262 USAGES OF DOMESTIC LIFE

was, perhaps, the mazer-bowl; its name was midoiibtedly 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 dif- ferent sizes, great and little being named in the same inven- tories ; sometimes they had covers and a short foot or stem. The early Avassail-bowl seems to have been shaped as a mazer. We give a cut of the " miu-rhine 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 man- ner ; w^e perceive from illuminations that small ones were raised to the M.er w.hccve,. 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 : — " They fet him first the swete win, And mecle elve in a maselin." The Rime of Sir Thopas. 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, wxre 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 ■^ Dutch mitescr. In that valuable record two shillings, and tliat price must have of the usual household effects of the middle been owing to its size and workmanship, classes at the begiiming of the fourteenth for had the material been silveK, the fact century, the assessment of a 15th upon the would have been stated. These we may borouo-h of Colchester, in the 2f)th of fairly assume to have been wooden bowls. Edward the First, (Rot. Pari., i. 21>5,) ' " One mazer with one cover duble gilt mazers are frequently mentioned — " i. weyth xxix onces, — ix.li. xiij.s. iiij.d." — ciphus de mazero parvus pretii vj.d." — " i. Wills and Inventories (Surtees Society), ciphus de mazero pretii xviiid." — the high- p. 339. est value at which one is assessed being '" MS. Cotton. Nero D. vii. fo. 87.