Ceramics and Coastal Communities in Medieval (Twelfth ...€¦ · relationships amongst humans, animals, plants and material things’ (Harris, 2014: 89). Harris’s concept of the

Ceramics and Coastal Communities inMedieval (Twelfth–Fourteenth Century)Europe: Negotiating Identity inEngland’s Channel Ports

BEN JERVIS

School of History, Archaeology, and Religion, Cardiff University, UK

Using the example of pottery imported into the Channel ports of southern England, an approach toexamining the role of pottery in the emergence and mediation of coastal communities is proposed here.Building on recent scholarship, it is argued that it is no longer tenable to see pottery as a carrier ofidentity, or as part of a ‘cultural package’, with meaning emerging with identity as people interact withpottery within and without port environments. The study proposes that imported pottery foundmeaning in different ways, depending on the context of acquisition and use. Hence it mediated differentforms of community and identity. The article ends with a consideration of the wider implications of thisapproach for ongoing studies of material culture, trade, and urban identities in medieval Europe.

Keywords: England, medieval archaeology, pottery, trade, identity, community, material culture

INTRODUCTION

Influential work by David Gaimster (2005;2014) has recently brought the role of ma-terial culture in the articulation of maritimeidentities in medieval Europe into focus.Studying the use of ceramics in Hanseatictowns, Gaimster has argued for the exist-ence of a Hanseatic cultural package, in-cluding German stoneware and redwarepottery, through which a distinctive culturalidentity was expressed around the Balticcoastal zone (Figure 1). One could criticizeGaimster for not paying sufficient attentionto the relationship between material cultureand identity. The use of concepts such as‘type fossils’ (Gaimster, 2014: 65) is sug-gestive of a quasi culture-historical approachin which objects stand for identities, buthis discussion of the movement of ideas

alongside objects shifts the debate towardsartefacts acting as mediators in the negoti-ation of identity. Examples might be theemergence of a competitive merchant class,or the cultural tensions identified inNovgorod between the ceramic culture ofthe Hanse and the wood culture of thelocal population (Gaimster, 2005: 418–19;2014: 74–75). Therefore, within Gaimster’sdiscussion, the extent to which objectscarry or mediate identity is ambiguous.Gaimster’s work has stimulated further

research in this area. Naum (2013; 2014)draws upon post-colonial approaches toexplore how ‘Hanseatic’ objects were med-iators in the social confrontations experi-enced in Baltic ports (see also Immonen(2007) for a similar approach). For Naum,objects are one of a range of actors in thenegotiation of distinctive port experiences,

European Journal of Archaeology 20 (1) 2017, 148–167This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© European Association of Archaeologists 2016 doi:10.1017/eaa.2016.3Manuscript received 5 November 2015,accepted 4 May 2016, revised 1 March 2016

https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2016.3Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 54.39.106.173, on 06 Jun 2020 at 21:25:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at

https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2016.3

https://www.cambridge.org/core

with novel objects becoming meaningfulin new ways as they become integratedinto everyday life (Naum, 2014: 673).Naum also stresses how for merchants,people with ‘dual lives’ in their port oforigin and the places in which they spendconsiderable amounts of time on business,objects play an important role in creating asense of homeliness and familiarity, pro-viding ‘a recognizable backdrop for theirlives disrupted by migration’ (Naum,2013: 386). The concept of the ‘culturalpackage’ is further critiqued by Mehler(2009), who argues that objects found dif-ferent meanings within the context of the

North Atlantic islands. Mehler’s studyemphasizes the role of the life histories ofobjects, as things become meaningful asthey are entangled in new courses of socialinteraction. These studies do not showGaimster’s consideration of Hanseatic ma-terial culture to be wrong, but emphasizethat his interpretation is specific to theBaltic towns. These discussions highlight aneed to address the contextual subtleties inhow objects became meaningful and how,in doing so, they also mediate the emer-gence and re-iteration of various identities.Whilst recent research has focused on

the Hanse, this work can be fruitfully used

Figure 1. Map showing location of places and regions mentioned in the text and some major ports.The rectangle marks the study area in south-east England. 1: London, 2: Bruges, 3: Hamburg, 4:Lubeck, 5: Danzig, 6: Riga, 7: Novgorod, 8: Bergen, 9: Kalmar, 10: Saintes (the production region forSaintonge pottery); 11: Bordeaux, 12: Southampton, 13: Meuse Valley, 14: Rouen, 15: Scarborough.Background Image: WikiCommons reproduced under a Creative Commons by Attribution/Share-Alike Licence.

European Journal of Archaeology 149





to stimulate discussions of the role of ma-terial culture in medieval ports more gen-erally; the focus here is on the twelfth–fourteenth–century Channel ports of south-eastern England and their relationship withtheir hinterland.Ports can be characterized as zones of

confrontation. Post-colonial approachesdemonstrate frontiers to develop specificcharacters through the collision of tradi-tions, ideas, and worldviews (Naum, 2010:106). The specific entanglements betweenpeople, goods, and ideas which comeabout in ports might be seen as leading tothe emergence of particular forms of iden-tity and material worlds. The ‘in-between-ness’ of these places sets them apart fromother towns, and played an important rolein determining the trajectories alongwhich their character developed. The dis-tinctiveness of ports and coastal communi-ties is well demonstrated through otherstudies. For the early medieval period inthe English Channel and North Sea areas,Loveluck and Tys (2006) argue that interac-tions between coastal communities and theuse of imported goods led to the emergenceof distinctive forms of maritime communityand social identity (an idea further devel-oped by Davies, 2010; see Jervis, 2016a, inrelation to the early medieval period).Sindbæk (2013) uses network analysis toexplore these early medieval maritime rela-tionships further, identifying multi-scalarzones of interaction through the examin-ation of artefact distributions. Materialculture was also implicated in social rela-tionships within ports. In Southampton, forexample, imported pottery has been arguedto have developed distinctive meanings andbecome enrolled in identity formation(Brown, 1997; Jervis, 2008). Working at adifferent scale, Pieters and Verhaege (2008)show that a later medieval Flemish fishingcommunity encountered Mediterraneanpottery differently from those living inmajor mercantile ports, meaning that in

