LONDON, 1570; MAKER'S MARK POSSIBLY A STAR

This small dish could have had either a domestic or religious use serving as a spice dish or a paten. The gilding suggests that it might have formed part of a garniture of dessert plate serving as a spice plate, although Schroder notes that it is smaller than some examples, however, it is larger than the smallest dishes in the 'Armada Service'. The set of six Roger Flynt spice plates of 1573 in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum are 25.5 cm. diameter and the Prodigal Son dessert plates of 1568/9 from the Buccleuch Collection, three of which were recently exhibted at Strawberry Hill and which are also by Roger Flynt, are smaller. They are 19.1 cm. diameter, larger than the plate offered here. Schroder notes that the condition of this plate, with knife marks across the centre and on the border, suggest that it was employed as paten at a time when ordinary leavened bread was used for communion rather than wafers. He compares it to similarly sized dishes, used as patens, one of 1566 at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and another at St. David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire and two further in the churches of Wideford, Oxfordshire and Harpford, Devon.