Cups of Honor and Reward: The Value of Silver in the Thirty Years' War

In Northern Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, honor and reward were often signified by a silver cup. Silver and gilt-silver vessels served to commemorate births, deaths, and marriages; they sealed diplomatic relationships and represented communal institutions like guilds, charitable societies, and civic governing bodies. They were prizes in lotteries and shooting contests. Made of a precious metal directly tied to contemporary currency, the silver cup embodied monetary value that was recognizable and easily extracted by melting and minting.⁠ But, as the product of innovating, skilled craftsmen, it could also hold aesthetic as well as symbolic value, which was tied to its ability to denote people, places, and historical events. These entangled value systems were brought into high relief in wartime, when silver plate was taken as booty, or confiscated to fund military defense, or relinquished as ransom to protect life and limb. 

This talk tracks silver cups through the tumultuous decades of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), a period characterized by dispossession and displacement. It analyzes the highly ambivalent status the silver cup held as both financial asset and symbolic object. Primary evidence for this analysis includes eyewitness accounts of confiscation, inventories recording the personal significance of silver cups, and surviving hoards of valuables concealed for protection under the threat of siege. The talk’s conclusion turns towards the present day and the competing values that still define early modern silver as both commodity and cultural artifact.