CHAPTER III.

Anglo-Saxon Pottery—Forms of Vessels, from Illustrated MSS.—Culinary Vessels—Pitchers and other domestic Vessels—Cinerary Urns—Cemeteries at Kingston, King’s Newton, Bedford, &c.—Modes of ornamenting.

For examples of the ceramic art of the Anglo-Saxon period we are mainly indebted to the cemeteries and burial mounds of that people. The art during this period, so far as this country is concerned, was but little practised, except, as in the Celtic period, for the manufacture of sepulchral urns of one kind or other. Still, it is pretty certain that many of the vessels found in the barrows were made for the purposes of life, and used for those of death when urns were wanted. In the preceding era the population of this country—the Romano-Britons—were essentially a pot-producing people, and they established, as will have been seen, extensive manufactories in various parts of the kingdom, and made and supplied vessels for every conceivable use and purpose. When the Saxons took possession of the country, and gradually extended themselves over its length and breadth, they found the Roman towns, as well as the stations and detached dwellings—nay, they found every part of the island—well and, indeed, profusely stocked with crockery of every kind, from the finest Samian cup and bowl down to the coarsest mortarium and amphora, in such profusion, and in such variety, as well as of such elegance, use, and beauty, as they had not previously known. Fighting their way here, and settling there, they utilised the crockery which so abundantly lay ready to their hands, and, as there can be no doubt the Roman potters continued their works long after the advent of the Saxons, they used these Roman vessels for all purposes, and thus did not, except in the case of their burial urns and ordinary domestic vessels, resembling in a somewhat striking manner some modern utensils, leave the impress of what little taste or skill they had upon the productions of the fictile art. The cinerary urns are, therefore, almost, the only productions of the Saxon potter which are known. These, like those of the Celtic period, were, there can be no doubt, usually made in pretty close proximity to their place of burial, and, consequently, were formed of the clays of the district. They assumed a peculiar character, and are entirely dissimilar to those of either of the preceding periods.

Of the forms of other vessels of the Anglo-Saxons—for there is no doubt that coarse domestic utensils were to some extent made—a tolerable idea may be gained from the illuminated MSS. of the time. Some few, but very few, examples have also been brought to light, which may with tolerable certainty be assigned to this period.

Fig. 222.

Fig. 223.

Fig. 224.

Fig. 225.

Fig. 226.

Fig. 227.

Fig. 228.

Fig. 229.

Fig. 230.

Fig. 231.

The engravings (Figs. [222 to 227]) showing a few of the forms taken from the illuminated MSS. of this and the succeeding period, are interesting examples. Some of these will be seen to owe their origin—as, for instance, Fig. [226]—to Roman design, while others are equally as clearly Franco-Gaulish in character. The Anglo-Saxons were not, like their Roman forerunners, an artistic race. They could not draw the form of the human figure correctly, nor, indeed, that of animals; but their delineations of jugs and pitchers are proved by existing examples to be pretty accurate. Their mind, as a rule, was coarse and unpoetic as their own beer, while that of the Roman was bright and sparkling as his own champagne.

Fig. 232.—From Kingston, in the Derby Museum.

Fig. 233.—In the Norwich Museum.

Fig. 234.—Ashmolean Museum.

The scene depicted on Fig. [224] exhibits some well-formed vessels in the foreground, while the dinner scene on Fig. [222] shows other varieties.

For culinary purposes the Anglo-Saxons appear to have had a kind of aversion to clay, hence their bowls were principally of metal or wood—generally of ash, and their drinking-vessels were of horn or glass.[28] One form of vessel, made of coarse buff-coloured clay, is here shown (Fig. [229]); and another of simple form is shown on Fig. [230].

The pottery of the Anglo-Saxon grave-mounds and cemeteries consists, unlike that of the preceding periods, almost exclusively of cinerary urns, and these have, as has been already stated on a previous page, been made near the place of sepulture; and, as a natural consequence, of the clays found in the neighbourhood. This is proved, incontestably, in the case of the urns found at King’s Newton, where the bed of clay still exists, and has very recently been used for common pottery purposes.[29]

Figs. 235 and 236.—King’s Newton.

Figs. 237 to 244.—Anglo-Saxon Cinerary Urns, King’s Newton.

The shape of the cinerary urns is somewhat peculiar, and partakes of the Frankish form, which may be called degraded Roman. Instead of being wide at the mouth, like the Celtic urns, they are more or less contracted, and have a kind of neck instead of the overhanging lip or rim which is so eminently characteristic of the pottery of that period. Some, however, are tolerably wide at the mouth; but these are usually low and shallow. The cinerary urns were formed by hand, not on the wheel, although on some other vessels evidence of wheel-turning is apparent. This is another proof that these sepulchral urns were made on the spot where wanted. They are as a rule, perhaps, more firmly fired than those of the Celtic period. They are usually of a dark-coloured clay, sometimes nearly black, at other times of a dark brown, and occasionally of a slate, or greenish tint, produced by surface-colouring.

Figs. 245 to 247.—Mayer Museum.

