Face to face with medieval pottery: Some observations on medieval anthropomorphic pottery in north-east England

by C.G. Cumberpatch BA PhD
Freelance Archaeologist

Abstract
Introduction
Typology
The characteristics of jugs with bearded faces
Beards and hair in medieval England
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Figures
About the author

 Abstract

In this paper I want to consider some aspects of English medieval anthropomorphic pottery, that is to say pots which bear partial or complete depictions of human bodies. I want to do this as a way of focussing attention on the non-functional aspects of medieval pottery which we tend to overlook in favour of other aspects of fabric, form and decoration. This is intended to be a speculative paper which will raise more questions than it answers – there are a number of issues that I have not been able to resolve and others which require a considerable amount of further work.

I shall be drawing on data from Yorkshire , Derbyshire and the counties of north-east of England between the later 11 th century and approximately 1450. How far the suggestions made here are applicable to areas to the south and west and in Scotland are for others to answer.

In 1997 I published a paper in which in which I drew attention to the distinctions between sandy wares and gritty wares in Yorkshire and suggested that these distinctions had greater significance than that of simple functionality (Cumberpatch 1997). In particular I noted that glaze is used primarily as a decorative device for most of the medieval period rather than as a means of rendering pots less porous and, to our eyes, increasing their functionality. Glaze appears preferentially on sandy ware vessels such as jugs, pipkins and dripping trays and it is these vessels, and specifically jugs, that I shall be dealing with in this paper, which is, in some ways, a development of the earlier one.

 Introduction

In this paper I want to consider some aspects of English medieval anthropomorphic pottery, that is to say pots which bear partial or complete depictions of human bodies. I want to do this as a way of focussing attention on the non-functional aspects of medieval pottery which we tend to overlook in favour of other aspects of fabric, form and decoration. This is intended to be a speculative paper which will raise more questions than it answers – there are a number of issues that I have not been able to resolve and others which require a considerable amount of further work.

I shall be drawing on data from Yorkshire, Derbyshire and the counties of north-east of England between the later 11 th century and approximately 1450. How far the suggestions made here are applicable to areas to the south and west and in Scotland are for others to answer.

In 1997 I published a paper in which in which I drew attention to the distinctions between sandy wares and gritty wares in Yorkshire and suggested that these distinctions had greater significance than that of simple functionality (Cumberpatch 1997). In particular I noted that glaze is used primarily as a decorative device for most of the medieval period rather than as a means of rendering pots less porous and, to our eyes, increasing their functionality. Glaze appears preferentially on sandy ware vessels such as jugs, pipkins and dripping trays and it is these vessels, and specifically jugs, that I shall be dealing with in this paper, which is, in some ways, a development of the earlier one.

Typology

This paper is intended as an overview of the situation, a first step towards a more detailed consideration of decoration on medieval pottery and so I do not intend to deal in detail with the typological distinctions which we can see in anthropomorphic and zoomorphic pots as a group. This is clearly an important issue and one which needs further work, including some clear definitions, but for my present limited purposes a broad overview will suffice.

• Bearded male faces, normally found on jugs, often below the spout
• Humanoid limbs, normally arms, often associated with the face masks, frequently holding the body of the pot as if clasping a fat belly
• Complete human figures on the body of the pot
• Small individual faces on the rim or body of the pot
• Knight jugs
• Horse and rider aquamaniles
• Others (foliate heads, female heads, phallic figures)
• Animal bodies (especially as aquamaniles)
• Animal heads and body parts

I shall be focusing mainly on the simpler bearded faces and limbs and will not deal with the elaborate knight jugs or animals, other than in passing. As Franz Verhaege has discussed (1991), animal forms seem to be mainly associated with copies of metal aquamaniles or water dispensers. These are also found in the form of horse and rider figures, perhaps linking them with the knight jugs. The knight jugs themselves, such as those from Scarborough and Nottingham which Peter Farmer (1979) and Jean Le Patourel (Le Patourel 1960, Bellamy and Le Patourel 1970) have described, are generally so elaborate that they take the basic utilitarian form of the jug to a degree of elaboration that would seem to make the vessels unsuitable for everyday uses – in contrast, the face jugs and jugs with arms and other features would have been entirely functional and could have been used alongside jugs with the commoner types of combed, stabbed and applied decoration. So far as can be determined there are no simple correlations between site type or status and the occurrence of face jugs or, indeed, other anthropomorphic or zoomorphic vessels. This is not entirely unexpected as there is, generally, very little evidence that stylistic distinctions between types of medieval pottery were related to social or economic status, although there is some evidence to suggest that the overall quantity consumed was linked to economic prosperity (see, for example, Brown 2002:Chapter 8).