this context it developed distinctive mean-ings and was enrolled in the emergence ofparticular forms of coastal identity. Thesocial role of material culture in ports is anarea of great interest across northernEurope. We can only better understandvariation in the relationships betweenpeople and objects across coastal areasthrough the development of interpretiveframeworks and the use of a greater varietyof case studies. This contribution seeks toaddress how pottery mediated distinctiveexperiences in ports and how it was enrolledin the emergence of coastal communities.This requires a move beyond discussions ofimports as components of ‘culturalpackages’, to focus on the mediatory role ofobjects within social interaction.Harris (2014) has considered the

concept of community within archaeology.Drawing on insights from ‘assemblagetheory’ (inspired in particular by Deleuze& Guattari, 1987; DeLanda, 2006;Bennett, 2010) he calls for our ideas ofcommunity to extend beyond the human,to see communities as beginning ‘withrelationships amongst humans, animals,plants and material things’ (Harris, 2014:89). Harris’s concept of the communitystresses that the relationships throughwhich communities emerge and persistneed not be spatially situated (a view par-alleled in Naum’s 2013 discussion of theGerman diaspora in Kalmar) and thatcommunities might overlap and occur atmultiple scales. People may have, forexample, felt joined at one level to othersthrough their use of stoneware pottery but,simultaneously, this connection could befragmented through how they related tothis pottery at a personal level. For Harris,and other archaeologists taking similar re-lational approaches (e.g. Lucas, 2012;Fowler, 2013; Jervis, 2014), identities arenot transported by objects. Rather,‘persons’ emerge through interactionsbetween the human and non-human.

150 European Journal of Archaeology 20 (1) 2017





Following Latour (2005: 27), groups (orcommunities) emerge and are sustainedthrough interactions. Study must focus noton classifying identities but, rather, onstudying the social relationships throughwhich the emergence of ‘persons’ and‘communities’ was distributed across thematerial world.In essence such approaches see objects

and people as becoming meaningful to-gether, requiring us not only to focus onhow identities and communities emergefrom relationships, but also to rethink ourapproaches to objects. Van Oyen (2013)uses post-colonialism as a metaphor foraddressing this problem, arguing thatarchaeological classification creates a prioriassumptions about the social significanceof particular objects, masking the processesthrough which objects found meaning.Classification systems create an ‘in-betweenness’ as types with similar charac-teristics are contrasted as ‘others’. In orderto overcome this, Van Oyen (2013: 96)calls for a focus on tracing object biog-raphies and trajectories in order to under-stand how the presence of different thingsled to different constellations, or assem-blages, of people, things, and ideas emer-ging (see also Kopytoff, 1986; Gosden &Marshall, 1999). As demonstrated byFowler (2013: 44–46), ‘black-boxes’(defined (after Latour, 2005) as reifiedconcepts which circulate through dis-course) such as the ‘Hanseatic culturalpackage’ or even ‘imported medievalpottery’ must be unpacked to understandthe processes through which they emerged.Our interest shifts from distribution pat-terns of ‘known types’ to the cultural andeconomic patterns which underlie them(Sindbæk, 2013: 80). Whilst observing aphenomenon in the archaeological recordis useful as a means of identifying similar-ity and difference, or cultural contact, atone level, it is only through understandingthe social interactions which led to these

phenomena that we can move towards adeeper understanding of past social dy-namics—the vibrancy of past, more-than-human, communities (Harris, 2014: 90–92).

CASE STUDY: CERAMICS AND THE

CHANNEL PORTS

Ports are not a homogeneous class ofsettlement; they, like the communitiesdescribed above, are constituted of socialrelationships. It is these relationshipswhich make them distinctive from othersettlements and from each other. A funda-mental element of the character of a portcommunity is the flows of goods whichare traded through a particular place and,in particular, those items which are usedby port households. At a basic level theports of south-eastern England can beviewed hierarchically. All the ports dis-cussed here operated below the majorports of London and Southampton, themost important being the Cinque Ports.These were the principal Channel portswhich, in exchange for naval service, weregiven freedom and trading privileges.They were major participants in theGascon wine trade and had privileges inregard to the North Sea herring industry(Sylvester, 2004: 15). The Cinque Portsare situated on the coast of Kent andSussex, from Faversham in the east toSeaford in the west (Figure 2). Not all theports have been subject to excavation, themost intensively investigated being Dover(Parfitt et al., 2006), New Romney(Draper & Meddens, 2009), Rye (Dawkes& Briscoe, 2012; Margetts & Williamson,2014), New Winchelsea (Martin &Rudling, 2004), and Hastings (Rudling,1976; Devenish, 1979; Rudling & Barber,1993), as well as the ‘limbs’ (smaller portsunder the control of the Cinque Ports) ofSeaford (Freke, 1979a; Gardiner, 1995;Stevens, 2004) and Pevensey (Dulley,






1966; 1967; Barber, 1999). These limbscan be seen as occupying a second tier inthe hierarchy alongside other towns suchas Shoreham (Thomas, 2005; Stevens,2011) and Lewes (Page, 1973; Freke,1975; 1978; Drewett, 1992). These wereimportant regional towns with varyingdegrees of administrative control over theirhinterlands. Chichester occupies a slightlyambiguous position within this hierarchy.An important exporter of wool, this largeregional town was not a Cinque Port, butwas larger than other Sussex port towns.The final tier is occupied by smallerlanding places. These are coastal villageswhere communities were likely to havebeen involved in small-scale fishing andtrading alongside agriculture. Examplesare Tarring (Barton, 1964), a village witha palace belonging to the Archbishop ofCanterbury, and Lydd (Barber & Priestly-Bell, 2008).Archaeological excavations in these

towns have generally been small in scale,being undertaken in response to develop-ment pressure. For this reason this studyfocuses only on the stretch of coastlinefrom New Romney in the east toChichester in the west, but will make ref-erence to material from excavations in theCinque Ports of Dover and Stonar. It isnot necessary here to discuss in detail the

archaeology of each town, but rather todraw out some general points. In all casesexcavations have targeted house plots andhave produced a wide range of local andimported pottery, as well as, in manycases, equipment associated with fishing.In Lewes, an inland port and countytown, excavations have revealed evidenceof craft production (Page, 1973). Such evi-dence is largely missing from the otherports, probably due to the nature of theinvestigations rather than a lack of crafts-men; indeed craftsmen are known fromRye, for example, from historical records(Draper, 2009: 66–69). Rye is also knownfor its major pottery industry, which pro-duced highly decorated wares distributedacross south-eastern Sussex and south-western Kent (Barton, 1979: 191–222).Archaeology provides evidence for changesin the topography of the towns and house-hold economies, but historical recordsprovide the best source for understandingthe towns in more general terms.The Cinque Ports largely have Saxo-

Norman origins, and they are likely tohave developed from existing landingplaces (see Gardiner, 1999). New Romney,for example, grew from a fishing village(Draper & Meddens, 2009: 14), whilstRye, Hastings, and Dover were all estab-lished ports by the eleventh century

Figure 2. Map indicating the extent of the study area and the location of sites mentioned in the text.






