INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



ter cups and dishes were gradually displaced by earth- 

 enware vessels in the kitchen; earthenware jugs and 

 jars took the place of wooden tubs and kegs in the 

 cellar; while retorts and beakers that resisted excessive 

 heat and the action of the strongest acids in a manner 

 quite unknown before, came into use in the labora- 

 tories of the alchemists, and played an important 

 part in establishing the science of chemistry. 



It should not be understood that the knowledge of 

 forming a glaze on certain kinds of pottery was con- 

 fined to the Chinese for so many centuries before 

 Western Europeans attained it. The Egyptians knew 

 something of the matter; and the Greeks used a thin 

 glaze on their ware. The Romans adopted a glazing 

 process from the Greeks, and seem to have invented 

 a glazed ware of their own, which they scattered far 

 and wide over their domains. But this art of mak- 

 ing glazed pottery seems to have been forgotten by 

 the Western nations during the Dark Ages, if, indeed, 

 they had ever learned it; and it was not until five 

 or six centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire 

 that the art was revived, or rediscovered. It is sig- 

 nificant that this revival came at about the time that 

 the straggling Crusaders were making their way back 

 into Europe, bringing with them so many useful ideas 

 gathered from the despised infidel in the Holy Land. 

 It seems more than likely, therefore, that the Arabs may 

 be indirectly responsible for the introduction of glazed 

 pottery into the West. If so, it is simply one more 

 link in the chain of evidence to prove that the Crusades 

 were among the most useful and successful series of 



[230] 



