Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/369

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, 291 " I will now proceed to describe the alterations which were made in the sacramental plate, and in order that the description may be more easily understood, I accompany this with a drawing of the ancient chalice and paten of Christ Church in Monmouthshire, which is a remarkably good type of this style of plate, which prevailed for at least a period of twenty years. (See Woodcuts.) " It will be seen that the chalice still consists of its cup, the stem with a small knop, and the foot, though I know of two instances of small churches in Monmouthshire, (and many others may exist) where the chalice consists only of the cup, without stem or foot. The stem, though altered in form and character, still swells into a small knop, or the rudiments of one, and is occasionally ornamented with small bands of a lozenge or some such pattern ; and the foot is invariably round instead of indented. The form of the cup, however, is altogether changed, and instead of being a shallow wide bowl, it is elongated into the form of an inverted truncated cone, slightly bell-shaped. The form of the paten is also much changed ; the sunk part of the platter is often considerably deepened, the brim narrowed, and thereon is fixed a rim or edge; by which it is made wlien inverted to fit on the cup as a cover, while a foot is added to it, which serves also as a handle to the cover. On the bottom of this foot is a silver plate, which almost always bears the date when it was made, and the name of the parish to which it belongs. The ornament on all these chalices and paten- covers, as they may be called, is invariably the same ; it consists simply of an engraved band round the body of the cup, and on the top of the cover, formed by two narrow fillets, which interlace, or cross each other with a particular curvature, in every instance the same, the space between them being occupied by a scroll of foliage; and this ornament is marked by a total absence of letters, monograms, emblems, or figures of any kind. " In the rubric of our communion service the priest is ordered to ' lay his hand on every vessel, (be it chalice or flagon) in which there is any wine to be consecrated.' From this it appears that in some cases other vessels besides the chalice were used to contain the wine for consecration. This may have arisen at first from the small size of the chalices and cruets then in use. The word flagon, which is there used, is defined in Johnson's Dictionary, 'a vessel for drink, with a narrow mouth,' and its original meaning seems to have been a flask or bottle. To us its name probably comes from the French jiacon, which, with the Italian fiasco, and the German fiasche, all mean a bottle. The same authority derives it in all these languages, through the medium of the Latin lagena and Greek ayr]vos, from the Hebrew hig, by the prefixing an f, or digamma, and from a quotation there given, a flagon seems to have been a travelling bottle, suspended by a cord or chains, similar to what are now called ' pilgrims' bottles.' Such travelling bottles are to this day called flasks, and in Italy the wines are still put into and preserved in glass bottles of a similar form, called also flasks. It is probable, therefore, that as there was no other large vessel, the wine was brought to the communion table in the bottle or flagon in which it was usual to keep it. And it is a curious fact that at this day at All Souls' College, the sacramental flagons used to contain the wine for consecration at the sacrament are two very ancient large silver gilt flasks or pilgrims' bottles, suspended by chains, to which the stoppers are attached ; they are said to have been spared at the Reformation, as having nothing popi.sh about them. They are of foreign, and, judging