Black Rubric

BLACK RUBRIC: The popular name for the declaration enjoining kneeling at the end of the order for the administration of the Lord's Supper in the prayer-book of the Church of England, so called because it was printed in black letter in the prayer-book as revised by William Sancroft in 1661. It is not, strictly speaking, a rubric at all as it is intended for the direction of the people and not for the officiating clergy. Nor did Sancroft originate it, as it dates back to the second prayer-book of Edward VI (1552), whose council ordered that the communicants should receive the elements kneeling, and explained in the "rubric" that this attitude was not used to express belief in transubstantiation. The "rubric" was omitted in the Elizabethan prayer-book of 1559, and this omission was one of the cherished grievances of the Puritans. In the Savoy Conference of 1661 the Presbyterians demanded its restoration, but the bishops were not at the time inclined to grant it; at the last moment, however, it was replaced and so it appears in the revised prayer-book of Charles II and is still retained in the English prayer-book. It was removed from the prayer-book as revised for the American Episcopal Church in 1789.