XXX REPORT. 
Two crewets, one for wine, and the other for water, were an invariable part 
of the Eucharistic Plate, and are specified by all the ancient Ritualists, The 
ancient crewets were very seldom of glass or crystal, but generally of enamelled 
copper, or of some more valuable metal. In the 15th and 16th centuries the, 
ordinary parish churches of England were usually content with pewter crewets ; 
almost all the Derbyshire crewets of 1552 inventories were of this material. 
They were usually distinguised by some convenient mark, such as A (agza) for 
water, and V (vézum) for wine. A pair of golden crewets at Ely were 
distinguished by a large ruby for the wine, and a beautiful pearl for the water. 
The size of these crewets was but small when the cup was refused to the laity, 
but after the Reformation it became necessary that they should become con- 
siderably increased in bulk, and hence the use of what we usually now term 
flagons. The earliest flagons are of Elizabeth’s time. They have a pear- 
shaped body, domed lid with thumb piece, and a curved handle, and are 
mounted on a spreading circular foot. The Osmaston silver flagon, recently 
given by Mr. Ussher, is a good modern copy of an Elizabethan flagon, made 
to match the chalice, and the Osmaston flagon of electro-plate an instance of 
what to avoid. After the beginning of the 17th century the ‘‘ round bellied ” 
flagons disappear, and the common tall tankard shape comes into use, of 
which many examples abound (All Saints’, S. Michael’s, S. Werburgh’s, 
Rayenstone, etc.) These flagons, throughout England, both before and after 
the Restoration, were usually, and invariably at the larger churches, in pairs 
(as All Saints’, S. Werburgh’s, and many other Derbyshire churches), showing 
that they were intended to be the successors of the ancient crewets or phials, 
and were used for wine and water. I have several times noticed, both in pairs 
of pewter flagons, as well as in those of more precious‘metals, a difference in 
the covers or handles, though of the same date, and I have no doubt that this 
difference was intentional, and intended to assist the celebrant or his minister 
in readily distinguishing between the flagons for the wine and for the water. 
There is a most charming variation in both handles and shape in the two 
elegant silver flagons of classical design of Sudbury Church, bearing the 
Birmingham hall marks of 1775-6. : 
In several of the old engravings of post-Reformation altars, where the two 
flagons are usually represented, this difference may be noted. It is very 
prominent in the frontispiece of ‘‘The whole duty of receiving worthily the 
Blessed Sacrament,” which was in a fifth edition in 1717. 
No one, outside the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, who has at.all 
studied the subject, can have any doubt that the admixture of water with the 
wine in the chalice was the usual and sanctioned custom of our Reformed 
Church. We have the most unqualified evidence in the case of Archbishops 
Laud and Sancroft, and of Bishops Andrewes, Cosin, and Field, etc., ete. 
The indirect evidence of the pairs of flagons, and their difference in shape (not 
* 
hitherto, I believe, noticed), is not without value. 
