of the eighteenth-century Church of England have had little impact so far on the writing of the social history of the period, largely because historians of religion have tended to focus on the Church as an institution and on the clergy, and social historians often work within a secular paradigm. This article seeks to alert eighteenth-century social historians of the need to take religion seriously, and to encourage a more fruitful dialogue between social history and the history of religion. It argues that the religion of the laity was inculcated, nurtured and sustained through the Book of Common Prayer, and makes a case for the centrality of the Prayer Book in eighteenth-century life. In so doing, the article explores the ways in which the Prayer Book was used and valued by eighteenth-century men and women, examining their attendance at, and participation in, Prayer Book services, as well as its role in rites of passage, in education and in the distribution of charity. That the Book of Common Prayer could inspire both deference and riot says much about its social life, and is indicative of the ways in which religion continued to shape and influence social history.