Their general form will be best understood by reference to the engravings, Figs. [232 to 244]. One of these will be seen to have projecting knobs or bosses, which have been formed by simply pressing out the pliant clay from the inside with the hand. In other examples these raised bosses take the form of ribs gradually swelling out from the bottom, till, at the top, they expand into semi-eggshaped protuberances. The ornamentation on the urns from these cemeteries usually consists of encircling incised lines in bands or otherwise, and vertical or zig-zag lines arranged in a variety of ways, and, not unfrequently, the knobs or protuberances of which I have just spoken. Sometimes, also they present evident attempts at imitation of the Roman egg-and-tongue ornament. The marked features of the pottery of this period is the frequency of small punctured or impressed ornaments, which are introduced along with the lines or bands with very good effect. These ornaments were evidently produced by the end of a stick cut and notched across in different directions, so as to produce crosses and other patterns. In some districts, especially in the East Angles, these vessels are ornamented with simple patterns painted upon their surface in white; but, so far as my knowledge goes, no example of this kind of decoration has been found in the Mercian cemeteries.

Figs. 248 to 252.

Of the East-Anglian urns, Mr. Wright—to whom and to Mr. Roach Smith is mainly due the credit of having correctly appropriated them to the Anglo-Saxon period—thus speaks:—

“The pottery is usually made of a rather dark clay, coloured outside brown or dark slate-colour, which has sometimes a tint of green, and is sometimes black. These urns appear often to have been made with the hand, without the employment of the lathe; the texture of the clay is rather coarse, and they are rarely well baked. The favourite ornaments are bands of parallel lines encircling the vessel, or vertical and zigzags, sometimes arranged in small bands, and sometimes on a larger scale, covering half the elevation of the urn; and in this latter case the spaces are filled up with small circles and crosses, and other marks, stamped or painted in white. Other ornaments are met with, some of which are evidently unskilful attempts at imitating the well-known egg-and-tongue and other ornaments of the Roman Samian ware, which, from the specimens, and even fragments, found in their graves, appear to have been much admired and valued by the Anglo-Saxons. But a still more characteristic peculiarity of the pottery of the Anglo-Saxon burial urns consists in raised knobs or bosses, arranged symmetrically round them, and sometimes forming a sort of ribs, while in the ruder examples they become mere round lumps, or even present only a slight swelling of the surface of the vessel. That these vessels belong to the early Anglo-Saxon period is proved beyond any doubt by the various objects, such as arms, personal ornaments, &c., which are found with them, and they present evident imitations both of Roman forms and of Roman ornamentation. But one of these urns has been found accompanied with remarkable circumstances, which not only show its relative date, but illustrate a fact in the ethnological history of this early period. Among the Faussett collection of Anglo-Saxon antiquities is an urn which Bryan Faussett appears to have obtained from North Elmham, in Norfolk, and which contained the bones of a child. It is represented in the accompanying engraving (Fig. [245]), and will be seen at once to be perfectly identical in character with the East-Anglian sepulchral urns. But Mr. Roach Smith, in examining the various objects in the Faussett collection, preparatory to his edition of Bryan Faussett’s “Inventorum Sepulchrale,” discovered on one side of this urn a Roman sepulchral inscription, which is easily read as follows:—

D. M.To the gods of the shades.
LAELIAETo Lælia
RVFINAERufina.
VIXIT·A·XIIIShe lived thirteen years,
M·III·D·VI.three months, and six days.

To this Roman girl, with a purely Roman name, belonged, no doubt, the few bones which were found in the Anglo-Saxon burial urn when Bryan Faussett received it; and this circumstance illustrates several important as well as interesting questions relating to our early history. It proves, in the first place, what no judicious historian now doubts, that the Roman population remained in the island after the withdrawal of the Roman power, and mixed with the Anglo-Saxon conquerors; that they continued to retain, for some time at least, their old manners and language, and even their Paganism and their burial ceremonies; for this is the purely Roman form of sepulchral inscriptions; and that, with their own ceremonies, they buried in the common cemetery of the new Anglo-Saxon possessors of the land, for this urn was found in an Anglo-Saxon burial-ground. This last circumstance had already been suspected by antiquaries, for traces of Roman interment in the well-known Roman leaden coffins had been found in the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Ozingell, in the Isle of Thanet; and other similar discoveries have, I believe, been made elsewhere. The fact of this Roman inscription on an Anglo-Saxon burial urn, found immediately in the district of the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, which have produced so many of these East Anglian urns, proves further that these urns belong to a period following immediately upon the close of what we call the Roman period.”

The sepulchral vases found in the district of the Middle Angles vary but slightly in form from the East-Anglian burial urns. An example is given in Fig. [246], from Chestersovers, in Warwickshire, where it was found with an iron sword, a spear-head, and other articles of Anglo-Saxon character.

