nd under conditions which lend colour to their specific use as
chalices are the bottoms of glass vessels found inserted in plaster in
the Catacombs at Rome; but here again the Jesuit Padre Garrucci was
unable to find any evidence to support such a conclusion. It is not in
fact until the 6th century that the sacred vessel would appear to have
assumed a definite form. From about that time date the lost golden
chalices of Monza, representations of which still exist in that city;
and the famous chalice of Gourdon in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris
is probably of about the same time. All of these are two-handled with a
vase-shaped body and supported on a high foot; and thus quite unlike the
more recent medieval types. Two glass vases of exactly this two-handled
form are in the Slade collection at the British Museum, and may well
have been chalices. Another chalice, in the same collection, of the 6th
or 7th century, was found with a silver treasure at Lampsacus on the
Hellespont. It is of silver, with a cylindrical body and small expanding
foot; with it were found a number of silver spoons and dishes, the
former inscribed with the names of Apostles, Greek hexameters and lines
from Virgil's Eclogues. No doubt the whole was the treasure of a
monastery, buried and never reclaimed. So far as evidence exists for the
form of the chalice, the vase-shape with two handles seems to have been
mainly succeeded by a goblet with straight sides and without handles;
these latter in great part disappeared. Then came the rounded cup-shaped
bowl as seen in the well-known Kremsmunster chalice. An interesting
silver vessel, probably a chalice, found at Trewhiddle in Cornwall, is
in the British Museum. It is of plain semi-oviform shape, and dates from
the 9th century. The 13th century chalice was usually a broad somewhat
shallow cup, on a conical base, and squat in its general lines as
compared with those of later date. These gradually became taller, and
with a bowl smaller in proportion, following the tendency of the civil
vessels towards more elegant lines. Both civil and religious vessels
eventually carried this tendency to an extreme point, so that in the
17th century the continental chalices and standing cups had lost all
sense of true artistic proportions; the bowl of the chalice had greatly
shrunk in size while the foot had become huge and highly elaborate, both
in general form and in ornamental details. In Britain chalices ceased to
be u