The Fifth Gerald Dunning Memorial Lecture: Potters and Pots

This paper is an exploration of the extent to which potters – always at the low end of the craft hierarchy – were able to share in the common stock of medieval ornament. It was found that the vast majority of pots were undecorated. Early pots had simple ornament appropriate to clay but the situation changed in the middle period when ornament reflected the religious and artistic preoccupation of other crafts, in particular the tilers and the workers in iron. There was less ornament in the late period when much use was made of stamps which were readily available and could be rapidly applied.