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Ecclesiastical vessels
(13/13)
Just as the Cistercian church
was defined by the simplicity of its architecture and décor, the
interior furnishings and the vessels used during the services were
similarly plain and lacking in ostentation. By the later Middle
Ages – and
even earlier in some cases – more elaborate ornamentation was introduced,
sometimes the gift of a generous benefactor. An inventory of Meaux
Abbey in Yorkshire in 1396 reveals that the contents of the
sacristy at this time included a large gilded silver cross, an
ivory carving of the Virgin, a
crystal urn with various relics, two silver crosiers, two silver thuribles,
a large gold chalice, and eighteen additional chalices for the
private altars.(12) Whereas
early legislation allowed only one iron candelabrum, there were
four or five in the church at Meaux; the one which was suspended
above the choir was seemingly a mixture of gold and silver.(13)
Crucifix
This gilt bronze crucifix (above right) may have belonged to Abbey
Dore in
Herefordshire in the fifteenth century. The dark-blue enamel medallions
depicted on the cross
show saints Mark, John and Luke; the figure of Matthew may have been included
but lost when, as it seems, the Cross was refashioned for use either in processions
or in a side chapel.(14)
According to early Cistercian legislation there were to be no golden or silver
crosses in the abbey churches, but only painted wooden ones.
Chalice
Early Cistercian legislation stipulated that chalices might be
silver, or even of gold-plate, but not of gold. This ruling was
not always observed: in the
second half of the twelfth century Mellifont, in Ireland, received a golden
chalice
and other pieces of gold and silver from its benefactors;(15) there
was certainly a gold chalice at Kirkstall Abbey,
Yorkshire, by the late twelfth century, for this was amongst the treasures
that Abbot Ralph presented to Henry II,
in an
attempt to win the king’s favour and so recover the abbey’s lands
at Micklethewaite.(16) A late fourteenth-century
inventory for Meaux Abbey reveals that the community’s sacristy housed
a large gold chalice and eighteen others for private altars; a number of gilded
cups, which had been received
as gifts from benefactors, were recorded in the abbot’s lodgings.(17)
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