The 22nd Gerald Dunning Memorial Lecture: The Many Faces of Pottery: Finds of Mediterranean Ceramics and Sets of Drinking Vessels in Late Medieval Flanders (Belgium)

This paper focuses on two of the topics considered in the 2018 Gerald Dunning Memorial lecture on the composition of pottery assemblages as socio-economic indicators. One theme is religious, the other secular; both are illustrated using recent case studies from different Flemish sites. The main emphasis is on the significance of Mediterranean pottery in t’arious late medieval contexts in Flanders and the religious background to its circulation; building on an earlier paper (published in 2014), it considers new discoveries and how they contribute to the discussion of this subject. The second theme, by contrast, considers pottery from an urban site, discussing groups of drinking vessels (both pottery and glass) from three cesspits on the property of a crossbow maker and the communal context in which they may have been used.