XX REPORT, 
PUGEpA RLS i EC Pil AT EB. 
By THE Rev. J. CHARLES Cox, 
[A Paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Derbyshire Archzeological 
Society, held in Derby on February 20th, 1883, when there was an 
Exhibition of Church Plate.] 
Or the various instruments or vessels that have at different periods in the 
history of the Christian Church, been considered necessary for the celebration 
of the Holy Communion, the chalice is the only one which is of the essence 
of the sacrament, and without which it cannot be celebrated. For the bread 
may be brought in on a cloth, or in some linen receptacle, and it may not only 
be, but at one time it was distinctly ordered to be consecrated on the 
corporal, that is on the fair linen cloth spread in the centre of the altar. 
The chalice, or ‘“Cup of blessing,”’ being the only vessel mentioned in the 
Holy Scriptures in the accoant of the original institution, and being used 
therein by Christ Himself, was always treated and handled with peculiar re- 
verence in the ancient offices. In the Oblation, both before and after conse- 
cration, the chalice was the special medium, the ‘‘ paten being treated as an 
accessory and convenient appendage thereto, rather than as a principal utensil 
in making the same.”* 
In many old inventories it is obvious that the term ‘‘ chalice” includes the 
paten, which was sometimes not specifically mentioned, owing probably to its 
being often also used as the cover to the chalice ; nay, further than that, it is 
‘*vestment ” is some- 
considered by good authorities that in the same way as 
times used to include the vestment proper or chasuble, amice, albe, girdle, 
maniple, and stole—so the term ‘‘ chalice ” sometimes implies not only the cup, 
but also the paten, crewets for wine and water, and pyx or box for the bread 
before consecration, which, taken together, formed a complete set of Eucharistic 
Plate. 
The material of the chalice was, from the earliest times, of the costliest 
metal, if possible, gold or silver. Early Councils only permitted poorer mate- 
rial, such as wood, horn, or glass, if the church was very poor. But glass 
chalices were, soon after their first use, specially forbidden, owing to their 
liability tobe broken. After the depredations of the Danes, and again after 
the raid on Church Plate for the ransom of Richard Coeur de Lion, wooden 
* Chambers’ ‘‘ Divine Worship in England,” p. 240. 
i he 