Foliate heads such as that on the vessel from Eynsham Abbey (Blinkhorn 2003) are rare, and together with female and phallic vessels are, to the best of my knowledge, rare or completely absent in the study area that I have defined, at least so far as I have been able to determine – something that is increasingly difficult as the commitment to archaeological publication is whittled away by the restrictions imposed by the PPG 16 regime.

Complete human figures on the bodies of pots, other than knights, are also rare, although thin, wraith-like stick-people are found on Burley Hill wares from Full Street in Derby (Coppack 1972: Figure 15;178). Similarly stylised animals are also rare, although I have identified one such example amongst the material from Brackenfield near Chesterfield (Cumberpatch 2004: Plates BR050, BR051, BR052, BR053, BR054), but they are not common.

 The characteristics of jugs with bearded faces

What are the characteristics of face pots which sets them apart from the ordinary vessels? Obviously the presence of anthropomorphic features – these consist of eyes, beards, eyebrow ridges, mouths, arms and hands. Hair on the side or back of the head is rarely depicted and, given the form of the vessels, hair on the top of the head would be impossible to include. Ears are also generally absent. Examples from Hallgate in Doncaster and Lurk Lane in Beverley are shown in Figures 1 and 2

The faces are either associated with the spouts of jugs, such as a bridge-spouted example from Tanners Row in Pontefract (Cumberpatch, in prep.; reproduced as Figure 3) or appear around the rim of the vessel as with the tube-spouted examples from Hallgate in Doncaster (Buckland et al 1979:Figs. 6 and 7) and an example from Burley Hill near Derby (Cumberpatch forthcoming). Other examples are known from a variety of sites including Hallgarth Street in Durham (Cumberpatch 2003: Plate 10), Lurk Lane and Eastgate in Beverley (Didsbury and Watkins 1992, Watkins 1991), The Elephant Hotel, Low Fishergate and Church Way, all in Doncaster (Buckland et al . 1989, Cumberpatch, pers. obs.), Southgate in Hartlepool (Wrathmell 1987:38, 1990:379) and so on. One of the problems in dealing with this subject is that there is no definitive catalogue of such vessels and, given that many examples must lie amongst unpublished assemblages or in the grey literature, the compilation of such a catalogue would be a challenging task and all but impossible thanks to the restrictions on research imposed by government cuts to English Heritage budgets and the refusal of the development industry to face up to its responsibilities in this matter (Cumberpatch and Blinkhorn 2001).

Small masks sometimes appear on the body of the pot as with examples from Brackenfield near Chesterfield (Cumberpatch 2004:Plates BR089, BR090, BR091, BR092) but hands and arms are commoner, as with the example from Church Street , Bawtry (Cumberpatch 1996: Fig 3.2, reproduced as Figure 4). At some stage it might be possible to link particular styles with particular potteries, but to date this has not been attempted and it remains a task for the future.

Work on these pots to date has been limited: Peter Farmer's discussion of the Scarborough ware and related vessels (1979), Jean Le Patourel's review of the subject in Medieval Archaeology (1960) and her report on the Woodhouse Farm potteries (Bellamy and le Patorel 1970) all deal primarily with chronological and typological issues – Le Patourel, for example, has distinguished three types of beard; long, short and twisted within the broader group (1960: Fig. 68). While these are useful starting points, the papers were written many years ago and have never been effectively followed up, even though we now have much improved datasets and chronological frameworks within which to consider the issue. These papers are, nevertheless, useful points of departure from which we might reconsider the typology and chronology and distribution of the face pots. For the purposes of this paper however I want to move away from chronology and typology and to consider the possible social significance of beards on both men and on pots. I should acknowledge the importance of women's hair in medieval society – but given that the anthropomorphic pots appear to be generally male, I shall, for the purposes of this paper, concentrate on issues surrounding male hair and beards.

