to the church at a wedding, which is
alluded to in the "Taming of the Shrew" (iii. 2), to be drunk by the
bride and bridegroom and persons present, immediately after the marriage
ceremony, is very ancient. Gremio relates how Petruchio

"stamp'd and swore,
As if the vicar meant to cozen him.
But after many ceremonies done,
He calls for wine:--'A health!' quoth he, as if
He had been aboard, carousing to his mates
After a storm:--quaff'd off the muscadel,
And threw the sops[714] all in the sexton's face;
Having no other reason
But that his beard grew thin and hungerly,
And seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking."

[714] Sops in wine.

It existed even among our Gothic ancestors, and is mentioned in the
ordinances of the household of Henry VII., "For the Marriage of a
Princess:--'Then pottes of ipocrice to be ready, and to be put into
cupps with soppe, and to be borne to the estates, and to take a soppe
and drinke.'" It was also practised at the magnificent marriage of Queen
Mary and Philip, in Winchester Cathedral, and at the marriage of the
Elector Palatine to the daughter of James I., in 1612-13. Indeed, it
appears to have been the practice at most marriages. In Jonson's
"Magnetic Lady" it is called a "knitting cup;" in Middleton's "No Wit
like a Woman's," the "contracting cup." In Robert Armin's comedy of "The
History of the Two Maids of More Clacke," 1609, the play begins with:

"_Enter a maid strewing flowers, and a serving-man perfuming the door._

_Maid._ Strew, strew.

_Man._ The muscadine stays for the bride at church:
The priest and Hymen's ceremonies tend
To make them man and wife."

Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Scornful Lady" (i. 1), the custom is
referred to:[715]

"If my wedding-smock were on,
Were the gloves bought and given, the license come,
Were the rosemary branches dipp'd, and all
The hippocras and cakes eat and drunk off."

[715] See "Brand's Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 136, 139.

We find it enjoined in the Hereford missal. By the Sarum missal it is
directed that the sops immersed in this wine, as well as the liquor
itself, and the cup that contained it, should be blessed by the priest.
The beverage used on this occasion was to be drunk by the bride and
bridegroom and the rest of the company.

The nuptial kiss in the church was anciently part of the marri