ON SOME FRAGMENTS OF ENGLISH EARTHENWARE. 1 83 



the potter's friend. Not only were the earthen vessels used most 

 extensively in the religious communities, but they were also often 

 made on the premises. We all know the admirable tile pavements 

 executed in the abbeys for the adornment of the sanctuaries. In 

 England their date goes back into the medieval ages, as far as those 

 of any other country of Europe. Tiles were doubtless the earliest 

 instance of pottery applied to a decorative purpose ; but the good 

 friars, who knew so well how to mix and combine clays of various 

 colours for their earthen mosaics, must have occasionally turned 

 their hand to the making of such cups and jugs as were required 

 to answer their daily wants. They appreciated the modest clay 

 pitcher which keeps wine and beer so fresh and cool, and costs 

 so little. In the ale-house, or in the guard-room, jugs of metal, 

 wood, or leather were preferred ; the fragile earthen vessel could 

 not stand the rough use it was there put to. Such objection 

 could not be raised in the refectory, or the private cells of the 

 monastery, where all was so sedate and quiet. But if, as it 

 appears, the monks worked the clay with their own hands, they 

 had to call to their assistance some labourers, to whom were 

 entrusted the coarsest parts of the manipulations. By and by, 

 these helps becoming acquainted with the different processes of 

 potting, must have settled for themselves ; either remaining under 

 the immediate patronage of their masters, or carrying their 

 teachings into distant parts. To this the origin of many pot 

 works might, we think, be traced. 



We suppose the large Burley Hill jug, evidently an exceptional 

 piece, to have been intended as a present, destined to be offered 

 by the poor potter to his powerful neighbour, the prior. Its date 

 still remains an unsettled question ; but if we take into account the 

 similarity it bears to the one discovered at Derby, and if we con- 

 sider that the latter was found associated with other fragments 

 which cannot, to our knowledge, be older than the second half of 

 the seventeenth century, we should feel inclined to believe that they 

 both belong to a period much nearer to us than had at first been 

 surmised. Should the Burley Hill jug be attributed to Norman time 

 and make, this one should also be taken as being its contem- 