 Beards and hair in medieval England

The manipulation of head and facial hair to create distinctive styles of appearance is common in the modern world and the use made of hair by sub-cultural groups to define and distinguish themselves is particularly clear in the illustrations published by Polhemus (1994) in his catalogue of 20 th century ‘street styles'. A similar point has been made, somewhat more satirically, by Larson and Hoskyns (1999). Essential to the use of hair as an effective cultural or political statement is an attitude of censure, either by arbiters of taste or by the authorities. In 2005, an item on the BBC News website described attempts by the North Korean government to standardise male haircuts to a number of specific styles, the rationale being that ‘Hair is a very important issue that shows the peoples cultural standards and mental and moral state' (BBC 2005)

This may be seen as an extreme example, the product of an unusually repressive regime, but, while few in Europe would follow the North Korean government in asserting that long hair ‘consumes a great deal of nutrition' and can rob the brain of energy (BBC 2005) a variety of hair styles have, at different times, been stigmatised as indicative of anti-social attitudes while others have been widely accepted as markers of conformity and respectability.

A full review of the history of hair on the face and head is impossible in this article but it is clear that, as Bartlett has pointed out (1994:43), it is widely considered to be an important bearer of meaning and significance, being unusually malleable for a human body part, closely associated with the face, the most expressive part of the human body and is highly visible unless deliberately covered – itself a deliberate and potentially significant act. This in itself is, perhaps, hardly surprising. As Bartlett has noted

The basic analytical point, that hair treatment serves as a social marker of various kinds, is quickly made and can be presumed to command fairly widespread acceptance (1994:56).

The problem, also acknowledged by Bartlett , is to move beyond such relatively bland observations and to seek the detailed data which will allow the symbolic codes employed by medieval people to be understood. Archaeological data represents an important part of the available information, yet one that seems under-appreciated by many historians. It is perhaps for this reason that face pots are not mentioned in any of the historical papers cited in this article.

When dealing with hair, including facial hair, in the medieval period we have a limited range of data to call upon. Archaeologically the physical survival of hair is rare and the surviving items connected with the cutting, styling and treatment of hair, provide relatively little information about the specific details. Documentary evidence is also limited. The Apologia de Barbis , which was probably written in the early 1160s by Burchard of Bellevaux, is the only known work dealing specifically with beards known between the Misopogon of Julian (AD353) and Valerian's Pro sacerdotum barbis of 1531. It is fortunate (for the archaeologist) that the introduction to the published edition of the Apologia de Barbis , (Constable 1985), provides a useful review of issues surrounding hair and beards in the early medieval period derived from the historical literature.

Constable notes that references to beards in written sources are generally imprecise and mention of a beard may mean a full beard, the result of deliberate growth and trimming, or simply the stubble grown between two shaves. His comment that

…the hidden truth, sacrament or mystery of beards … always lay beneath the surface of appearances in the Middle Ages, but it was so often varied and sometimes so strange, as to be obscure even to contemporaries, let alone to later scholars (1985:56).

does not offer a great deal of encouragement when we come to try to deal with the issue of depictions of beards on pots, which, as I have argued elsewhere (1997), also seem to carry their own burden of symbolic significance in their colours and textures.

Constable emphasises the extent to which beards and the ability to grow a beard were regarded as symbols of manliness, virility and potency; those without beards or without the ability to grow a beard either required some special reason for their state (such as being a monk or a cleric) or were regarded as weak, unmanly and possibly sterile. Beyond this very general statement, the impression left is of a variety of meanings pertaining to the beard and the act of shaving which derive on one hand from traditions of biblical exegesis and on the other to the varying attitudes expressed in the later classical authors. Constable concludes his discussion of the biblical traditions with the following statement, relating specifically to the work of 13 th century writer Hugh of St Cher on the book of Ezekiel:

The hairs of the head and beard stand … for honesty, virility and power, and, by extension, for noble, strong and powerful men both in the Church and in secular society. They also signify superfluous wealth and various types of sins which have to be cut away with a razor. The beard had many other meanings which are not mentioned by Hugh, but he gives an idea both of their variety and of their frequently contradictory nature. In literature, art and understanding, as in real life, beards were seen as good and bad, beautiful and ugly, depending upon the circumstances and attitude of the beholder (Constable 1985:85).

Such ambiguity also surrounds the symbolic significance of colour (Cumberpatch 1997:126-7), an issue to which I shall return briefly later.

Much of Constable's discussion of beards in the secular world is concerned with the early medieval period and predates the appearance of the bearded face jugs in Britain, but he notes that ‘It is clear that by the second half of the 11 th century many, if not most, men in northern Europe, and especially in France and England, shaved their beards' (1985:95).

