'The Canon of the Mass' in Anglican Liturgy

Q. Does the term 'Canon of the Mass' have an Anglican precedent? Has it a legitimate usage in the liturgical and theological language of orthodox Anglicanism?

A. Yes. The term 'Canon' belongs the earliest stage of the formation of the Eucharistic Liturgy in the Western Rite, when the Western Church was in full communion with the rest of the ancient Undivided Church:

Canon (Canon Missæ, Canon Actionis) is the name used for the fundamental part of the Mass that comes after the Offertory and before the Communion. The old distinction, in all liturgies, is between the Mass of the Catechumens (the litanies, lessons from the Bible, and collects) and the Mass of the Faithful (the Offertory of the gifts to be consecrated, Consecration prayer, Communion, and dismissal). Our Canon is the Consecration prayer, the great Eucharistic prayer in the Mass of the Faithful. The name Canon (kanon) means a norm or rule; and it is used for various objects, such as the Canon of Holy Scripture, canons of Councils, the official list of saints' names (whence 'canonisation'), and the canon or list of clerks who serve a certain church, from which they themselves are called canons (canonici).

Chiefly, and now universally in the West, it is the name for the Eucharistic prayer in the Holy Liturgy. In this sense it occurs in the letters of Saint Gregory I; the Gelasian Sacramentary puts the heading Incipit Canon Actionis before the Sursum Corda, the word occurs several times in the first Roman Ordo (quando inchoat canonem, finito vero canone); since the seventh century it has been the usual name for this part of the Mass.

One can only conjecture the original reason for its use. Walafrid Strabo says: 'This action is called the Canon because it is the lawful and regular confection of the Sacrament'; It has been suggested that our present Canon was a compromise between the older Greek Anaphoras and variable Latin Eucharistic prayers formerly used in Rome, and that it was ordered in the fourth century, possibly by Pope Damasus (366-684). The name Canon would then mean a fixed standard to which all must henceforth conform, as opposed to the different and changeable prayers used before. In any case it is noticeable that whereas the lessons, collects and Preface of the Mass constantly vary, the Canon is almost unchangeable in every Mass. Another name for the Canon is Actio. Agere, like the Greek dran, is often used as meaning to sacrifice. Saint Leo I, in writing to Dioscurus of Alexandria, uses the expression in qua agitur, meaning 'in which Mass is said'. Other names are Legitimum, Prex, Agenda, Regula, Secretum Missæ.

In Anglicanism specifically, the term is used in the 1549 English Book of Common Prayer, the First English Prayer Book of the Church of England. The title for the Eucharistic liturgy as a whole is: The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion, commonly called the MASS. In the 1549 BCP liturgy called The Celebration of the Holy Communion for the Sick, reference is made to the sursum corda and the Eucharistic Prayer, which continues, we are told by rubric: Unto the end of the CANON. Hence the term 'The Canon of the Mass' is historically part of the Common Prayer Book tradition.