hat there was no lack of plate, rich altar hangings, copes, and
vestments, which helped to swell the goodly heap of spoil. In country
churches in Oxfordshire there were silver chalices and patens, pyxes,
censers, candlesticks, chrismatories, crosses, sanctus bells, and other
articles of plate.

It was the practice in mediaeval times to place in the coffin of a
bishop a chalice and paten; hence some of the earliest specimens of
church plate which we possess have been recovered from episcopal
graves.[3] The Rites of Durham enjoin that on the death of a bishop
he was to be buried "with a little chalice of silver, other metal, or
wax" aid upon his breast within the coffin.[4] Most of these were made
of pewter or lead, but some have been found of silver gilt, latten,
and tin. It is perhaps scarcely necessary for our present purposes to
describe these early specimens of sacred vessels, as the number of them
is so limited; and few of my readers will be able to discover any
mediaeval examples amongst the plate of their own church. However, I
will point out a few peculiarities of the plate of each period.

The earliest chalice, used in the church of Berwick St. James, Wilts,
until a few years ago, and now in the British Museum, dates from the
beginning of the thirteenth century. Its bowl is broad and shallow, the
stem and knot (by which the vessel was held) and foot being plain and
circular. Then the makers (from 1250 to 1275) fashioned the stem and
knot separately from the bowl and foot, and shaped them polygonally.
During the remaining years of the century the foot was worked into
ornate lobes. Then the bowl is deepened and made more conical. About
1350 the custom arose of laying the chalice on its side on the paten to
drain at the ablutions at Mass; and as the round-footed chalices would
have a tendency to roll, the foot was made hexagonal for stability.
Henceforth all the mediaeval chalices were fashioned with a six-sided
foot. By degrees the bowl became broader and shallower, and instead of
the base having six points, its form is a sexfoil without any points.
Several old chalices are engraved with the inscription--

Calicem salutaris accipiam et nomen Domini inbocabo.

[Illustration: CHALICE AND PATEN, SANDFORD, OXFORDSHIRE
_Circa_ A.D. 1301]

In one of the compartments of the base there was a representation of a
crucifix, or the Virgin, or ihc, or xpc.

The usual devices on ancient patens were the _Manus Dei_, or han