hard drinking. It was on the festival of St. Augustine, in 946, that Edmund the First was murdered-a catastrophe which might have been prevented but for the inebriated state of the King's attendants and the nobles who were present. Edgar the Peaceable, as he was called, tried to check the vice and put a stop to the numerous quarrels which were the consequence of it. Mugs and drinkingvessels in those days were all articles of value and not plentiful. It was the practice to hand round to the company a common drinking-vessel which the guests used to vie with each other in trying who could drain it to the greatest depth. Edgar ordered that these common drinkingvessels, or loving-cups, should be made with knobs of brass at certain distances down the depth from each other, so that no one might be obliged to drink more at a draught than from one of the knobs to another.

The earliest drinking-cups were the horns of cattle and the scallop-shell. These in later days gave place to the communal cup, which, being handed round the assembled company, became in still later times the loving-cup as we now know it.

In the Middle Ages, and particularly during the time of the Renaissance, objects which to us nowadays are common, but which were then rare, were frequently mounted as cups in the most costly manner by the silversmiths of the period. Perhaps the cocoa-nut-then considered a rarity was more used as a cup than any other object. There are two of such elaborately mounted cups at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. At Oxford there are no less than six medieval cocoa-nut cups: two of the fifteenth century and one dated 1584-5 at New College, one of the late fifteenth century at Oriel College, and two of the early sixteenth century at Exeter and Queen's. Some of the great city companies also possess similar cups of about the same date, notably the Ironmongers, Vintners, Armourers, and Saddlers. Many of the cocoa-nut cups of the Elizabethan era were carved with scenes from the Bible.

Another object often elaborately mounted as a cup because of its rarity in those days was the ostrich-egg shell. These are not so common nowadays as are the cocoa-nut cup, because they were more liable to get broken. Bishop

THE LOVING-CUP PROGENITOR

309 Richard Fletcher gave one to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, dated 1592–3, which is still there. Other examples, one of 1623-4, in the possession of Lord Swaythling, and another, of 1610-11, at Exeter College, Oxford, are still to be seen.

Another object of still more fragile description was formerly much used to form loving-cups--the nautilus shell. There used to be a fragment of such a cup made of this beautiful shell at All Souls College, Oxford, dating from about 1290-1300, but unfortunately it is now lost. From a description it seems that the delicate shell was mounted in a stand or case of silver-gilt of the form of a filled-up horseshoe, but having a semi-elliptical opening at the larger end to receive the central curve of the shell. The enamels with which it was covered were heraldic, costly, and most elab

orate.

The progenitor of the silver loving-cup of to-day was the mazer. The mazer was succeeded by pewter, pewter by silver. The word mazer meant simply a wooden cup, called in French madre, which, says Cotgrave, is used “of wood whose grain is full of crooked and speckled streaks or veins." The German maser is a spot, speck, or the grain of wood, maserholz is veined wood, and maserle maple wood or the maple tree. From this source our old drinking-cup or mazer is clearly derived. Though the best and most highly valued drinking-bowls were made of maple wood, the term came to be extended to all bowls of similar form made of wood other than maple. The bowl was usually constructed from the knots and roots of the maple, those portions being especially prized for their veined and mottled grain. As knots would not be very thick, and so the bowls made of them shallow, not holding sufficient liquid for passing round in a large company, their depth was increased often by mounting them with a high metal rim, which is characteristic of mazers. This rim also allowed for the exercise of the art of the silversmith, and was frequently highly ornamental and sometimes had an inscription running round it.

1 666

1

Bring here,' he said, 'the mazers four
My noble fathers loved of yore.

Lord of the Isles, Sir Walter Scott.

A will found at York in 1446 disposes of no less than thirty-three mazers, or "murræ usuales," and two of such importance as to have had names assigned to them. One well-known specimen of mazer of polished maple is figured in Parker's Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages, and bears engraved around the rim of the ample bowl :"In the name of the Trinite

Fille the kup and drinke to me."

A fine old loving-cup, the gift of Bishop Cosin to Peterhouse (St. Peter's College), Cambridge, dated 1657-8, is noticeable. Its shape is peculiar to the time of the Commonwealth, a time when little plate was made-particularly in the form of cups-drinking in public being tabooed. The body is large, the base splayed or with a wide flange, and the sides of the bowl are decorated with flat flowers and scrolls. The cup is double-handled, as all proper loving cups should be in order to enable it to be passed readily from one to another down and across the table, and each handle takes the form of a terminal figure.

Though most of the old loving-cups are double-handled, many have three handles-the better to aid rapid progression. The capacity of these old loving-cups was prodigious, three and a half pints or even quarts being not at all unusual or a maximum.

In the seventeenth century bequests of tankards, silver cups, and other plate were common in wills, and many of our city corporations, city companies, colleges, and Army and Navy messes have benefited thereby.

The town of St. Ives is the lucky heritor of a loving-cup which is little known; yet it is one of the most interesting in this country. Its value? Well, it is one of those things that are priceless. The Mayor (Mr. John Pearce) not only allowed me, with flattering trustfulness, to inspect at my leisure this civic plate, but he most kindly brought it into his drawing-room in order that I might photograph it at my convenience. The famous Peace Loving-Cup is of silver, and I was glad when the Mayor told me he only allowed it to be cleaned with a very soft leather, and without using any plate-powder, the use of which must of necessity