(Draper, 2009: 2–6). Pevensey, Chichester,and Lewes were also already establishedsettlements at this time, but Seaford andShoreham were both new foundationsaround the turn of the thirteenth century.New Winchelsea was founded in 1288 toreplace an earlier port lost to the sea. Here,plots of varying sizes relate to differencesin the wealth and status of inhabitants.The town had a defensive circuit andstone-built houses with undercrofts usedfor the storage and sale of goods, particu-larly wine (Martin & Martin, 2004). TheCinque Ports were exempted from certainforms of taxation, and therefore the usualrange of sources for understanding urbanpopulations are not available. The mercan-tile communities were clearly cosmopolitan,given the role of foreign shipping.The ports had varying trading relation-

ships, principally with northern Franceand Flanders. Wool export was of particu-lar importance to Shoreham and Seaford,on the south side of the chalk downland,an area specializing in sheep husbandry(Pelham, 1933). Winchelsea and Rye, sur-rounded by the clay Weald, exportedgoods such as timber and iron, as well asregional goods shipped along the coast tothese major ports. Such coastwise contactis attested to both by ceramic evidence,with products from coastal productionsites (at Hastings, Rye, and nearWinchelsea) being distributed along thecoast (Figure 3) and by the distribution ofslate roofing materials imported fromsouth-western England (Holden, 1965).Analysis of port records highlights the im-portance of foreign shipping to the timbertrade to northern France and Flandersfrom the Cinque Ports (Pelham, 1928:175). In relation to wool, a contrast existsbetween the Cinque Ports, where exportwas chiefly undertaken by foreign ships,and Seaford and Shoreham, whereEnglish shipping was more important(Pelham, 1933: 133; Sylvester, 2004: 11).

Salt was a further export from Pevenseyand Shoreham, often by foreign ships, al-though environmental change caused thisindustry to decline during the fourteenthcentury (Pelham, 1930: 183; Dulley, 1966:42; Holden & Hudson, 1981). A widerange of ships imported goods into theCinque Ports. In the late thirteenthcentury, for example, shipping came fromSpain, northern France, and a number ofEnglish ports (Sylvester, 2004: 9).Amongst the imported goods were fishand cloth (Pelham, 1930: 180; Sylvester,2004: 17). Ships from the Cinque Portswere also important components of fleetsimporting Gascon wine, with Winchelseacontributing the highest number (Sylvester,2004: 13; Draper, 2009: 27–28).It is clear from the documentary evi-

dence that these ports operated in a varietyof trading networks, in which bothEnglish and Continental merchants andsailors participated. The pottery discussedhere was not a commodity traded in bulk(indeed in medieval England it is probablyonly German stonewares that were tradedin this manner; see Gaimster, 1997); it isabsent from historical records andimported ceramics are only present fromarchaeological contexts in small quantities.However, by following the flows of ceram-ics into these ports, we can begin to relatepottery to these maritime networks andbetter understand how objects mediatedthe emergence and re-iteration of mari-time communities in the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries, rather than limit ourinvestigations to the mapping of themovement of goods.

FLOWS OF POTTERY

The pottery imported into Kent andSussex has been reviewed in studies byHurst (1981) and Brown (2011). Hurst(1981: 121) identified an increase in






imports of Saintonge pottery fromGascony into Sussex through the thir-teenth century and questioned the extentto which this pottery was directly importedor re-distributed through head ports.Hurst (1981: 121–22) also highlightedthat the bulk of imported pottery was fromnorthern France (specifically Normandy),with only small quantities from the LowCountries and Germany (Figure 4).Brown’s (2011) study benefits from thirtyyears of rescue excavations in port towns.Brown summarizes the pottery present in anumber of ports along the coast anddemonstrates the potential of this importedmaterial for further interpretation.If we are to understand how pottery

became meaningful in the emergence ofidentities and through its connections withdifferent material worlds, we need to focusnot on the composition of the assemblagesthemselves but rather on the processesthrough which these assemblages emerged.Assemblage is taken here in a dual sense:firstly in the sense of a group of materialfrom an archaeological site; and secondlyin the sense discussed above, as a collec-tion of people and things, of whichpottery was one component. To under-stand these processes, we need to focus onthe flows of pottery coming into andthrough the ports. Closely related to con-ventional ideas of artefact biography, thetracing of flows allows us to consider howobjects might follow multiple trajectories,

through which they become entangledwith people and things. It is from theseentanglements that multiple meanings,communities, and identities emerge in re-lation to each other (Van Oyen, 2013;Harris, 2014). In what follows, potteryfrom different sources is discussed, beforesome themes are elaborated on in moregeneral terms. It should be noted thattypes are used here as a convenient short-hand to indicate source, rather than imply-ing that a particular typology is beingimposed onto the material. Pottery typescan be considered to be ‘black-boxes’which have emerged from the classifica-tion of pottery in relation to where andhow it was produced, which have becomesolidified as they have circulated in the lit-erature. However, this categorizationmasks the social processes in which theseobjects were framed, understood, and oper-ated (Fowler, 2013: 44–46; Van Oyen,2013).Before entering into discussion it is ne-

cessary to briefly mention the method-ology used. The data discussed here aregathered from published and unpublishedreports produced since the 1970s. Themethods of quantification used by potteryresearchers in the region are highly vari-able. Whilst modern reports typicallyquantify the material by sherd count andsherd weight (MPRG, 2001), olderreports often use only sherd count orvessel count. In one case (Winchelsea)

