46 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



and interest the "horn of Ulphus" in York Minster.* The 

 custom of confirming the bestowal of a grant of lands by 

 drinking a draught from such a horn and then giving it duly 

 inscribed to the grantee to be preserved as a record of the 

 donation was fairly general during the Middle Ages in many 

 parts of Europe, and this ivory drinking-horn is a specimen 

 of this class. The circumstances attending the solemn 

 attestation of this particular grant to the see of York, which 

 was made a few years after the death of King Canute (1036 

 A. D.), are thus related from early sources. f 



"About this time also, Ulphe, the son of Thorald, who 

 ruled in the west of Deira, part of the present Yorkshire, by 

 reason of the differences which were like to rise between his 

 sons, about the sharing of his lands and lordships after his 

 death, resolved to make them all alike, and thereupon, com- 

 ing to York, with that horn wherewith he was used to drink, 

 filled it with wine and before the altar of God, and St. Peter, 

 Prince of the Apostles, kneeling decently, drank the wine and 

 by that ceremony enfeoffed the church with all his lands and 

 revenues. The figure of which horn, in memory thereof, is 

 cut in stone upon several parts of the choir, but the horn 

 itself, when the Reformation in King Edward VI's time be- 

 gan, and swept away many costly ornaments belonging to 

 this church, was sold to a goldsmith, who took away from it 

 those toppings of gold wherewith it was adorned and the 

 gilt chains aflSxed thereto; since when the horn itself, being 

 entire ivory in an eight-square form, came to the hands of 

 Thomas late Lord Fairfax, in whose possession I saw it in 

 1666." 



On the death of this Lord Fairfax in 1671 the horn passed 

 into the possession of his next relative. Lord Henry Fairfax, 



*Arch8eoIogia, Vol. I, pp. 168-182, London, 1770; "An historical dissertation upon the 

 ancient Danish Horn kept in the Cathedral Church of York, Anno Domini 1718." 



fSir William Dugdale, "Historical Account of the Church of York," London, 1715, p. 7. 



