6 / 66
6
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 :—