Chalice

Chalice (Lat. calix, 'a cup'). The name has long been applied only to the cups used for the administration of the wine in the holy communion. Anciently made of glass, precious stone, horn, and other substances, chalices have for many centuries been formed of silver, or sometimes gold, occasionally enriched with jewels. Their fashion has followed the art of the times, the hemispherical bowl and plain circular foot of Romanesque or Norman days giving way to a conical bowl and hexagonal foot in the Perpendicular period, and these in turn to more modern shapes, seldom of such beauty and excellence as those of Gothic design. Before the Reformation a crucifix or other sacred device always occupied one side of the foot. The chalice was usually accompanied by a paten, which might serve as a cover to the bowl, as well as for carrying the wafer or bread. In medieval times a chalice of tin or pewter, if not of silver, was placed in the coffin of ecclesiastics at burial. The chalice is the emblem of St John the Evangelist. Old chalices are much sought after by collectors. The glass 'Luck of Edenhall,' preserved in the family of Musgrave, near Penrith, is apparently an old chalice. The use of the mixed chalice, the mingling of water with the wine used in the Lord's Supper, and in the Roman rite, has been matter of controversy in the Church of England. The chalice veil or corporale was a covering for the chalice.