“The Battle of the Rubric”: The Contested History of Clerical Dress in Victorian England

Abstract

This article takes one facet of the controversy engulfing the Church of England in the mid-nineteenth century over ritualism—the interpretation of the rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer governing clerical dress—and explores it through the writings of three representatives of very different standpoints. It considers, first, the careful academic scholarship of James Craigie Robertson (1813–82), Professor of Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London, and Canon of Canterbury Cathedral, arguing against ritualist innovations. It then turns to Thomas Walter Perry (1815–91), a strong advocate for eucharistic vestments. Finally, it explores the polemical Protestantism of Richard Paul Blakeney (1820–84). Each author is considered the contexts of the Tractarian and ritualist movements and of the wider liturgical and aesthetic developments of the period. The article concludes that no church party emerged victorious from the “battle of the rubric,” and that the conflict significantly undermined the ideal of conformity to the Book of Common Prayer as a sign and source of unity in the Church of England.