The is the earliest of a group of sixteen cups of this design known to survive from sixteenth century England. It would originally have had a lid, and might have been described at the time as a 'flat cup'. (The label 'font cup' is a modern term.) This style of cup is characteristically English, during a period when drinking vessels came in many different forms and played a prominent role in the rituals of Tudor dining. For example, cups and bowls were not interchangeable, but were used in quite different contexts. Cups were for display on a cupboard, or for use by the most important guest, whereas bowls were for everyday drinking. This 'flat cup' falls somewhere between the two, as it would have been used on formal occasions, perhaps passed between diners during toasts at ceremonial meals. The Latin words engraved round the sides are taken from the New Testament book of Timothy (book I, verse 17), and remind the drinker to honour God as the eternal ruler. Another 'flat cup' of 1512-13 survives with the same inscription but few sixteenth-century English tablewares engraved with inscriptions not directly related to ownership survive more generally. Of those which do, most are decorated with texts that are dedicatory, reflecting the central importance of drinking and dining at social occasions in courtly, professional and domestic contexts. Other inscriptions reflect the importance of food and drink as key elements for a healthy life, or are charms to protect the drinker from poisoned beverages. The inscription on this cup, however, is intended to protect the moral health of the drinker. The trend for this type of message would become more evident in English domestic wares as the sixteenth century progressed, when the inscriptions changed to the vernacular. This was thanks to the wide circulation of an English translation of the Bible and the introduction of an English prayerbook in the years following the Reformation of the 1530s. The stylised image of a pomegranate, engraved between the words of the inscription, is the device of Catherine of Aragon. The use of this motif may have been inspired by the marriage of six-year old Catherine to prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, in 1501, but does not necessarily imply a royal origin for the cup.