In his article Symbolic meanings of hair in the Middle Ages , Robert Bartlett has drawn attention to the controversy around issues of long, supposedly ‘effeminate' hair styles which were criticised by various clerics during the 11 th , 12 th and 13 th centuries (1994). The long hair and beards associated with hermits were seen as a mark of their separate status and, as such, were acceptable as part of the process by which such people defined their marginal status, but it seems that in society at large, long hair and beards were far less acceptable.

Both Bartlett and Constable cite examples from the 12 th and 13 th centuries of controversies over beards and hair length which were used by moralists as reasons to denounce the moral turpitude and degeneracy of the times, in contrast to earlier periods. The fashionable long hair worn by courtiers and young men was condemned as effeminate, degenerate and threatening to the very foundations of society.

Documentary examples of sanctions being taken by the ecclesiastical authorities against men with long hair include nobles being turned away from the altar during the mass and of clerics forcibly cutting the hair of noblemen before allowing them to participate in religious rites (Bartlett 1994:50-52). Bernard of Clairvaux, Alan of Lille and William of Malmesbury all railed against the degeneracy and effeminacy of long hair with William of Malmesbury even regarding the fashion as a reason for the success of the Norman Conquest, ascribing to Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester the following sentiment:

Those who are ashamed to be what they were born and who copy women in their flowing hair will be no better than women in defending their country against overseas people ( Vita Wulfstani , quoted in Bartlett 1994:52).

As so often, however, the allure of fashion seems to have been more persuasive to the young and wealthy than were the rantings of moralists who, like certain contemporary journalists and social commentators, appear to have seen almost every innovation in personal grooming as a harbinger of social catastrophe. There is no real evidence, so far as I am aware, that such moralising had any general or widespread effect on social practice.

If long hair, particularly when worn by the younger members of the courtly class, was seen as symptomatic of moral decline, beards appear to have been regarded in a slightly different light, although they attracted no less criticism from the religious authorities.

Serlo of Seez associated beards with penitents and saw them as inappropriate for those who were not undertaking penance. In a sermon of 1105 he raged ‘Long beards give them the look of billy-goats, whose filthy viciousness is shamefully imitated by the degradations of fornicators and sodomites' (Constable 1985:96). He went on to condemn those sinners who allowed their beards to grow ‘for fear that the short bristles would prick their mistresses when they kiss them, and in their hairiness they make themselves more like Saracens than Christians' (Constable 1985:96).

A comparison with goats is also found in a passage from Orderic Vitalis who disapproved of beards except where worn by prisoners, those in distress or those undertaking penance. He complained that ‘Now almost all our fellow countrymen are crazy and wear little beards, openly proclaiming by such a token that they revel in filthy lusts like stinking goats' ( Historia aecclesiastica , quoted by Constable 1985:67, 96).

Bartlett notes that the Latin Church, as opposed to the Greek Church, insisted on clerical shaving and that this may have been associated with the commitment to celibacy, the ability to grow a beard being definitive of a man who had ‘come of age' and was thus sexually active. Despite this link between manhood and beardedness, he goes on to note that by the mid 13 th century, beardlessness was very general in western Europe. This he illustrates with several examples although, as he notes, hard evidence about such ephemeral features of the human body is difficult to obtain and even more difficult to evaluate, being highly anecdotal. A number of these anecdotes are of some interest with regard to the origins and significance of bearded faces on pots.

In 1190, Muslim soldiers trying to break the naval blockade of Acre sought to disguise themselves as Christians by wearing European style clothes, placing pigs prominently on the decks of their ships and shaving their beards (Bartlett 1994:59). Conversely, at the siege of Antioch the bishop of Le Puy urged the crusaders not to abandon shaving as being clean-shaven would allow them to be distinguished from their enemies when in battle (Constable 1985:97).

In 1253 European ambassadors to the court of the Mongol ruler were mistaken for Buddhist monks, having shaved the beards that they had grown on their travels in order, in their own words ‘to appear before the Khan according to the fashion of our own country' (Bartlett 1994:60).

Other examples include Castilian laws of the 1250s stipulating that Moors living in towns settled by Christians should wear their beards long and have their hair cut in particular ways in order that they be easily recognised. It may be significant, in view of what I shall propose at the end of this paper, that the law stated that the Moors should wear long beards ‘as their law commands'. Similar laws in Catalonia dating to 1301 expressedly stated that these distinctions were for the purpose of identifying Moors amongst Christians (Bartlett 1994:47).

Other documentary evidence quoted by Bartlett (1994:48-50) relates to the importance of the first cutting of a boys hair to mark his transition to manhood, although I have not found specific examples of shaving as a similar marker of a rite of transition in the medieval period specifically.

