95 



The Anglo-Saxon Period. 

 Of the pottery of the Anglo-Saxon period I have very little to 

 say. It rarely, if ever, occurs here. In paste, fo^, and ornament, 

 it exhibits a falling off from the Romano-British period, and it is 

 hand-made, without the use of the potter's wheel. It is very 

 markedly different from the pottery of the first or British period. 



The examples we have of Anglo-Saxon pottery are few, and 

 almost all cinerary urns. Our English ancestors mainly took their 

 food out of wooden or metal bowls, and drank out of horn or glass, 

 so that they required little pottery. They were a coarse-feeding 

 hard-drinking race, who gorged themselves on ill-cooked meat, and 

 then got drunk on mead or beer, which was supplied to them in 

 buckets. Their drinking vessels are round at the bottom, so that 

 bumper glasses were the rule, and heel-taps not allowed. 



Their cinerary urns accompany burials by cremation. They are 

 contracted at the mouth, and have a neck instead of the over- 

 hanging rim, which marks the Celtic period. They were hand- 

 made, and frequently have great knobs on the exterior; also small 

 punctured ornaments, made by a stick cut and notched so as to 

 make a cross. 



The Medieval. 

 With re-ard to Mediaeval pottery, in England, both in Norman 

 and Tudor periods, it consisted largely of bowls, and dishes, and 

 of pitchers; the first being used for placing the cooked meat m, 

 the latter for holding and carrying wine, ale, mead, and other 

 liquors to table; but these were made in no great abundance. 

 Other materials were in use: treen, or wooden trenchers, were 

 used by the poorer, and pewter by the wealthier. A garmsh of 

 pewter-which was I believe thirty-six round plates of difi-erent 

 sizes-was a mark of respectability and position. For drinking, 

 silver and pewter flagons, mazers of maple wood, rude cups of ash, 

 and black-jacks of leather, were in vogue. Earthenware-such as 

 it was-was expensive, and was mounted with silver for those who 

 sat above the salt; as for those below, and as for servants, the 



