Sometimes these horns were so skilfully made that they could be used both for blowing and drinking; _vide_ Chaucer’s “Frank Tale,” l. 2,809: “And drinketh of his bugle horn the wine.” Perhaps, however, the most interesting and historic horn cup was that which Witlaf, King of Mercia, gave to the Abbey of Croyland, “cornu mensæ suas ut,” etc.—the horn from his own table that the elder monks might drink out of it on Festivals and Saints’ Days, and that when they gave thanks, they might remember the soul of Witlaf the donor. Ingulphus mentions that when the Monastery was almost burnt down this horn was saved. [Sidenote: Medical Horns.] From Payne’s “English Medicine in Anglo-Saxon Times” we ascertain that during the tenth and eleventh centuries, at least, the Horners’ trade was called into use by the apothecary. The author relates that in “cupping” operations and the administration of clysters, horns were used, indicating a nicety of manufacture which must have placed the trade on a high level. [Sidenote: Importance in Saxon times.] To such a pitch of development had the trade of a Horner attained at least 250 years before the Norman Conquest, that even the patens and chalices used at the Church services were made of this substance, as may be evidenced from the fact that at the Council of Chelsea, held A.D. 789, after careful discussion, it was decided that the chalices and patens used for ecclesiastical purposes should no longer be made of horn, but of metal, no doubt to distinguish them from similar articles which had already come into general use for common and domestic purposes. At this time glass was probably almost, if not entirely, unknown in England, and, in consequence, thin sheets of horn had to be manufactured to serve many of the purposes to which glass is now applied. These facts, and the general tendency of town life in this country, make it practically certain that long before the tenth century the Horner’s trade, in common with some others, was in full swing, and with it that which we may deem inseparable from any considerable trade at that time, something in the nature of what we now call a Trade or Craft Gild. [Sidenote: Horners’ probably the oldest City Gild.] Both tradition and documentary evidence are agreed that the Horners’ Gild dates back to the far off ages of antiquity, and we may justly claim that its foundation is as early as, if not anterior to, any of the existing City Companies. [Sidenote: Old book of the Worshipful Company of Horners.]