THE GLASS OF GERMANY The Green Glass of the Rhine and the Netherlands—Enamelled Glass It is as a matter of practical convenience that I have chosen not to make a separate division for the ‘green glass’ of the Dutch of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Not that Holland was in any way dependent on Germany in this matter, but in the case of this, the first of the three main divisions of German glass of which I have to treat in this and the following chapters—the plain or prunted green glass—the produce of the two countries is very similar. Our second group—the family of enamelled glass, so important in Germany—is scarcely represented at all in Holland. On the other hand, in the case of our third group, the Dutch struck out a line of their own. I shall therefore treat of the engraved glass of Holland in a subsequent chapter. It is remarkable how little is known of the nature of the glass made in Germany before the first half of the sixteenth century, when the Italian influence began to make itself felt. A few insignificant little bowls and some small flasks that have served as reliquaries have been preserved in the treasuries of German churches (Plate XXI.), but for our principal source of information we are dependent upon contemporary pictures. Here, however, we soon discover that it is rather to works of the early Netherlandish school that we must turn for information, and that even from this source practically nothing is to be gleaned until about the second quarter of the fifteenth century. What is then found is not of much note, small tumbler-like vessels for the most part, of thick greenish glass decorated with threadings or studs, the latter more or less of the nature of prunts. There is, however, one fifteenth-century form which is of some interest: the metal-mounted wooden cups of mazer-like form, in use at that time appear to have been copied in glass; these may be recognised by their peculiar stunted and sometimes coiled handles.[184] These somewhat primitive vessels of the fifteenth century are of interest as leading the way to the first important division of German glass, the ‘Green Glass’ of Western Germany and the Netherlands.[185] It is worthy of note that this family of glass, essentially of local origin not only as regards the nature of the metal but also in respect of the shape and the method of decoration, only reached its full development in the course of the sixteenth century, at a time when the new _cristallo_ was being made by Italian workmen in the same district. There must have been something like a conscious reaction in favour of the native forms and materials. As to the pronounced green colour, we know that this was held to enhance the flavour of the wine drunk from the glass; as far back as the early sixteenth century, iron and copper scale were purposely added to supplement the pale tint given by the iron contained in the impure native potash (Mathesius, _Sarepta_, cxciv.).