ANTIQUITIES. 165 



Apostles' spoons are probably best known to us from the cus- 

 tom of God-parents giving them as Christening presents in sets 

 of twelve, or of the four Evangelists, or a single Saint. Allusions 

 to tliis practice occur in Shakespere and our old poets. There 

 is an engraving of three such spoons discovered at Chri^tchurch, 

 in Ferry's Antiquities, &c., of that Monastery, (plate 17.) 

 Initials, probably of the donors, are engraved upon two of them, 

 and one has the date 1638; but they appear to be of earlier 

 manufacture, or else an ancient traditional pattern has been fol- 

 lowed. It is not unlikely that in giving these spoons, some 

 allusion was intended to the benefits which the infants baptized 

 might receive from the Saints : a belief which we still trace the 

 existence of among ourselves in the first prayer often taught by 

 the poor to their children, — 



"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 

 "Bless the bed that I lie on:" &c. 



With respect to the specimen here drawn, the Saint at the top 

 of the handle appears at first sight to be St. John the Divine, 

 holding a chalice, one of his usual emblems, in his left hand ; 

 but upon closer inspection it would seem, from the drapery from 

 .the head, to represent a female, perhaps St. Mary Magdalene 

 with her alabaster box of ointment: and if so, it may have 

 been used as a chrism-spoon by the parish priest of Studland, for 

 anointing the sick in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. 



Fig. 2. How the Seal of the Prioress of Ivingho in Bucking- 

 hamshire came to be lost at Langton Matravers, in the Isle of 

 Purbeck, I am at a loss to conjecture: but it was found there 

 in 1846, when the foundations of the new School-room were 

 being dug, and is now in the possession of Mr. Wilcox of 

 Wareham. 



This Priory was a House of Benedictine Nuns. Leland says 

 it was founded in 1160, by Henry de Blois Bishop of Winches- 

 ter: but an earlier document shows it to have existed before 

 1129. In the charter of protection and confirmation granted 

 by Archbishop k Becket, temp. Hen. H., its inmates are called 

 " Sanctimonialea de bosco de Ivingho^'' Nuns of the wood of Iving- 

 ho. In pal 85 regis Hen. III., it is called '*St. Mary's Ivingho:" 

 but in cart. 8 regis Edw. I,, num. 32, "of St Margaret of 



