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A Group of English and Imported Medieval Pottery from Lesnes Abbey, Kent; and the Trade in Early Hispano-Moresque Pottery to England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Extract

The group of medieval pottery described in this paper was found at Lesnes Abbey in June 1959, when the smaller of two stone-lined pits added against the west end of the Reredorter was cleared. The pit measured 8 ft. by 5 ft. internally, and was about 10 ft. deep. The greater part of the filling, about 7 ft. in depth, consisted of chalk and stone rubble, fragments of sandy mortar, a few pieces of worked stone, and broken roofing tiles. Below this filling was a layer of dark soil, about 2 ft. in depth, at the bottom of the pit. All the pottery was found in the layer of dark soil; there is thus no doubt that it is contemporary, and was absolutely sealed by several feet of building debris. I am indebted to the officers of the Historic Buildings Section of the London County Council for these details, and for permission to examine the pottery and prepare this report for publication.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1961

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References

page 3 note 1 Museum, GuildhallCatalogue (1908), pl. lxviGoogle Scholar, 7; London Museum Medieval Catalogue (1940), 215Google Scholar, fig. 69, 5.

page 3 note 2 Information from Mr. Frere; Arch. Cant, lxix, 148–9.

page 3 note 3 British Museum Catalogue of English Pottery (1903), 69, fig. 59; Guildhall Museum Catalogue, pi. LXVI, 10.

page 3 note 4 Arch. Cant, lxxii, 35, fig. 6, 18–19.

page 3 note 5 Surrey Arch. Coll. xxxvii, 245.

page 3 note 6 Information from Mr. S. E. Rigold; Arch. Cant, lxxii, 38.

page 3 note 7 Arch. Cant, lxxii, 35, fig. 6, 20–22.

page 3 note 8 Ibid. lxxiii, 213.

page 3 note 9 Plan published by Jope, E. M. in A History of Technology, ii (1956), 285Google Scholar, fig. 266.

page 4 note 1 Arch. lxxxiii, 114–18 and 124–34.

page 5 note 1 A full account of polychrome ware and of the other types of French pottery exported to Britain, together with inventories, is being prepared for publication in the near future.

page 5 note 2 Information from Mr. C. A. R. Radford.

page 5 note 3 Arch. lxxxiii, 112.

page 5 note 4 Information from Mr. A. J. Taylor,

page 5 note 5 Arch. Cambrensis, 1935, p. 141.

page 5 note 6 P.S.A., Scot. xci, 117.

page 6 note 1 Lane, Arthur, ‘Early Hispano-Moresque Pottery: a reconsideration’, Burlington Magazine, lxxxviii (1946), 246–52.Google Scholar

page 6 note 2 Lane, op. cit. 250, pi. 11, A, top left. See also Alice W. Frothingham, Lustreware of Spain (Hispanic Society of America, 1951), 17, figs. 7, 17.

page 8 note 1 Chancery Miscellanea, file 4, no. 5 (P.R.O. reference C. 47/4/5). Quoted by L. F. Salzman, English Trade in the Middle Ages (1931), 413,415.

page 8 note 2 Public Record Office, K.R. Customs, 124/11. Quoted by Gras, N. S. B., The Early English Customs System, Harvard Economic Studies, xviii (1918), 269.Google Scholar

page 9 note 1 Frothingham, op. cit., 17, figs. 6–7.

page 9 note 2 The types are conveniently compared in Frothingham, op. cit., figs. 51–52 and in Hispano-Moresque Pottery (Victoria and Albert Museum, 1957), pls. 2–3. For colour illustrations of drug-jars see González Martí, Cerámica del Levante español (1944), passim, especially pi. xii.

page 10 note 1 R. B. K. Stevenson, The Great Palace of the Byzantine Emperors (1947), chap, ii, The Pottery.

page 10 note 2 Joan du Plat Taylor, ‘Medieval Graves in Cyprus’, An Islamica, v (1938), 55 ff.

page 10 note 3 Arthur Lane, ‘Medieval Finds at Al Mina in North Syria’, Arch. lxxxvii, 19 ff. especially 45–53.

page 10 note 4 Pottery from the Near East did occasionally reach north-west Europe in medieval times. The rim and neck of a jar of thirteenth-century Rakka ware from North Syria, painted with a band of mock inscription in black under a pale turquoise blue glaze, was found at Grosmont Castle, Monmouthshire. Archaeologia Camirensis, 1932, p. 193. Another import of this date from the same source is a small drug-jar from excavations in Lund. Kulturen. En Arsbok (1948), p. 32.