Figure 3. Distribution of wares produced in or close to coastal towns in England.






only Estimated Vessel Equivalent (EVE),a statistical measure of the number ofvessels present rather than an absolutequantity, was published (Martin &Rudling, 2004). Therefore, in some casesit is only possible to refer to find-spots,particularly where only interim reports areavailable (for example for Stonar andrecently excavated sites in Lewes). Wherepossible, sherd weight is the preferredquantification measure, as this is notbiased by breakage patterns, which havean impact on the number of sherdspresent in an assemblage (see Poulain,2013). Where sherd weight is not avail-able, vessel count has been used in

preference to sherd count where figuresare published. The impact of the incon-sistencies in quantification is minimizedby the small quantities under considerationand the questions being asked of the ma-terial. It is not intended here to comparethe compositions of assemblages in detail(which would require consistent quantifi-cation) but instead to consider wherevessels are being consumed and approxi-mately in what quantity. As in most caseswhere imported pottery is comparativelyrare, it is the presence of types which is ofparticular significance. Therefore, whilstthese inconsistencies limit the scope of thediscussion, they do not prevent a detailed

Figure 4. Examples of imported pottery types discussed. A: Saintonge whiteware from excavations inWinchelsea (redrawn by the author from Martin & Rudling, 2004); B: Saintonge polychrome warefrom Glottenham (redrawn by the author from Martin, 1989); C: Rouen-type ware from Pevensey(redrawn by the author from Dulley, 1967); D: Scarborough ware aquamanile from Shoreham.©Archaeology South East 2004. Reproduced by permission of Archaeology South East. Permissionto reuse must be obtained from the rightsholder.






consideration of the movement of potteryaround the study region.

Saintonge Pottery

The most widespread pottery is that fromthe Saintonge region of south-westernFrance (Barton, 1963). The wares presentinclude green-glazed whitewares (Figure 4a),polychrome wares (Figure 4b), gritty-waremortars, and sgraffito wares. These vesselsare generally assumed to relate to theimport of Gascon wine. This is supportedby the evidence here. Saintonge waresaccount for the highest proportions of theimported pottery from any particularsource from the Cinque Ports of NewRomney (34 per cent of imports by sherdcount, n = 169 sherds), Winchelsea (93 percent of imports by EVE, n = 28 EVEs)and Rye (89 per cent of imports by sherdweight, n = 1.1 kg) and are also present inunquantified assemblages from Hastings(Rudling & Barber, 1993) and Stonar(MacPherson-Grant, 1990) (Figure 5). Itis these assemblages which also have thehighest diversity of Saintonge products.Polychrome wares are present in all theports, but sgrafitto products are presentonly in New Romney and Pevensey. Grittymortars occur in Stonar and Winchelsea(Figure 6). Saintonge gritty and whitewaresare also present in Shoreham (where theyaccount for 55 per cent of imports by sherdweight, n = 6.8 kg; Stevens, 2011), a portwhich was involved in the direct import-ation of Gascon wine but less intensivelythan the Cinque Ports. The evidence sug-gests that the Gascon wine trade was theroute through which these vessels enteredthe ports and the quantities present suggestthat the green-glazed and polychromejugs, at least, were widely marketed andused in these towns. The profile of theCinque Ports assemblages is quite similarto that of Southampton, another port

importing wine under royal patronage(Brown, 2002: fig. 3).In Dover some spatial differences can

tentatively be seen in the distribution ofSaintonge products. Three polychromejugs were excavated from a garderobe inthe core of the town (Rix & Dunning,1955) but at Townwall Street, a sitebelieved to be marginal and occupied byfishermen, Saintonge products are rare(4 per cent of the total 2.3 kg of importedpottery by weight) when compared withthe range of other French and LowCountries imports present (Parfitt et al.,2006). It is possible that the circumstancesof excavation in Dover provide some evi-dence of different consumption patternsand the significance of these needs to betested when further excavations are under-taken in the other Cinque Ports. In Ryethese vessels, as well as other importedtypes, apparently influenced local potteryproduction with the thirteenth and four-teenth century production centre adoptingdecorative motifs and formal elements(such as the distinctive Saintonge ‘parrot-beak’ spout) from the imported wareswhich were present in the town (Barton,1979: 221).Saintonge pottery is often seen as

reflecting a wine drinking ‘culturalpackage’, with these products being per-ceived as ‘appropriate’ for wine consump-tion. However, the widespread use of thispottery amongst coastal communities sug-gests that the association with wine maybe less important than the availability ofthe pottery and its aesthetic qualities, withthe decoration potentially finding differentmeanings depending on the context of use(Allan, 1984; Courtney, 1997; Jervis,2016b). Three main types of sites receivedSaintonge products, presumably re-distrib-uted from these principal ports (Figure 6).The first are coastal sites. Green-glazedand polychrome wares have been recoveredfrom Chichester, Pevensey, Lewes, and






from the market town of Steyning, situ-ated on the navigable River Adur (Freke,1979b; Barton, 1986; Evans, 1986).Saintonge whiteware has been excavated

from Seaford, Bramber (a small town closeto Shoreham), and the smaller coastal set-tlements at Lydd and Tarring (Barton,1964; Barber and Priestly-Bell, 2008).

Figure 5. Composition of the imported pottery assemblages from the sites under discussion (data:Barber, 1999; Brown, 2002; Martin & Rudling, 2004; Draper & Meddens, 2009; Stevens, 2011;Dawkes & Briscoe, 2012; Margetts & Williamson, 2014).

Figure 6. Distribution of Saintonge products in the study area.






