(_By courteous permission of the Mercers’ Company._)]
By the courtesy of the Mercers’ Company an illustration of the famous Leigh Standing Cup and cover is here produced. The date of this is 1499. The vessel is ornamented with raised crossed bands, and in the panels formed by their intersection are alternate heads of maidens and flagons, which are the badges of the company. The foot rests on three miniature flagons, and has a deep chased border with a pierced trefoil enrichment. On the cover are the arms of the City of London and the company. The cover is surmounted by a maiden seated, with an unicorn reclining in her lap, the word “Desyer” on its side. Round the cover and cup are bands of blue enamel, with letters of silver, with the following inscription:
To Ellect the Master of the Mercerie hither am I sent And by Sir Thomas Legh for the same entent.
This specimen exhibits the Gothic style, and this is the second earliest cup known with a hall-mark. The “Anathema” Cup bears the London hall-mark for 1481. The antiquity of these early cups illuminate the field of collecting. The Leigh Cup is contemporary with the magnificent chapel of Henry VII at Westminster Abbey. Here is a work of art wrought by the silversmith only two years after John Cabot made his first voyage to the mainland of America, and on the heels of the discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama.
The standing cup and cover carries with it rites and ceremonies that have been retained to the present day by all those corporations and companies and clubs who have a ritual extending into the past. It is not always easy to give the exact reason why customs are still punctiliously observed. To doff one’s hat to a friend or a superior is an act which has a long history. To take off one’s casque of armour was to become at once unprotected from the sword-cut. One can imagine two knights meeting showing this confidence in each other’s honour in removing their casques. Similarly in the taking of wine the observances of to-day in regard to the loving-cup have equally sound reasons to support them, as being a symbolic continuance of similar actions of the past when their meaning was more definitely prosaic than it is now.