342 Notes on the Church Plate of North Wilts. 



very handsome and remarkable piece was doubtless a domestic cup 

 given afterwards lor Church use. 



Of the small chalices and patens which were commonly placed in 

 the graves of priests in the middle ages — and which are generally 

 of pewter or tin, except in the case of Bishops, when they seem to 

 have been of silver — we have an example preserved in the vestry of 

 North Bradley Church, which may be o£ the fourteenth century. 

 This little pewter vessel had a broad shallow bowl and spreading 

 circular foot, and like the paten accompanying it, is quite plain. It 

 was found some years ago in a rude coffin of oak under the arch on 

 the south side of the chancel. There are several such vessels at 

 Salisbury Cathedral (see vol. xxi., p. 360) , but I do not know of any 

 others in the north of the county. 



Coming now to the " decent communion cups w which everywhere 

 supplanted the " superstitious massing chalices " in the reign of 

 Elizabeth, we find a fine series in North Wilts, giving examples of 

 many of the types of ornamentation then in vogue — though the 

 actual number of chalices remaining is not so large as Mr. Nightin- 

 gale tells us still exist in the Dorset parishes. The general 

 character of these cups may be seen from the examples Nos. 2 and 3 

 given in the plate. They were small sized vessels, as a rule, com- 

 pared with the large cups which came into fashion at the end of the 

 seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth century, with deep more 

 or less bell-shaped bowls, bearing almost invariably either one or 

 two bands of the strap-work engraving, filled with conventional 

 foliage characteristic of the period ; a similar band sometimes en- 

 circling the base also. They were always accompanied by a cover 

 fitting the cup, which was also used as the paten, — the handle serving 

 as a foot when so used. Sometimes there is a belt of foliage on the 

 cover, as in Fig. 2, whilst on the handle or foot is commonly inscribed 

 the date when the vessel was acquired for the Church. This date 

 in the north of the county is commonly either 1576 or 1577. The 

 earliest is that at Bradford, marked 1564, and the latest of the 

 type that of Burbage, marked 1624, when, as a rule, the cup had 

 assumed a slightly different shape. The Crudweil cup of 1628 is 

 of Elizabethan shape, but has inscribed within the belt " The Parish 