The second type of site are towns, with ahandful of Saintonge whiteware sherdsfound in the inland towns of Horsham(one sherd from an assemblage of 451medieval sherds; Stevens, 2012) and Battle(six sherds from an assemblage of 1422sherds; James, 2008). The third kind ofsites consists of inland manor houses andinstitutions. Whiteware has been exca-vated at Bayham Abbey (Hurst, 1981) andfrom a moated manor house at Henfield(Funnell, 2009), whilst polychrome warehas been recovered from the moated siteat Glottenham in the Weald (Martin,1989). In these cases the assemblages arenot quantified; only a few sherds arepresent, suggesting that vessels were re-distributed from the Cinque Ports, al-though the Chichester examples may havebeen acquired from Southampton.This wide coastal distribution across a

range of sites is suggestive of a coastalnetwork of interaction, perhaps mediatedprincipally by the transport of fish to andfrom the Cinque Ports. It is likely thatthese products, along with other commod-ities, were acquired in these cosmopolitanmarkets. The flow of Saintonge productsinto the Cinque Ports can be consideredto be highly commercialized, being asso-ciated with the lucrative wine trade. Itsuse in the Cinque Ports created distinctivematerial worlds, possibly associated withcommunal wine drinking and the negoti-ation of mercantile communities andidentities through hospitality. Merchantcommunities formed as people engaged inparticular social practices. Saintongepottery played a part in the re-iteration ofthe communities of practice, throughwhich merchants came to be defined asdistinctive ‘persons’. It is overly simplisticto see the presence of smaller quantities ofthese products in other ports and coastalsettlements as the exportation or expan-sion of this mercantile culture. For someliving and working in the smaller ports,

wine drinking and the use of Saintongeproducts may have been aspirational.However, we can also view the Saintongeproducts as forming part of a more generalcoastal material world, acting to joincoastal communities, from merchant tofisherman. Van Oyen (2015) likens therole of towns in the Roman economy torailway points, places in which the trajec-tories of things might be sent off in avariety of different directions. If we viewobjects and people as following trajector-ies, or ‘lines of becoming’ (followingDeleuze & Guattari, 1987), we can seethe markets in the Cinque Ports as fulfill-ing a similar role. Saintonge potteryflowed into the markets as commodities,but as they passed through the markettheir role was transformed.Objects can be perceived as having

affordances (Knappett, 2005: 52); what anobject can do is relational, emerging withspecific contexts as they were confrontedby other objects enrolled into multipleforms of domestic assemblages of goods.In the merchant house they were linked toother exotic goods and foodstuffs andbecame involved in the negotiation ofmercantile culture (see also Mellor, 2004).Within such houses hospitality was im-portant for negotiating business deals andcredit. Jugs such as those from theSaintonge afforded commensal drinking,an activity which joined wine, pottery,merchants, and domestic spaces in theemergence and re-iteration of mercantilecommunities. In places like Lydd theseitems were not symbols of wealth or portculture, but part of a more meagre materialworld, the product of a distinctive set ofmaritime engagements which resulted in adistinctively coastal relationship with anemerging material culture. In the contextof a small fishing household these objectswere enrolled in different sets of socialrelationships, and came to afford differentforms of social interaction. Here they






perhaps acted as mediators betweencoastal communities living in ports andsmaller settlements. It should be notedthat other goods, such as Rye pottery andWest Country slate, have a similar coastaland riverine distribution (Figure 3), indi-cating that coastal contact created net-works of exchange which became manifestas material signatures at one interpretivelevel, but as overlapping and intercon-nected processes at another; in otherwords they were sets of social and eco-nomic relationships through which coastallife became distinctive.A consideration of the inland use of

Saintonge pottery adds a further layer ofcomplexity. The vessels presented inHorsham are probably a by-product of theexport of Wealden resources throughShoreham. In contrast, the pottery frommanor houses and from the town ofBattle, a settlement on the estate of amajor religious house (Battle Abbey),perhaps reflects status related to trade con-tacts. Dyer (1989) highlights that majorhouseholds and institutions often usedlarger regional markets to acquire producein bulk and at favourable rates. BattleAbbey dealt directly with the CinquePorts for its fish supply and fish was soldin the town’s market. The supply ofimported pottery to the castles at Pevensey(unquantified, but consisting of Rouen-type, Saintonge, and Low Countries highlydecorated wares), Bramber (twenty-onesherds of northern French whiteware froma total of 4842 sherds), and Lewes(less than 1 per cent of the pottery byweight; all from northern France or theSaintonge), as well as to Lewes Friary (notquantified, but consisting of Saintongewhiteware and glazed ware from northernFrance) is less easy to interpret. Importsare present in small quantities at all ofthese sites, but there is no clear differencebetween the types present on these sitesand in the associated towns, making it

difficult to determine whether they wereacquired locally or through regionalmarkets (Barton, 1977; Drewett, 1992;Gardiner et al., 1996; Lyne, 2009).The de Etchingham family, who held

Glottenham manor, also dealt directlywith Cinque Port merchants and hadinterests in Winchelsea (Saul, 1986: 178).Pottery was probably not a major com-modity in these exchanges, but these com-mercial relationships opened up a channelalong which Saintonge pottery could flow,introducing it to a situation where it waspotentially implicated in the negotiation ofdomestic hierarchy and became a symbolof status. The heraldic imagery found onthe Saintonge polychrome pottery mayhave appealed to a knightly family such asthe de Etchinghams and within the for-malized dining contexts of larger provin-cial households these serving vessels wereprobably enrolled in the re-iteration ofhierarchical relationships (see Jervis, 2014;2016b). Whether this was the case ornot, these wares were not a ‘cultural sig-nature’ of mercantile life, but ratherobjects which linked major households,be they knightly or religious, with theCinque Port markets and mediated thenegotiation of meaning and identity inthese hierarchically ordered householdsdifferently than they did in the commens-al drinking environment of the mercantileport (see Saul, 1986: 186 on the relation-ship between knightly families and urbanlife). Similarly, vessels were not acquiredas high-status objects, but acquired thisassociation as they flowed through portsinto these hierarchically charged contexts.

