The woodcut shows the lid of a small casket of, perhaps, the eleventh century: Spanish work, during the period of the occupation by the Moors; and there are frequent references to ivory coffers, caskets, and boxes, in inventories and other documents of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. In 1502 the following entry is among the privy purse expenses of Elizabeth of York: “Item, the same day [the 28th day of May] to maistres Alianor Johns for money by hir geven in reward to a servaunt of the lady Lovell for bringing a chest of iverey with the passion of our Lord thereon: iij _s_ iiij _d_.” This lady Lovell was probably the wife of Sir Thomas Lovell, treasurer of the household, and one of the executors of the will of Henry the seventh. Six or seven caskets are named among the treasures of Lincoln cathedral in the year 1536: two “with images round about.” In 1518 there belonged to the church of St. Mary Outwich, London, “a box of eivery, garnyshede with silver” according to “the enventorye of all the howrnaments” of that parish: and, “item, a box of yvory with xj relyks therein.” In 1534, “a litill box of ivery bound with gymes [gimmals] of silver” was among the goods of the guild of the blessed Virgin, at Boston in Lincolnshire. Nearly a hundred years before there was “a lytill yvory cofyr with relekys” among the goods belonging to the church of St. Mary Hill, London. Going back to earlier times—and not to quote from French or German documents which have been referred to by foreign writers—we find in the inventory of the treasures belonging to St. Paul’s cathedral in 1295, “Pixis eburnea fracta in fundo, continens unam parvam pixidem eburneam vacuam.” “Item, duæ coffræ eburneæ modo vacuæ.” Other caskets are mentioned; one, small and beautiful, with lock and key and silver clamps; and several pyxes, containing relics. So, again, there were in the treasury at Durham, in 1383, “an ivory casket, containing a vestment of St. John the Baptist;” “a small coffer of ivory, containing a robe of St. Cuthbert;” and other “ivory caskets with divers relics.” Caskets and coffers of this period were not uncommonly decorated with small painted medallions of coats of arms, or of figures, as in the woodcut on the next page. Two examples are in the South Kensington museum, nos. 1618 and 369. [Illustration]