Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/288

262 was, perhaps, the mazer-bowl; its name was undoubtedly derived from the maple wood, of which it was usually made, although like bowls of more costly material bore the same appellation, which seems ultimately to have been given to shape, without reference to substance. Mazers were of different sizes, great and little being named in the same inventories; sometimes they had covers, and a short foot or stem. The early wassail-bowl seems to have been shaped as a mazer. We give a cut of the "murrhine cup," presented to the abbey of St. Albans by Thomas de Hatfield, bishop of Durham, "which," says the recorder of the benefaction, "we in our times call 'Wesheyl .'" This vessel could not have been used in a very graceful manner; we perceive from illuminations that small ones were raised to the mouth in the palm of the hand; the larger sized would have needed both hands. The small mazer was called a "maselin," unless, indeed, Dan Chaucer borrowed this diminutive from the Latin to make a rhyme:—

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Our ancestors seem to have been greatly attached to their mazers, and to have incurred much cost in enriching them. Quaint legends, in English or Latin, monitory of peace and good-fellowship, were often embossed on the metal rim and on the cover; or the popular, but mystic Saint Christopher engraved on the bottom of the interior, rose in all his giant proportion, before the eyes of the wassailer as he drained the bowl, giving comfortable assurance that on that festive day, at least, no mortal harm could befal him. But we may believe that occasionally art made higher efforts to decorate the