North French and Low CountriesPottery

Pottery from northern France includesplain Normandy gritty wares (typicallypresent in the form of pitchers and jars),






highly decorated jugs produced in theRouen area (Figure 4c), and other glazedwhitewares of less certain attribution.Also within this group are highly decoratedLow Countries redware jugs, consideredby Gaimster to form part of the Hanseaticpackage, plainer Flemish greywares,Meuse-valley glazed wares, and red-paintedwares from northern France. A final,unusual, type is the so-called céramique onc-tueuse, a distinctive type of coarsewarepottery from Brittany.Although diverse in source and type,

some general trends emerge in the distri-bution of these wares, which is over-whelmingly coastal and riverine (Figure 7).Rouen-type ware, for example, has beenrecovered from a number of towns, includ-ing Hastings, Lewes, New Romney, andPevensey, as well as from the manorial siteat Old Erringham (Holden, 1981) and thesmaller coastal settlements at Lydd andTarring. The distribution of the plainerNormandy gritty wares is similarly coastal.The less distinctive northern French pro-ducts have a wider distribution. Examplesfrom Crawley (Stevens, 1997) may havearrived via London or the south coastports, but sherds have also been recoveredfrom Chichester, Battle, and Glottenham.The Low Countries products are only

present in small quantities, occurring inlarge and small ports. Céramique onctueuseis present in very small quantities and hasbeen recovered from the Cinque Ports ofDover (Hodges, 1978), Stonar, andWinchelsea as well as from Seaford. Theware is also known from Southampton(Brown, 2002: 25). The link between thistype and the Cinque Ports perhaps indi-cates that this ware was a by-product ofthe Gascon wine trade, possibly acquiredfor use on the ships to replace brokenpottery vessels.Unsurprisingly the range of sources

represented relates to the trading contactsof the ports in northern France, Flanders,and the Netherlands. The quantities ofimported wares are small in most assem-blages and even in the Cinque Ports thesewares account for a small part of theimported pottery. The evidence does notsuggest a well-established ceramic trade,but rather the occasional acquisition ofimported vessels as a by-product of morelucrative trade. The evidence fromTownwall Street in Dover supports this in-terpretation. Here, at the margins of aCinque Port particularly associated withferrying and fishing, vessels from a rangeof northern French and Flemish produc-tion centres are present, which probably

Figure 7. Distribution of northern French products in the study area.






indicate vessels acquired either for use onships, as souvenirs, or as speculative pur-chases (Parfitt et al., 2006: 408). Somevessels are likely to have been imported formarketing in the ports themselves and thiscould provide the mechanism for vessels toreach manorial sites such as Glottenham,mirroring the acquisition of Saintongepottery in this context. If such a mechan-ism did exist, it emphasizes the pointsmade by Fowler (2013) and Van Oyen(2013) about the need to un-packagedefined archaeological categories. Saintongepottery and northern French pottery aredifferent types of pottery, produced in dif-ferent places and exchanged through differ-ent mechanisms; however, in the context ofthe moated site at Glottenham, both typeswere highly decorated jugs, probablyacquired from Winchelsea merchants forserving at the table, possibly because oftheir iconography which appealed to theknightly household. However, these goodsneed not have been acquired because theysymbolized wealth, but, rather, they cameto be status symbols through their use inthis context. It would appear that thesource of pottery was less important thanits aesthetic and functional qualities, withceramic serving jugs perhaps acting as amedium through which strictly hierarchicalserving practices could be enacted. Thisleads us to an important interpretive andmethodological point; that categories ofpottery defined on the basis of productiontraits split apart and flow into each other,as new constellations of objects are estab-lished through trade and as new commu-nities, identities, and material meaningsemerged through acquisition and use.The coastal and riverine distribution of

these wares highlights the relationshipbetween their acquisition and maritime net-works. Whether acquired on the Europeancontinent as souvenirs or to replace brokenvessels used on boats, or imported as partof a miscellany of products for re-sale in

the ports, these vessels can be seen as ele-ments of coastal interactions. They contrib-uted to the emergence of distinctivematerial worlds which linked coastalhouseholds in town and country exhibitingdifferent levels of wealth and status, differ-entiating them from inland communities.Yet, as with the Saintonge products, theyentered into different constellations ofobjects, contributing to different types ofdomestic environment, and linking peoplein a broader maritime community.

Yorkshire Pottery

The Cinque Ports’ involvement in theNorth Sea herring fishery is typicallyassumed to be the means through whichYorkshire pottery flowed into the southcoast ports (Figure 8). It has been recov-ered from the Cinque Ports and theirlimbs, and is typically Scarborough ware(see Farmer & Farmer, 1982), often oc-curring in distinctive forms, as aquama-niles (Figure 4d) and knight jugs, notavailable on the local market. These dis-tinctive vessels may have been acquired byfishermen as souvenirs, or perhaps specula-tively for onward exchange. These unusualvessels were obtained through specific net-works of interaction and can be seen asmediating the emergence of communities,appearing not only through collective en-gagement in fishing, but also through dis-tinctive material engagements, whichimplicated them in a network extendingacross the North Sea zone.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: COASTAL

IDENTITIES AND COMMUNITY NETWORKS

Just as inland communities were joinedthrough the communal working of fieldsand the marketing of produce and






products in local markets, so the everydayactivities of coastal communities linkedpeople and things in networks of inter-action. Coastal households were joined insets of socio-economic relationships fromwhich distinctive, dispersed communities,mediated through the exchange of goodsincluding pottery, emerged. This is par-ticularly clear in relation to Yorkshirepottery, in forms traditionally interpretedas related to high-status consumption, itsuse seemingly limited to coastal fishingcommunities in this context. There areclear similarities between the ceramicassemblages from the Cinque Ports, whichare distinguished from those from othercoastal sites principally by the quantity ofimported pottery and the proportion ofSaintonge types present. Tracing the flowsof imported pottery has revealed that itwas entangled in a variety of social rela-tionships and that, rather than standingfor a mercantile identity, its use createddistinctive material worlds and contributedto the emergence of multi-scalar coastalcommunities. So far these observationshave been limited to a specific case study,but there are elements of the approachtaken here which could, if applied to othermaterial, assist with the development of amore nuanced understanding of the socialrole of material culture.

