Saturday Rave: The Book of Common Prayer, edited by Thomas Cranmer.

England, having thrown off the authority of the Pope in the 1530s, was in need of some new religious rules to support the revised political order and its consequent belief-system.

The results were, first, The Book of Common Prayer, composed by committee and edited by Thomas Cranmer; and, second, a very bloody rebellion.

To be strictly historical about it, the rebellion wasn't entirely about the book - there were other problems, including a tax on sheep - but a major grievance was that The Book of Common Prayer was written in English instead of the Latin of the Pope's Catholic Church. 

Latin, being largely incomprehensible throughout the land, was felt to be even-handed, but an English prayer book, though it would be understood by most, would be mere mumbo-jumbo in the West Country of Devon and (especially) Cornwall, where Cornish was the language of the common people. 

(The Catholic church, as it happened, had been rather supportive of Cornish language and culture.)

The Prayer Book Rebellion failed, of course. The casualties were horrible - 2,300 dead, and uncounted numbers of wounded. The Prayer Book, however, survived. It's a masterpiece of measured English, but was it worth all those lives?

Well, what does the book itself say?

Give peace in our time, O Lord.

So, that'd be a no, then. 

Word To Use Today: prayer. This word, suitably in the circumstances, comes from the Latin word precārius, which means obtained by begging, from prex, which means prayer.