ORNAMENTS RUBRIC, THE. A rubric in the English Prayer-Book on the interpretation of which much of the ritual controversy has turned. It precedes the Order for Morning Prayer, and runs as follows: "And here it is to he noted that such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministra tion, shall he retained and he in use as were in this Church of England. by the authority of Par liament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth." By 'ornaments' are under stood. according to an official decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. 'all articles used in divine service.' The rubric is simply a more emphatic form of that inserted in 1559 and again in 1604. It was deliberately re tained in 1661, in spite of the opposition of the Puritans, and has held its present place since the final revision in 1662. Its interpretation rests upon the question whether it refers to the state of things under the first Prayer-Book of Ed ward or to that immediately anterior to its issue, in the partially reformed services of 1548. The traditional view refers the words of the rubric to the first Prayer-Book. But till« was not actually in use by authority of Parliament until the third year of Edward's reign. On the
other hand, the wording. on the face of it. points to a certain year—the yen• before the introduc tion of the Prayer-Book. The difficulty of de ciding between these views is increased by a clause in the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity. This provided for the retention of the ornaments "until other order he taken by the authority of the Queen's majesty with the advice of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners or of the Metro politan of this realm." and the question arises whether further order was formally taken or not. There appears to have been little or no effort to enforce the observance of the rubric in Eliza beth's day. The times were troublous. and in some influential quarters there \VAS no intention of using the ornaments. If 'other order' was taken it may have been through the 'Advertise ments' (see ADVERTISEMENTS OF ELIZABETH) ill 1566. But whether these could override the Elizabethan act or not is a very intricate histori cal point. Consult Parker. The Ornaments Rubric (Oxford, 1881); and see RITUALISM.