It is notoriously dangerous for archaeologists to trespass on the domains of other disciplines, particularly that of art history, but it is worth noting the evidence available from documentary sources, specifically the marginal illustrations on illuminated manuscripts, such as those collected by Michael Camille in his book Image on the edge (1992). The general impression is of a general lack of beards, at least on the secular characters depicted in these illustrations. Christ and some of the saints are certainly bearded but these are not generally the long pointed beards that appear on the pots but rather trimmed beards conforming to the shape of face. Longer, fuller beards appear on a number of the grotesque, semi-human creatures although again, these are not pointed beards. There are clearly dangers in using such material – many of the events depicted in marginal illustrations are bizarre and imaginary and the dangers of using such sources uncritically are well known. This having been said many of the incidental features in the illustrations, including the depiction of pots, appear to be realistically portrayed. Monks are shown tonsured and the style of the clothes is accurate, but a more detailed study of the conventions surrounding illustration and particularly the marginal figures will be needed before this source of information can be usefully employed in connection with archaeological data.

In general, then, it would appear that although the ability to grow a beard and to demonstrate this by regular shaving was of considerable importance in denoting full manhood, shaving and deliberate beardlessness was common and perhaps even normal in medieval Europe, to the extent that the possession of a beard marked a person as foreign or different in some other way.

The question then arises – if beardlessness was widespread, why do pots appear bearing depictions of bearded men to the virtual exclusion of the clean-shaven? And why are long pointed beards such a common feature? It would seem that we can rule out potters making pots that looked like (or were supposed to look like) real individuals, given the presence of long beards and the highly stylised and even schematic nature of the facial features included.

There seem to be three possible explanations that are worth pursuing:

1. Face pots were made to be used during secular rites of passage, perhaps related to the coming of age of boys, the start of regular shaving and their entry into manhood;
   
2. Face pots relate to stories brought back by people returning from the Crusades and depict stylised images of the inhabitants of Palestine and neighbouring territories;
   
3. The presence of bearded faces is linked to other symbolic aspects of jugs - in particular to transgressive imagery and symbolism, in part perhaps connected with behaviour condemned by moralists.

The first of these, the link with rites of passage, is perhaps the least likely – or at least, the one for which there is least tangible evidence. Although the transition to manhood was an important step and is widely linked with the act of shaving, there seems no particular reason why a long-bearded face on a jug should be appropriate for such a rite.

The second suggestion relates to the effects that the Crusades may have had on society in medieval Europe . Although many of the people who travelled to Palestine as soldiers or as pilgrims died either on the journey or while they were in the Middle East , many others returned and it is hardly conceivable that such an event would have not produced some effects on patterns of behaviour and on material culture in north-west Europe . So far as I am aware, there has been no systematic study of the effects of the Crusades on popular culture (as opposed to the effects on high art, architecture, medicine, technology, military tactics and so on) but there are some indications that relatively mundane items of material culture were affected. It can be argued that tube-spouted ceramic jugs are copies of metal vessels which were themselves influenced by similar objects found in the Middle East (Allan 1994:53). Such influence has also been argued in the case of metal aquamaniles, which, as mentioned above, were also copied in pottery. I know of no evidence for face pots or face masks on metal vessels from the Middle East and I am not suggesting a direct connection between face pots and Middle Eastern ceramics which seem to have reached Britain in only very small quantities. It may not be beyond the bounds of possibility that the faces, with their exotic pointed beards, are in some way related to tales and descriptions brought back by returning soldiers and pilgrims of the people they had encountered in the Middle East . This is a speculative suggestion - quite why and how stylised depictions of the enemies of Christendom should end up decorating pottery jugs in north-east England is a question that I an unable to answer at the present time. It may be that the suggestion is too far-fetched for serious consideration, but given that there seems to have been little consideration of the possible impact that encounters with a very different society should have had on medieval people, it does not seem to be an illegitimate avenue to consider.

