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 birthday was St Agnes’ day. It was, however, never presented, probably owing to the death of Charles V. in 1380. The duc de Berri was not on friendly terms with his nephew Charles VI., but on their being reconciled he presented the young king with this cup. The troubles of his reign led to the invasion of France by Henry V. of England, and the ultimate appointment of his brother, John, duke of Bedford, as regent. The necessities of the half-insane Charles doubtless caused this cup and other valuables to pass into the possession of the regent in exchange for ready money, for it appears in the duke of Bedford’s will, under which it passed into the treasury of Henry VI. There it remained and appears in all subsequent royal inventories up to the time of James I. This monarch, whose motto was “Beati pacifici,” received with joy the embassy sent from Spain in the year 1610 to conclude the first treaty of peace with England since the Armada, and showered upon the envoy, Don Juan de Velasco, constable of Castile, the most lavish and extravagant gifts. The constable, in fact, was so impressed by the warmth of his reception that he printed an account of his embassy, and from this work the main story of the cup has eventually been traced. On his return to Spain the constable, a piously disposed man, presented this cup, with many other valuable gifts, to the convent of Santa Clara Medina de Pomar at Burgos, of which his sister was Superior. Although it was a domestic vessel, a “hanap” in fact, the constable elected that it should be consecrated and made use of as a chalice at great festivals. And so it continued to be used from the early years of the 17th century until about the year 1882, when the convent having fallen upon evil times, it was decided to sell this precious relic. A priest from the Argentine being at the time in Burgos, it was confided to him to sell in Paris, and he deposited the sum of £100 by way of security. This was all that the unfortunate nuns at Burgos ever received in return for their chalice, for they never saw the priest again. He took the cup to Paris, arriving in the month of September, when the majority of the well-to-do are away from town. After many failures to dispose of it, he ultimately succeeded in selling it to Baron Jerome Pichon for the sum of about £400, practically its weight in gold. The baron, after vainly trying to resell it at various sums from £20,000 downwards, eventually parted with it to Messrs Wertheimer of Bond Street for £8000, and that firm very liberally ceded it to Sir Wollaston Franks for the same sum, and it was finally secured by a subscription for the British Museum.

Such is the story of one of the most remarkable “hanaps” in existence. The word “hanap” is translated by Cotgrave in his French dictionary of 1660 as “a drinking cup or goblet,” and probably was intended to mean what would be called a standing cup, that is, raised on a foot, to distinguish it from a bowl of the mazer class. Such vessels were chiefly used to ornament the dinner table or sideboard, in the way that loving-cups are now used at civic banquets, where, almost alone in fact, the ancient ceremonial of the table is still observed to some extent; and the loving-cup is the direct descendant of the hanap of the middle ages.

Of all the ornaments of the table in medieval times the most conspicuous was probably the “nef.” This was in the form of a ship (navis), as its name implies, and originally was designed to hold the table utensils of the host—knives, napkins, and at times even the wine. Some of the later examples which alone survive are carried out with the greatest elaboration, the sails and rigging being carefully finished and with a number of figures on the deck. The reason for the existence of such an article of table furniture was doubtless the fear of poison. As in course of time this became less, the nef changed its character, and became either a mere ornament, or sometimes was capable of being used as a drinking vessel. The former, however, was much more common, and the number of nefs that can be practically used as drinking cups is small.

In the 15th and 16th centuries the shapes, decoration and materials of drinking vessels were almost endless. A favourite object to be so adapted was an ostrich egg, and many can be seen in museums in elaborate silver mounts; coco-nuts were also used in the same way, and Chinese and other Oriental wares then of great variety, were often turned into cups and vases by ingeniously devised silver mounting. The use of drinking vessels either formed of actual horns or of other materials was common in the 15th and 16th centuries, especially in the north. They were usually provided with feet so as to serve as standing cups, and some of them were mounted with great richness. An excellent example is the famous drinking-horn in the possession of Queen’s College, Oxford, dating from the 14th century. The medieval beliefs about “griffins’ claws” still survived to this late date, and a horn cup in the British Museum bears the inscription “Ein Greifen Klau bin ich genannt, In Asia, Africa wohl bekannt.” Another horn, probably that of an ibex, is in the same institution, and has a silver mount inscribed “Gryphi unguis divo Cuthberto dunelmensi sacer.” The elegant natural curve of the horn adds greatly to the charm of the vessel. In Germany the ingenuity of the silversmith was turned in the direction of making vessels in the forms of animals, at times in allusion to the coat of arms of the patron. Stags, lions, bears and various birds are often found; the head generally removable so as to form a small cup Switzerland and south Germany had a special type, in the form of the figure of a peasant, generally in wood, carrying on his back a large basket, which edged with silver formed the drinking cup. This type is only found in wine-growing districts, the basket being used for carrying grapes. In Germany such cups are called “Buttenmann,” in Switzerland “Tanzenmann.” The royal and princely museums of Germany contain great numbers of such vessels, the Green Vault in Dresden in particular, while a good number are to be seen in our own great museums. A curious fancy, combining instruction with conviviality, was to make cups in the form of a globe, terrestrial or celestial, which are still useful as showing the state of geographical or astronomical knowledge at the time. Several of those made in the 16th century are still in existence, one in the British Museum, a second at Nancy, and others are in Copenhagen and Zurich and in private collections. The upper half of the globe is removable, leaving the lower as the drinking cup. Ivory both from the beauty of its colour and the evenness of its structure has been a favourite material for drinking vessels at all times, and would seem to have been continuously used from the earliest period, whether derived from Asia or Africa, while the semi-fossil mammoth ivory of Siberia has not been neglected. In general, however, the vessels made from this material presented no essential differences of form from those in wood, until the art of lathe-turning attained great perfection, when a wide field was opened for ingenuity and even extravagance of form. The most remarkable examples of the possibilities of this kind of mechanical skill are seen in the productions of the Nuremberg turners of the 17th century, whose elaborate and entirely useless tours de force comprise among many other things standing cups of ivory sometimes 2 ft. high, exemplifying every eccentricity of which the lathe is capable. Peter Zick (d. 1632) and his three sons were celebrated for such work. Several pieces, doubtless from their hands, are in the British Museum.

The use of glass cups was not common in England until the 16th century, Venice having practically the monopoly of the supply. A silver-mounted glass goblet which belonged to the great Lord Burghley is, however, in the British Museum, where there is also a very large series of Venetian drinking glasses of various kinds, clear and lace glass as well as some of the 15th-century goblets with enamelled designs, now of the greatest rarity. The relations of Venice with the East were of so intimate a character that the earlier forms of Venetian glasses were nearly identical with those of the Mahommedan East.

A common type of Arab drinking glass resembled our modern tumbler (a beaker), but gradually expanding in a curve towards the mouth, and often enamelled. The enamelled designs were at times related to the purpose of the vessel, figures drinking and the like, but more commonly bore either a mark of ownership, such as the armorial device of an emir, or some simple decorative