Anglican Catechism (within the Book of Common Prayer)
A Catechism, That Is to Say, An Instruction to Be Learned of Every Person before He Be Brought to Be Confirmed by the Bishop
Question: What is thy duty towards thy Neighbour? Answer: My duty towards my Neighbour is to love him as myself.
What it is
The Anglican Catechism was the formal instrument for preparing royal children for confirmation, covering the Creed, Ten Commandments, Lord's Prayer, and Sacraments in a compact question-and-answer format. Victoria and Albert's children received this instruction under chaplain Charles Tarver and other Windsor clergy, with Cecil Frances Alexander's 'Hymns for Little Children' (1848) serving as a companion designed by Keble to illuminate the catechism's Creed and Commandments through verse. Its reach was not merely royal: the BCP Catechism was the universal baseline for Anglican confirmation preparation across England and the empire throughout the nineteenth century. The text's brevity and clarity made it equally suitable for family instruction as for formal classroom or chapel use.
Why it still matters
The BCP Catechism's questions and answers — covering the Creed, Commandments, Lord's Prayer, and Sacraments — remain a complete primer for Christian formation that parents and teachers can use today exactly as Victorian royal chaplains used it, requiring no adaptation beyond willingness to engage its directness.
Kept alongside
Luther's Small Catechism
Der Kleine Katechismus
Written in 1529 as a household guide for fathers to teach their children the essentials of Protestant faith, the Small Catechism covers the Ten Commandments, Apostles' Creed, Lord's Prayer, Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and daily prayers in a question-and-answer format designed for memorization. Duke Albrecht von Hohenzollern commissioned its translation into Old Prussian in 1545, printed by Hans Weinreich in Königsberg — the oldest printed books in that language — making vernacular catechetical instruction a cornerstone of the duchy's Reformation. Frederick the Great's 1763 General-Land-Schul-Reglement explicitly mandated Luther's Small Catechism in all Prussian schools, cementing it as the primary doctrinal formation text for Hohenzollern subjects across three centuries. It remains the most widely used Protestant catechism in the world and a living document in Lutheran congregations globally.
Luther's A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
Luther composed this psalm-hymn based on Psalm 46 between approximately 1527 and 1529—prior to, not during, his sojourn at Coburg castle. During the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, Luther stayed at the Veste Coburg and sang the hymn daily there, accounts describing him at his castle window with his lute, so that the fortress and the hymn became inseparably linked in Lutheran memory. In the Ernestine duchy of Saxe-Coburg, the heartland of the early Lutheran movement, this hymn was woven into court and church identity from the Reformation forward. Prince Albert was baptised and confirmed Lutheran in Coburg, and this hymn would have been central to his early formation before his reception into the Anglican world at his marriage.
The Imitation of Christ
De Imitatione Christi
Written by Thomas à Kempis in the Netherlands in the circle of the Brethren of the Common Life — the same Devotio Moderna movement that directly shaped Margaret of York's documented devotional practice and the piety of Isabella of Portugal at the Burgundian court — the Imitation became the most copied vernacular religious text in 15th-century Europe, circulating in thousands of manuscripts and hundreds of early printed editions. Its four books move from the vanity of worldly learning through conformity to Christ, inward consolation, and finally the sacrament of the Eucharist, forming a complete program of interior conversion. No specific ducal inventory copy has been identified linking this text to Valois-Burgundy by name, but its presence in court circles of this era and region is established through movement history rather than document. It remains the second most widely read Christian book after the Bible.