Mazers are wide, shallow drinking bowls made from the burrs of a maple tree, mounted with a rim of gold or silver. They were costly versions of the universally used plain wooden drinking bowl.Wooden bowls were widely used and cheap in the medieval and Renaissance periods. This bowl, however, is made of precious serpentine marble, although it otherwise has the traditional size and shape of a late medieval mazer, made of maplewoood. Goldsmiths often incorporated in their work precious or semi- precious stones or rarities from distant lands, like coconut shells. These materials added a touch of exoticism to their objects and increased their value. It is likely that this mazer was owned by a wealthy person, and that it was designed to be displayed and admired, as well as used.

Mazers are the most numerous form of surviving drinking vessel from England, and were widely used in the medieval period. The word mazer is derived from the Old High German masa meaning 'spot', because certain sorts of maples were mottled in colour.Maplewood has a fine grain, and withstands continual wetting and drying without warping. Wooden bowls of this design probably influenced the shape of the plain drinking bowls of precious metal which no longer survive from England, but which are known from Germany, Scandinavia and France, such as those in the Rouen treasure ( V&A 106-9-1865).