I am fairly new to the art of using a smartphone, which I call my “pocket computer that happens also to be a telephone”. I am of a generation (born 1959) that knew the pocket calculator as the nec plus ultra of modern technology. Calculators are now sold for an amount that a child can afford from pocket money – and still have enough to buy sweets! I don’t play games, but I have quite a few applications like sea navigation, road navigation, tides, weather, detecting ships at sea through their AIS signals, internet, Kindle with various books I don’t have in paper form. The possibilities are endless, depending on what interests you.

I have discovered a way to consult the Sarum ordo on my smartphone:

Go to More Documents on Dr William Renwick’s site The Sarum Rite. Download the Ordo of the desired year. Kalendar 2017 is valid until 31st December 2017, by which time Dr Renwick will have produced the Ordo for 2018. Download it onto your computer.

Open a link between your computer and your smartphone, usually via the cable you got with the smartphone for recharging the battery and transferring data. Put the pdf file into a suitable directory on your phone’s SD disk. Go into the directory via “My files” and touch the filename. Touch “share” and choose Kindle, having already installed Kindle on your smartphone. After a few seconds, the ordo will be visible on your Kindle screen offering you the choice of books you have. You can then read and bookmark the ordo at the place you want, so that you don’t have to search for the date each time, just like any Kindle book.

It will appear very small on your phone’s screen, so you will need to view it in landscape rather than portrait. You then finger it around as you need to.

There are applications for the new and old Roman calendars, which you can download once they become available in November. But, this is a way to bring Sarum into the twenty-first century! The dates are given following the Gregorian Calendar, even though it was only introduced in England in 1752. This is an example of practical reality against a narrow view of authenticity.

I found this timeline also on Dr Renwick’s site. I reproduce the nineteenth and twentieth century up to our own time part, which is illuminating. With this much interest, I hardly see the Use as being dead!

1836: John Henry Newman, ‘The Roman Breviary as Embodying the Substance of the Devotional Services of the Catholic Church’ (Tracts for the Times)

1842-43: Portiforii Sarum (Seager).

1846: The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England; Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae. (Maskell).

1849-54: The Church of our Fathers (Rock).

1850: The Psalter Noted (A Manual of Plainsong) Helmore.

1851: Hymnarium Sarisburiense; The Hymnal Noted (Neale).

1852: The Psalter (Chambers); Medieval Hymns and Sequences (Neale).

1861: Hymns Ancient and Modern.

1861-83: Missale Sarum (ed. Dickinson).

1862-1878: extensive restoration of the cathedral by G. G. Scott.

1874: Breviary Offices (Neale).

1877: New Willis organ; Divine Worship in England (Chambers).

1879-86: Breviarium Sarisburiense (Procter).

1881: Hymns Ancient and Modern

1882: Processionale Sarum (Henderson).

1884: The Sarum Missal in English (Pearson).

1894: Graduale Sarisburiensefacsimile.

1898-1091: The Use of Sarum (Frere).

ca. 1900-1930: Palmer editions of the Sarum Use in English.

1901: Ceremonies and Processions (Wordsworth).

1901-24: Antiphonale Sarisburiense facsimile.

1906: The English Hymnal.

1911: The Sarum Missal in English (Warren).

1912-13: Old Sarum Cathedral foundations excavated.

1916: The Sarum Missal (Legg).

1971: The Processions of Sarum (Bailey).

1984-99: The Use of Salisbury (Sandon).

2006-: The Sarum Rite (Renwick).

2008: New font installed in Salisbury Cathedral (located several bays to the east of the original font).

2011-13: The Sarum Customary Online (Harper).