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Show Wood Cup3 and Bowls Once Highly Prized Wooden trenchers, commonly called "treen" were in common use during the Middle ages in Great Britain. "Masers" or cups and bowls were frequently fre-quently mentioned in wills and inventories. inven-tories. The finer specimens belonged to the dehor abbeys thus, there wan the Great maser at York, the Judas cup at Durham, and at St, Saviour's, Southwark, there was "a maser with a border and knop of sylver and gilt which was given to the church wardens war-dens to drink when they mete." These valuable wooden cups were sometimes ornamented by a rim of silver, but otherwise they were seldom decorated ny more than a few low moldings or incised lines. Their value and beauty lay In the graining of the wood, generally gen-erally maple, and the old turnerschose the part of the trunk where it divided off into branches so as to obtain tho speckled bird's eye graining. By Tudor Tu-dor times pewter began to take the place of tree, though poorer folk continued con-tinued to use these wooden trenchers and bovris till much later, especially in the north of England and in Scotland. |