Definition of "altarware"

altarware

noun
uncountable
1. Religious items made from precious metals such as chalices and patens, that are used on an altar during eucharist.
  Quotations
  During this same period the friary was accused of pawning its precious altarware when the house treasury was short of funds.
  1972, PL Nyhus, “The Observant reform movement in southern Germany”, in Franciscan Studies, volume 32
  The workshop he ran would have taken in commissions for everything from candlesticks, church furniture (altarware, tracery and bronze plaques) wedding gifts and anything else that required the skills of a craftsman in metal.
  1987, Geoff Parr, Syllogisms: drawing upon fantasy and function
  It is difficult to imagine that Bernard of Clairvaux was gullible enough to accept dozens of historiated windows, grisaille fields of griffins, mosaic pavements, carved acanthus capitals, inhabited vine columns, and golden altarware on the strength of the justifications offered by a single window, one tympanum, and Suger's libelli
  1994 March, R Ousterhout, “Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, an Annotated Bibliography and Historiography by W. Eugene Kleinbauer”, in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, volume 53, number 1