Ornaments Rubric - History and Interpretation

History and Interpretation

The rubric first appears in the Elizabethan revision of the BCP in 1559 and was retained in the later 1604 revision under James I. The second paragraph is essentially an extract from penultimate section of the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity (1559 - 1 Elizabeth I,c.2) and breaks off in the middle of a sentence. The act itself provided that:

"... such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof shall be retained and be in use as were in this Church of England by the authority of Parliament in the Second Year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth shall be retained and be in use, until other order shall be therein taken by the Queen's Majesty with the advice of her commissioners appointed and authorized under the great Seal of England for ecclesiastical causes, or of the metropolitan of this realm; ..."

Until June 1549 the Sarum Rite Mass (a version of the Roman Rite) was celebrated in Latin, with certain insertions in English. The ornaments of the ministers would have been the traditional Eucharistic vestments used in that Rite: albs, tunicles, dalmatics, copes, chasubles, maniples, miters et cetera.

The "second year" referred to in the Act of 1559 began on 28 January 1548 and the Act approving the introduction of the first Book of Common Prayer was approved by Parliament on 21 January 1549. While has been argued that the Act legalises the Roman Catholic vestments which were actually in use in the second year, most authorities accept that the Act refers to the vestments ordered in the first Edwardine Prayer Book even though they were only required as from June 1549.

On the 30th of April 1559, it was "glossed" (interpreted) by Dr Sandys, successively Bp of Worcester (1559), London (1570) and York (1575), to mean that "we shall not be forced to use them, but that others in the mean time shall not convey them away, but that they may remain for the Queen." Later in 1559, the Queen issued her Injunctions, one of which required the churchwardens to deliver to "our visitors" an inventory of "vestments, copes or other ornaments, plate, books and especially of grails, couchers, legends, processions, hymnals, manuals, portuals and such like, appertaining to their church." In 1566, the metropolitan (Archbishop Parker) issued his "advertisements" ordering the use of the surplice and in cathedrals and collegiate churches the cope. The Canons of 1604, passed with strict conformity to legal procedures and legally binding with minor modifications till well into the 20th Century, enforced this same line.

For about one hundred years, starting in the middle of the 19th century, the legal interpretation of the rubric was disputed. Anglo-Catholics pointed to it to justify their restoration of the traditional Eucharistic vestments of western Christianity in the Anglican Communion, whereas Evangelicals insisted that further order was taken in the Injunctions of 1559, the "Advertisements" of 1566 and the Canons of 1604 and therefore the only legal vestments were choir habit together with the cope in Cathedrals and collegiate churches. The use of the disputed vestments became undoubtedly legal in the Church of England with the passing of the 1969 Canons, but these stated that no particular doctrinal significance was attached to them.