“If we had not abundant proofs of the Anglo-Saxon character of this pottery at home,” continues Mr. Wright, “we should find sufficient evidences of it among the remains of the kindred tribes on the Continent, the old Germans, or Alemanni, and the Franks. Some years ago, an early cemetery, belonging to the Germans, or Alemanni, who then occupied the banks of the Upper Rhine, was discovered near a hamlet called Selzen, on the northern bank of that river, not far above Mayence, and the rather numerous objects found in it are, I believe, preserved in the Mayence Museum. They were communicated to the public by the brothers Lindenschmit, in a well-illustrated volume published in 1848, under the title ‘Das Germanische Todtenlager bei Selzen in der Provinz Reinhessen.’ When this book appeared in England, our antiquaries were astonished to find in the objects discovered in the Alemannic cemeteries of the country bordering on the Rhine a character entirely identical with that of their own Anglo-Saxon antiquities, by which the close affinity of the two races was strikingly illustrated. More recently, the subject has been further illustrated in the description by Ludwig Lindenschmit of the collection of the national antiquities in the Ducal Museum of Hohenzollern, and in other publications. About the same time with the first labours of the Lindenschmits, a French antiquary, Dr. Rigollot, was calling attention in France to similar discoveries in the cemeteries which the Teutonic invaders of Picardy had left behind them, and in which he recognised the same character as that displayed by the similar remains of the Anglo-Saxons in our island. Similar discoveries have been made in Burgundy and in Switzerland, the ancient country of the Helvetii; and it is hardly necessary here to do more than mention the great and valuable researches carried on by the Abbé Cochet among the Frankish graves in Normandy. It has thus become an established fact that the varied remains of the tribes, all of Teutonic descent, who settled on the borders of the Roman empire along the whole extent of the country from Great Britain to Switzerland, present the same character and bear a close resemblance.”

Figs. 253 to 256.

A few figures here given will illustrate this resemblance. Figs. [248 and 251] are two Allemannic urns from the cemetery of Selzen. It will be seen that they resemble in form the East Anglian urns, and the same ornamentation is also found among our general Anglo-Saxon pottery. These urns are described as being usually made of the clay of the neighbourhood, in most cases turned on a lathe, but many of them imperfectly baked. They are found in graves where the body had not undergone cremation, and were used for containing articles of a miscellaneous description. Fig. [252] is a slate-coloured urn, procured at Cologne, and is ornamented with circular stamps. Figs. [249 and 251] are Frankish urns, obtained by the Abbé Cochet from Londinières in Normandy, and show at a glance the identity of the Frankish pottery with the Germanic as well as with the Anglo-Saxon. The second of these is surrounded with a row of the well-known bosses, which are equally characteristic of the three divisions of this Teutonic pottery—Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, and Allemannic. Above these bosses is an ornament identical with that of the East Anglian urn with the sepulchral inscription. Figs. [253 to 256] are urns from the Swiss Lacustrine habitations, for comparison of form.

Fig. 257.

Fig. 258.

Fig. 259.

The series of engravings (Figs. [232 to 244]) will show the general and more characteristic forms of purely Anglo-Saxon cinerary urns. Figs. [232] and [235] are of the low or flat variety, which is of not unfrequent occurrence. Figs. [234] and [236] are also of a not uncommon form, while [240] is more uncommon. Fig. [241] is of excellent form, and is very simple in ornamentation, having only encircling and diagonal lines, to decorate its surface. Figs. [243, 244, and 239] are of different shape, and so again are Figs. [237 and 240], which are almost unique in form and in ornamentation.

Fig. 260.

Fig. 261.

Most of these examples are from one locality, King’s Newton, in Derbyshire, within a few miles of the capital of the kingdom of Mercia. The others (Fig. [232]) are from Kingston, in the same neighbourhood. Other characteristic examples of form and decoration are given on Figs. [233] and [234]. These are from the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and from the Norwich Museum, and exhibit excellent specimens of forms and decoration from those districts.

The ornamentation on Anglo-Saxon cinerary urns consists usually of encircling lines in bands, or otherwise; in vertical or zig-zag lines, arranged in a variety of ways; of impressed or punctured ornaments; and of knobs or protuberances. Sometimes also, as in a Bedfordshire urn, they present evident attempts at imitation of the Roman egg-and-tongue ornament. In some districts small ornaments are painted on the surface with a white pigment. The marked feature of the pottery of this period is the frequency of the small punctured or impressed ornaments to which I have alluded, which are introduced along with the lines or bands, with very good effect. These ornaments were evidently usually produced by the end of a stick, cut and notched across in different directions, so as to produce crosses and other patterns. In other instances these impressed ornaments have been produced by twisted slips of metal, &c.

In the woodcut (Figs. [260] and [261]) I have endeavoured to show two of the notched-stick “punches,” such as I have reason to believe were used for pressing into the soft clay, and also the impressed patterns produced by them.

The quatrefoils (or as they may almost be called, crosses patée) on some of the urns I have engraved, particularly on Figs. [237, 238, and 239], are very unusual, as are also those in the lower bands of Figs. [237 and 240], and in the upper band of the latter example.

Other modes of ornamenting are shown on Fig. [234].