Regarding the third suggestion, the link between the face pots and other symbolic aspects of pottery – this depends largely upon accepting the arguments that I made in my paper on the symbolic significance of the distinctions within medieval pottery assemblages (Cumberpatch 1997). Briefly restated, I argued that the colour and texture of different types of pots was deliberately structured and related to differing perceptions of the relationship between pottery and the symbolic values attributed to colour and to food and drink. It is notable that the face masks appear only on jugs, suggesting a connection between the bearded faces and drinking. I have suggested that ale can be seen as a beverage in which a number of powerful elements came together; male and female labour in the harvest, female labour in brewing and distribution, obligations on the part of landowners to provide food and drink for workers, particularly at harvest time, intoxication, social interaction and communal conviviality. Green, the common colour of the glaze on jugs, appears to have links with women (as evidenced in medicine and in the medieval theatre) and with fertility and sexuality. Red, and perhaps by association, orange, the chief colours of the unglazed parts of jugs is somewhat more ambiguous, but is still a powerful colour, linked with blood and a number of masculine attributes, notably strength, power and violence. If we can transfer these powerful symbolic associations to pottery and more particularly to the serving of food and drink, then we might see a whole set of complex associations and meanings embodied in mundane ceramic vessels – the addition of the bearded faces to certain jugs, perhaps used in specific contexts and at certain times, adds an additional element to this scenario.

The association made by moralists between the growth of hair and beards and the supposedly lustful appetites of goats might also play a part here – while to the moralising cleric seeking to exert his control and that of the church over the populace, goats may have represented the lustful and uncontrolled aspect of human nature, it is far from clear that they would have been equally stigmatised in popular culture where their sexual vigour and potential fertility might have had a more positive aspect. The apparent connection between the ability to grow a beard and the importance of shaving would seem to reinforce the link between beards and sexual potency. Were bearded face jugs made specifically for particular occasions, specifically weddings? On such occasions a variety of powerful impulses such as fertility and virility would have been very much to the fore and might well have found expression through the symbolism of the objects associated with them

There is one obvious link with other aspects of iconography that needs to be mentioned here; the depiction of the devil as a bearded figure with both human and goatish attributes. So far as I am aware, this representation of the fallen angel, Lucifer, is relatively late and is only one of a number of animal or semi-animal forms used to depict the devil in the medieval period. There seems little evidence to suggest that the goat-man figure as a depiction of the Anti-Christ was a common or widespread during the period when face-pots were being manufactured, but it is not impossible that the two traditions share a common origin and draw on the same transgressive image of the bearded goat-man, something which may have its origins in Anglo-Saxon religion where, as Paul Blinkhorn has pointed out, the goat may have been a venerated animal (pers comm.).

At present it seems that little can be said with any certainty regarding the wider significance of face pots. While we have a large body of data upon which we could begin to investigate the question, it remains dispersed, uncatalogued and unsorted, making access to the essential details difficult. Without a comprehensive catalogue there is the danger of missing significant patterns in the style and form of the pots themselves and also connections with other items of material culture. Like the marginal illustrations in manuscripts, the face pots offer us a way into the unfamiliarity of the medieval world view – but before we can exploit this we need to ask the right questions and to devise methodological responses which will lead to answers which are supported by the abundant data that we possess but all too rarely able to exploit to its full potential.

 Acknowledgements

Those who know me will understand that this paper has arisen from two sources; the first and most important is my interest in medieval ceramics but it would be idle to pretend that hair is not a subject that has been of personal concern to me since my earliest childhood. I would like to thank all those (family, friends and total strangers) who have commented on my personal grooming (or perceived lack thereof) over the years for impressing upon me what a central place hair plays in our own society and thereby provoking my curiosity regarding its place in other societies and at other times.

I would like to thank Paul Blinkhorn, Dawn Hadley, Alan Vince, Helen Wickstead and Hugh Willmott for comments on earlier versions of this paper which were delivered at the 2003 TAG Conference and the Yorkshire and Humberside Medieval Pottery Research Group Regional Group meeting at Cusworth Hall, Doncaster. Particular thanks are due to Alex Woolf for assistance with the historical background. Ian Roberts of Archaeological Services WYAS gave permission for the reproduction of the face pot from Tanners Row, Pontefract (Figure 3). All opinions expressed in the article are my own responsibility.

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Wrathmell, S. 1990 Pottery In: R. Daniels The development of medieval Hartlepool : Excavations at Church Close, 1984-85. Archaeological Journal 147: 377-392.

Figures

Figure 3 Face pot from Tanners Row, Pontefract (Photograph: Author, by arrangement with Archaeological Services WYAS.

Figure 4 Anthropomorphic pot from 16 – 20 Church Street, Bawtry (Cumberpatch 1996). Illustration by A.M. Chadwick.

cgc@ccumberpatch.freeserve.co.uk

About the author

Dr Chris Cumberpatch is a freelance archaeologist based in Sheffield .