There are in many collections ivory boxes of round shape, which are commonly set down as having been used for preserving the consecrated host in tabernacles, or for carrying it to the sick. Frequently, these may have been originally made for that purpose; but it is not easy always to determine the fact exactly. The word Pyx in its earliest meaning included any small box or case, and particularly for holding ointments or spices; and often, when we find the word used in inventories of the middle ages, it is further explained as containing relics or other things. Thus, there was in the Durham treasury in the fourteenth century “item, a tooth of St. Gengulphus, good for the falling sickness, in a small ivory pyx”; and in St. Paul’s cathedral, about the same time, two ivory pyxes, one containing relics of St. Augustine, the other of St. Agnes. Nor is the size a sure guide to determine the doubt: although by many people all small round boxes of ivory would seem to be understood as having been certainly used for preserving the eucharist. Du Cange quotes from Leo Ostiensis, “in pyxidulis reliquiæ sanctorum reconditæ sunt.” On the other hand, there can be no question that for many centuries, and more especially in the earlier ages, round boxes of ivory were in constant and general use for preserving and carrying the Sacrament. Thus we see included amongst the property belonging to the church of St. Faith, under St. Paul’s, “una cupa cuprea deaurata, cum pyxide eburnea sine serura interius clausa, in qua reponatur eucharistia.” From Waddingham, in Norfolk, the queen’s commissioners report in 1565 that they have destroyed “one pyx of yvorie, broken in peces.” The following also may be quoted from the will of king Henry the seventh, though the material is not specified: “Forasmuch as we have often to our inwarde displeasure, seen in diverse churches of oure Reame, the holy Sacrament kept in ful simple and inhonest pixes, we have commaunded to cause to be made furthwith pixes, in a greate nombre, after the fashion of a pixe which we have caused to be delyvered to theym, etc.” When, therefore, we find a small round box which is ornamented with subjects from the Gospel or with divine types and emblems or the like, we may safely call it a pyx, in its proper ecclesiastical meaning. When an example is carved with subjects relating to any saint it may or may not have been made for a sacramental pyx: it may indeed have been changed from its first use as a reliquary and afterwards employed for the more sacred use. Of this kind, perhaps, is the very curious round box of the sixth century with subjects from the life of St. Mennas, exhibited in 1871 by Mr. Nesbitt at a meeting of the Society of antiquaries; which is further remarkable as being the earliest known representation on an ivory box of events in the life of a saint.