It is clear that a wide range of peopleliving in coastal areas had access toimported pottery and, rather than standingfor high-status associations as is commonlyassumed, these objects played a role in there-iteration of multiple forms of coastalidentity (see also Parfitt et al., 2006: 412).We can therefore see interactions withpottery vessels, at different stages of theirbiography, as mediating different scalesand types of community. Pottery becomeswhat Bennett (2010: 42 [after Deleuze &Guattari, 1987]) terms an ‘assemblageconvertor’, something which links assem-blages (or, in this instance, communities)being performed in disparate places atdifferent scales. The regional-scale coastalcommunity fragmented into differenttypes of community, mercantile house-holds and fishing villages for example, allof whom interacted with and understoodthis pottery in different ways, but whowere joined through it, for example byinteractions in the marketplace.This multi-scalar relationship between

communities, identities, and objects is ofcentral importance when examining coastalinteraction across medieval Europe. Instudies of the Hanse it becomes particular-ly apparent in the application of post-colonial approaches (Immomen 2007;Naum, 2013; 2014); where we see people

Figure 8. Distribution of Yorkshire pottery in the study area.






linked in relationships of confrontation, inwhich material culture acts as a mediator,and in which different forms of commu-nity emerge within port towns. At a dif-ferent scale this is apparent in the rolegiven to pottery amongst the communitiesstudied by Gaimster (2005; 2014) andMehler (2009). At one scale, these com-munities are linked through common asso-ciations with Hanseatic material culture,but they fragment between regions, settle-ments, and households as multiple formsof community and identity emerge in rela-tion to these objects. Ports are boundaryplaces, gateways where diverse people andthings come together to create cosmopol-itan communities. As objects pass throughthem they are sent along varying ‘lines ofbecoming’, trajectories which send theminto diverse sets of entanglements throughwhich they are rendered meaningful,people identify themselves, and placesdevelop distinctive characters.A focus on interactions (either through

formal network analysis or conventionalstudies of artefact distributions), wheninterpreted within a framework in whichobject meanings, identities, forms of per-sonhood, and communities are relationalconcepts, allows a deeper consideration ofthe ways in which similar objects might beenrolled in the emergence of differentforms of community and identity andmoves us away from static cultural packagestowards a more dynamic understanding ofpast identities. The examination of howpottery flowed into and through a numberof ports of different type, and considerationof the inland use of this pottery, havedemonstrated how people and objects canbe considered to be mutually constituted.Such an approach forces us to drop ourpreconceptions about the status andmeaning of imported pottery and focus onunderstanding the effect of it flowing alongvarying trajectories and becoming entangledin different forms of social assemblage. In

doing so, it has been possible to argue forthe presence of multi-scalar coastal com-munities and for pottery as mediating dif-ferent forms of personhood, rather thancarrying specific identities. In conclusionthis study calls for deeper contextual studyof imported pottery at multiple scales togain a fuller understanding of the dynamicsof coastal interaction in medieval Europe.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article is based on a paper presentedat the EAA conference in Glasgow in2015 and I am grateful to the audiencemembers who made useful comments. Iwould also like to thank ArchaeologySouth East for permission to use thephotograph of the aquamanile fromShoreham.

REFERENCES

Allan, J. 1984. Medieval and Post-MedievalFinds from Exeter, 1971–1980. Exeter:Exeter City Council and ExeterUniversity.

Barber, L. 1999. The Excavation of LandAdjacent to the Old Farmhouse, Pevensey,East Sussex, 1994. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 137: 91–120.

Barber, L. & Priestly-Bell, G. 2008. MedievalAdaptation, Settlement, and Economy of aCoastal Wetland: The Evidence from AroundLydd, Romney Marsh, Kent. Oxford:Oxbow.

Barton, K. 1963. The Medieval Pottery of theSaintonge. The Archaeological Journal, 120:201–14.

Barton, K. 1964. Excavations in the Village ofTarring, West Sussex. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 102: 9–27.

Barton, K. 1977. Excavations at BramberCastle, 1966–67. The ArchaeologicalJournal, 134: 11–79.

Barton, K. 1979. Medieval Sussex Pottery.Chichester: Phillimore.






Barton, K. 1986. Excavations at Cuthman’sField, Church Street, Steyning, 1962. SussexArchaeological Collections, 124: 97–108.

Bennett, J. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A PoliticalEcology of Things. Durham (NC): DukeUniversity Press.

Brown, D. 1997. The Social Significance ofMedieval Imported Pottery. In: P.Blinkhorn & C. Cumberpatch, eds. Not soMuch a Pot, More a Way of Life. Oxford:Oxbow, pp. 95–112.

Brown, D. 2002. Pottery in MedievalSouthampton. CBA Research Report 137.York: Council for British Archaeology.

Brown, D. 2011. Imported Pottery and theSouth Coast Ports of Medieval England.In: A. Bocquet-Liénard & B. Fajal, eds. Àpropo[t]s de l’usage, de la production et de lacirculation des terres cuites dans l’Europe duNord-Ouest autour des XIVe-XVIe siècles.Caen: CRAHAM, pp. 185–96.

Courtney, P. 1997. Ceramics and the Historyof Consumption: Pitfalls and Prospects.Medieval Ceramics, 21: 95–108.

Davies, G. 2010. Early Medieval ‘RuralCentres’ and West Norfolk: A GrowingPicture of Diversity, Complexity, andChanging Lifestyles. Medieval Archaeology,54: 89–122.

Dawkes, G. & Briscoe, J. 2012. An ArchaeologicalWatching Brief at 31 Mermaid Street,Rye, East Sussex. Unpublished ArchaeologySouth East Report 2012016. Brighton:Archaeology South East.

DeLanda, M. 2006. A New Philosophy ofSociety. London: Bloomsbury.

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. 1987. A ThousandPlateaus. London: Bloomsbury.

Devenish, D. 1979. Excavations in WindingStreet, Hastings, 1974. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 117: 125–34.

Draper, G. 2009. Rye. A History of a SussexCinque Port to 1660. Chichester:Phillimore.

Draper, G. & Meddens, F. 2009. The Sea andthe Marsh: The Medieval Cinque Port ofNew Romney. Pre-Construct ArchaeologyMonograph 10. London: Pre-ConstructArchaeology.

Drewett, P. 1992. Excavations at LewesCastle, East Sussex 1985–1988. SussexArchaeological Collections, 130: 69–106.

Dulley, A. 1966. The Level and Port ofPevensey in the Middle Ages. SussexArchaeological Collections, 104: 26–45.

Dulley, A. 1967. Excavations at Pevensey,Sussex, 1962–6. Medieval Archaeology, 11:209–32.

Dyer, C. 1989. The Consumer and theMarket in the Later Middle Ages.Economic History Review 2nd Series, 62:305–27.

