THE EARLY POTTERIES OF STAFFORD SHIRE. 17 



horn and glass.* These two essentials, the food-bowls and 

 the drinking-cups, being of wood or metal, and of glass, left 

 but little for which clay could be used, except the funereal 

 urns which I have just described. For culinary purposes the 

 Anglo-Saxons seem to have had a dislike to the use of clay ; 

 but nevertheless some other varieties of their pottery occa- 

 sionally occur, and show that the wheel was sometimes used. 

 One of their forms I here show, and others approaching in 

 shape the basins and unhandled cups of 

 our own day have been found. 



Of pottery of the Norman period I am 

 not at present aware that any authenti- 

 cated examples have been found in Staf- 

 fordshire, though I have no doubt that in 

 that period the Norman potters worked 

 the clays of the district, and produced 

 vessels for various uses. These consisted 

 principally of bowls or basins, pitchers 

 and dishes; the bowls or basins being 

 used for drinking purposes, as well as for placing the cooked 

 meats in, and the pitchers for holding and carrying the wine, 

 ale, mead, water, and other liquors, to the table. In the 

 neighbouring county, Derbyshire, a most interesting dis- 

 covery of a Norman pot-work was recently made by my self, f 

 and one or two of the forms of vessels therein found are 

 given in the engravings on the two following pages. The clay 

 is usually of a coarse kind, and the vessels in some, or rather 

 in most instances, bear evidence of the wheel having been 

 used. In colour they are sometimes of a reddish-brown, at 

 others of a tolerably good red, and at other times, again, 



* These were the origin of our "tumblers;" the glasses then made 

 being rounded at the bottom, so that they must be filled while held, and 

 could not be set down until emptied, without spilling. 



t This pot-work is the only one either of the Anglo-Saxon or Anglo- 

 Norman periods which has ever been discovered, and is therefore of great 

 interest and importance. A notice of the discovery will be found in the 

 " Reliquary," vol. ii. p. 216. 



C 



