The set of doctrinal formulae first issued in 1563 and finally adopted by the Anglican Communion in 1571 as a statement of its position. Many of the articles allow a wide variety of interpretation. They had their origin in several previous definitions, required by the shifts and turns of the English Reformation. The Ten Articles (1536) and Six Articles (1539) upheld religious conservatism, but the Forty‐Two Articles (1553), prepared by Cranmer and Ridley, were of markedly Protestant character, and they provided the basis of the Thirty‐Nine Articles.