INTRODUCTION.
ii
Both porringers and caudle cups were used for drinking posset they were mostly made in the seventeenth or in the early part of the eighteenth centuries, and are often of most elegant form and ornamentation. Various other small cups and jugs were made, two of which we ;
illustrate.
Sm.\ll Silver Cur.
Date
1649-50, belonging A. C. Fletcher, Eaq.
to
a^bns aub Basins. "As
house within the city yoii know, Is richly furnished with -plate and gold; Basins and ewers to lave her dainty handsT
my
Shakespkare,
"
Taming
of tlie
Shrew,"
II,
i,
348.
In the Middle Ages ewers and basins were much used at meals, for ate more or less with their fingers, it was essential that these vessels should be carried round after each course, in order that the guests might wash their hands.
when people
The introduction of forks in the seventeenth century rendered the use of the ewer and basin, to a large extent, unnecessary, and they therefore ceased to be made for that purpose. At Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, there is an early ewer salver of the year 1545. The ewer has eight sides, somewhat like a large coffee-pot, with spout, handle and lid, and ornamented with engraved arabesques. The salver is also ornamented with
and