1869 Drinking Cups and their Customs (Mixellany)

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COTS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.

was to empty to the next pin, and so on) the pins were therefore so many measures to the eompotators, making them all drink alike; and as the space between each pin was such as to contain a large draught of liquor, the company would be very liable by this method to get drank, especially when, if they drank short of the pin, or beyond it, they were obliged to drink again, lor this reason, in Archbishop Anselm J s Ca- nons, made in the Council in London in 110% priests are enjoined not to go to drinking-bouts, nor to drink to pegs* This shows the antiquity of the invention, which, at least, is as old as the Conquest. There is a cup now in the possession of Henry Howard 3 Esq., of Corby Castle, which is said to have belonged to Thomas h Beekefc. It is made of ivory, set in gold, with an in- scription round the edge of it, €t Drink thy wine with joy | " and on the lid are engraved the words u Sobrii estote," with the initials T. B. interlaced with a mitre, from which circumstance it is attributed to Thomas a Beeket, but in reality is a work of the 16th century. Whitaker, in his € History of Craven/ describing a drinking-horn belonging to the Lister family, says, u "Wine in England was first drank out of the mazer* bowl, afterwards out of the bugle-horn* The mazer- howls were made from maple-wood, so named from the German Mmser 9 a spotted wood. Mr. Shirley pos- sesses a very perfect mazer-bowl of the time of Eichard II. (1877-99). The bowl is of light mottled wood highly polished, with a broad rim of silver gilt, round the exterior of which are the following lines :—