[Sca-cooks] English and French pottery was re: tableware

[Mercy Neumark]

Hello All!

I'm exhausted, so I apologize for the my poor spelling and possible blanket
statements in this email.  I'm TRYING to not write a novel, sound like a
know-it-all or bore people to death with this stuff, while being as accurate
as I can.  I definitely am NOT an expert of this stuff, so I am far from
perfect, but I have been reading up on this stuff for sometime, so hopefully
I don't boo-boo. :)

BTW, if people find this stuff interesting...do you think I should write an
article on this stuff for the TI or a CA or something?  I find it extremely
fascinating but I make no bones about boring the heq out of other people.
Let me know what you all think.

Pottery was used before, during and after our period in both England and
France as tableware for the common (and not so common) folk.  "Pottery in
England from 3500 BC - AD 1730" by K.J. Barton discusses the trade between
these two countries and shows sketched examples of plates, bowls and other
vessels found throughout England.  "Medieval English Pottery" by Bernard
Rackman speaks about how during the norman conquest, a lead base glaze was
used on clay found in grave sites that are "examples of pottery made for use
in everyday life" (plates and bowls included).  It also mentioned that this
lead base glaze came from earlier roots, during roman occupation of England.

Maiolica was introduced to Italy from arab nations in 11th century and they
created potteries which in turn, exported their wares ("Italian Maiolica" by
Julia A. Poole). Maiolica is also known as delftware and Faience.  In my
research of maiolica, however, there are a lot of books I have that are a
bit shaky on how and when things traded (meaning one book says earlier one
says later...you get the idea).  The hay-day of Maiolica is 15th and 16th
centuries, but there are examples of 11th century pottery from Italy,
Germany and Spain.  As far as I know, there was open trade between England,
France and Spain, but I could be wrong on this.

Problem: there aren't a lot of examples of plates in England from that
period.  The reason is (per Bernard Rackman) that most pottery is found
either beside or inside an old water well, in trash heaps or moats.  Jugs
and pitchers are mostly found because they would fall in or they'd get
broken on the trip to the water hole and people would just chuck them.  The
water and mud would encase these hollow-wares, and as far as I understand
it, because there is stuff inside and around the work, it survived.  A plate
doesn't have the same sort of structure so they would break and get crushed.
  So, as far as Rackman is concerned, there aren't many surviving examples
of plates, but there were plates made.

All this being said, this is not to say that trenchers were never used.
They probably were (I'm sure others on this list can clarify this better
than I).  What I believe, however, is that ceramics were probably used more
than most people realize and that trenchers weren't the only things used.

Hopefully this makes more sense to my post earlier.  Thanks for listening!

--Arte

Side note OOP: when the french and english were opening up the crypts in
Egypt, supposedly the french came across a blue ceramic material that they
named Faience, thinking that this was the same thing.  Unfortunately they
were wrong, and the item is known as Egyptian paste now by potters...yet in
some books, it is still referred to as faience.

Side SIDE note OOP: I made a statement the other day about asian people
during period having porcelain.  Depending on the country/area, this would
be more true to some than others.  Japan, China and Korea had rich deposits
of porcelain, but other countries didn't have as easy access to this
resource (in fact, it was the Koreans that showed the japanese how to mine
and use porcelain, amoung other ceramic processes).  They DID have it, but
earthenware and stoneware were more widely used (unlike europe who used
earthenware for the most part).  Just felt I should clarify. :)

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