The term Black Rubric is the popular name for the declaration found at the end of the "Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper" in the Book of Common Prayer, the Church of England's liturgical book. The Black Rubric explains why communicants should kneel when receiving Holy Communion and excludes possible misunderstandings of this action. The declaration was composed in 1552, but the term dates from the 19th century when the medieval custom of printing the rubrics in red was followed in editions of the BCP while the declaration was printed in black.
History
In September 1552, after Parliament had approved the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI, John Knox and others argued before the Privy Council that the Holy Communion should be received sitting; but were refuted by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. As a result of this clash, the council acted on its own authority and ordered the inclusion of the declaration in the new prayer book. The first copies had already been printed so it had to be pasted into them as a correction slip. It explained that kneeling was an expression of "humble and grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christ, given unto the worthy receiver" and did not imply any adoration of the bread and wine or of the real and essential presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood. Historians have asked about whose victory the Black Rubric represents. Whilst Diarmaid MacCulloch has argued that it was a victory for Cranmer, Isabel Davis, who has made a study based on multiple examples, has made the case that it was a victory for no one and that its physical interpolation disrupted Cranmer's project of uniformity. The "rubric" was omitted from the Elizabethan prayer-book of 1559, probably as part of the Queen's policy to retain the support of moderate traditionalists, but possibly also on the technical grounds that the reversal of her Catholic predecessor's repeal of Edward VI's Protestant legislation revived the 1552 BCP as approved by Parliament and not as published. This omission was one of the cherished grievances of the Puritans and in the Savoy Conference of 1661 the Presbyterians demanded its restoration; but the twelve bishops who took part were not willing to grant it. However, the revision of the prayer-book in 1661/2 involved all the bishops, representatives of the clergy and both Houses of Parliament. At a late stage in the proceedings, the "rubric" was rewritten and condensed with its language updated and a possibly significant verbal modification, the words "real and essential" in 1552 being changed to "Corporal". In this new form, it became part of the book as finally approved. and therefore forms part of the doctrinal standards of the Church of England, but it has never been included in the alternative forms of worship authorised or allowed by Canons B1, B2 and B4.
It is debatable whether the verbal change "corporal" in place of "real and essential" implied some type of recognition of the "real presence" or simply updated the terminology because the original phrase was now out of date. Frere says it does but Griffith Thomas says the opposite.. The answer can be found in the text itself: Christ's Presence is real and essential after the manner of a sacrament, but not in the flesh as in his "natural body".The removal of the rubric by Elizabeth halted any movement towards a more radical Calvinistic position in favor of "fudging and fumbling", Christopher Haigh, op. cit., p. 242. Such a definition seems to be related to Aquinas' argument that the Body of Christ in the Sacrament is not to be understood as the same as a body in space and the it is not to be understood "materialiter" or "localiter".
Text
In the 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, the Black Rubric was written as follows : The 1662 version was slightly altered as follows :
Whereas it is ordained in this Office for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, that the Communicants should receive the same kneeling; yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved: It is hereby declared, That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood. For the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored; and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one.
