york00orns

—
;
THE USE OF YORK.
But the most remarkable divergence of the English
Uses from that of Rome consists in the absence of
any rubrical direction for the adoration of the elements
after consecration. In the Roman Use the words are
express Prolatis verbis consecrationis, statiin Hostiam
:
consecraiam genuflexus adorat. All that is said in the
English Uses is that the sacrament is to be lifted up,
so as to be seen by the people. Even this direction
is altogether absent from more than one copy of the
York Use. It is an omission which undoubtedly bears
testimony to the antiquity of the ritual of the diocese
" no mention of the elevation being made by the
early ritualists, Alcuin or Amalarius, or Micrologus ;
nor is there any allusion to it in the old Ordines
Romani, or the sacramentaries of Gelasius or Gregory.
It is commonly said that the first order upon the
matter, and introduction of its observance, was based
upon the famous decree of the Council of Lateran
(about transubstantiation), under Innocent III."i
rubric respecting elevation occurs indeed in one copy
of the York Use, of the 15th century, which belongs
to the library of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge,-
It is a MS. which obviously belonged originally to
the Minster of York, and is remarkable for the fulness
of its rubrics, which is not a general characteristic of
the other existing copies, for they are distinguished
rather by the brevity and paucity of their rubrical
directions. It corresponds more with the Use of
Saruni than any of the other manuscript or printed
A
' IMaskell, " Antient Liturgy," &c., p. 92.
' See "Missals, &c., Ebor." (Pub. Surtees Soc), vol. i. p.
186. Cf. also the Preface, p. x.