Hall marks on gold & silver plate

xliv INTRODUCTION.
Early mazers had a rim above, and a small rim for foot below,
being wide and shallow, and generally having an inscription round
the upper rim. The later ones are generally deeper, and often
mounted on high feet. Inside, in the centre, there is usually a flat
plate called the print, or boss, often ornamented with a shield of
arms or other design. The object of this was, no doubt, to cover
the flaws made in completing the turning of the bowl.
The earliest mazer now known is at Harbledown Hospital, near
Canterbury, and has a plain gilt foot or stem, a plain rim, a silver
gilt medallion, with the figure of Guy, Earl of Warwick, and an
inscription. This vessel is of the time of Edward II After this
comes the "
Scrope Mazer," which is now at York ; it has a long
inscription on the rim, which fixes the date of it as being about
1400. It stands on feet made of small heads, and is altogether a
most interesting specimen.
At All Soul's College, Oxford, there is a set of mazers, one of
which, made in the middle of the fifteenth century, is a very fine
specimen of such a cup. This is mounted on a high circular foot,
and has a deep rim round the edge, both being silver gilt and some-
what plain. On the bottom, inside, there is a boss, or print, bearing
the arms and initials of the donor, Thomas Ballard. A cup made
of polished maple, in the collection of the late Mr. E. P. Shirley,
of Eatington, bore the legend on the rim :
" In the name of the Tirnite
Fille the kup and drinke to me."
At the Armourers' <strong>Hall</strong>, London, there is a large deep bowl
nearly a foot in diameter. The silver gilt foot and rim of this
bowl are united by bands in the same manner as are those of cocoa-
nut cups. Oriel College, Oxford, is the possessor of a very fine
mazer, made about 1470.
This has a low, circular foot, ornamented
with stiff leaves, points downwards. The upper rim is deep, and
also ornamented with similar leaves, points upward, and the legend
in black letter :
*'
Itxr racionc bibas non quoti p^tit atra iioluptas
sic raro rasta tratur 1x5 iiix^xu suppetritatiir."*
A vessel called the Narford mazer, formerly in the collection of
Sir A. W. Franks, P.S.A., bears the London hall <strong>marks</strong> for 1532 on
the silver gilt rim, on which are the words :
"CIPHUS REFECTORII ROFENSIS PER FRATREM
ROBERTUM PECHAM."
in Tudor capitals, black letters having ceased to be used after the
end of the fifteenth century. t
* Cripps's "Old English Plate," 1891, p. 243.
t " Archeeologia," Vol. XIII, p. 392.