Evans, J. 1986. Excavations in Fletcher’s Croft,Steyning, 1967–68. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 124: 79–95.

Farmer, P. & Farmer, N. 1982. The Dating ofthe Scarborough Ware Pottery Industry.Medieval Ceramics, 6: 66–87.

Fowler, C. 2013. The Emergent Past: ARelational Realist Archaeology of EarlyBronze Age Mortuary Practices. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Freke, D. 1975. Excavations in Lewes, 1974.Sussex Archaeological Collections, 113: 66–84.

Freke, D. 1978. Excavations in Friar’s Walk,Lewes, 1976. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 116: 179–97.

Freke, D. 1979a. Excavations in ChurchStreet, Seaford, 1976. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 116: 199–224.

Freke, D. 1979b. Excavations in TanyardLane, Steyning, 1977. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 117: 135–50.

Funnell, J. 2009. A Medieval Moated Site atStretham, near Henfield, West Sussex.Sussex Archaeological Collections, 147: 77–96.

Gaimster, D. 1997. German Stoneware 1200–1900: Archaeology and Cultural History.London: British Museum Press.

Gaimster, D. 2005. A Parallel History: TheArchaeology of Hanseatic Urban Culturein the Baltic c. 1200–1600. WorldArchaeology, 373: 408–23.

Gaimster, D. 2014. The Hanseatic CulturalSignature: Exploring Globalization on theMicro-Scale in Late Medieval NorthernEurope. European Journal of Archaeology,17: 60–81.

Gardiner, M. 1995. Aspects of the Historyand Archaeology of Medieval Seaford.Sussex Archaeological Collections, 133:189–212.

Gardiner, M. 1999. Supply and Tradebetween England and the Continentduring the Eleventh Century. Anglo-Norman Studies, 22: 71–93.

Gardiner, M., Gregory, D. & Russell, M.1996. Excavations at Lewes Friary 1985–86 and 1988–89. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 134: 71–123.






Gosden, C. & Marshall, Y. 1999. TheCultural Biography of Objects. WorldArchaeology, 31: 169–78.

Harris, O. 2014. (Re)assembling Communities.Journal of Archaeological Method andTheory, 21: 76–97.

Hodges, R. 1978. A Céramique OnctueuseVessel from Dover: A Breton Souvenir?Medieval Archaeology, 22: 137–39.

Holden, E. 1965. Slate Roofing in MedievalSussex. Surrey Archaeological Collections,103: 67–78.

Holden, E. 1981. Excavations at OldErringham, Shoreham, West Sussex. PartII: The ‘Chapel’ and Ringwork. SussexArchaeological Collections, 118: 257–97.

Holden, E. & Hudson, T. 1981. Salt-makingin the Adur Valley, Sussex. SussexArchaeological Collections, 119: 117–48.

Hurst, J. 1981. Medieval Pottery Imports inSussex. Sussex Archaeological Collections,118: 119–24.

Immonen, V. 2007. Defining a Culture: TheMeaning of Hanseatic in Medieval Turku.Antiquity, 81: 720–32.

James, R. 2008. Excavations at the Jenner andSimpson Mill Site, Mount Street, Battle,East Sussex. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 146: 149–74.

Jervis, B. 2008. For Richer, For Poorer: ASynthesis and Discussion of MedievalPottery from Eastern Southampton in theContext of the High and Late MedievalTown. Medieval Ceramics, 30: 73–94.

Jervis, B. 2014. Pottery and Social Life inMedieval England: Towards a RelationalApproach. Oxford: Oxbow.

Jervis, B. 2016a. Trade, Cultural Exchange,and Coastal Identities in Early Anglo-Saxon Kent: A Ceramic Perspective. In:A. Williamsen & H. Kik, eds. The GoldenMiddle Ages. Turnhout; Brepols, pp.57–63.

Jervis, B. 2016b. A Picture Says a ThousandWords: Decoration, Effect, and MedievalPottery. In: E. Sibbesson, B. Jervis & S.Coxon, eds. Insight from Innovation:New Light on Archaeological Ceramics.Southampton: Highfield Press, pp.170–85.

Knappett, K. 2005. Thinking Through MaterialCulture. Philadelphia (PA): University ofPennsylvania Press.

Kopytoff, I. 1986. The Cultural Biography ofThings: Commoditization as Process. In:

A. Appadurai, ed. The Social Life ofThings. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, pp. 64–91.

Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: AnIntroduction to Actor-Network Theory.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Loveluck, C. & Tys, D. 2006. CoastalSocieties, Exchange, and Identity alongthe Channel and Southern North SeaShores of Europe, AD 600–1000. Journalof Maritime Archaeology, 1: 140–69.

Lucas, G. 2012. Understanding the ArchaeologicalRecord. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Lyne, M. 2009. Excavations at Pevensey Castle1936 to 1964. BAR British Series 503.Oxford: Archaeopress.

MacPherson-Grant, N. 1990. Excavations atStonar, Near Sandwich. Canterbury’sArchaeology 1989–1990. Canterbury:Canterbury Archaeological Trust, pp. 46–48. Available at <http://www.canterburytrust.co.uk/old-site/annreps/pdfs/1990/post_excavation_1989_90.pdf> [accessed 15April 2016].

Margetts, A. & Williamson, A. 2014.Archaeological Watching Brief andHistoric Building Recording Report. TheGeorge Hotel, High Street, Rye, EastSussex. Unpublished Archaeology SouthEast Report 2014144. Brighton:Archaeology South East.

Martin, D. 1989. Three Moated Sites inNorth-East Sussex. Part 1: Glottenham.Sussex Archaeological Collections, 127:89–122.

Martin, D. & Martin, A. 2004. NewWinchelsea, Sussex: A Medieval Port Town.University College London FieldArchaeology Unit Monograph 2. King’sLynn: Heritage Marketing & Publications.

Martin, D. & Rudling, D. 2004. Excavationsin Winchelsea, Sussex, 1974–2000.University College London FieldArchaeology Unit Monograph 3. King’sLynn: Heritage Marketing & Publications.

Mehler, N. 2009. The Perception andInterpretation of Hanseatic MaterialCulture in the North Atlantic: Problemsand Suggestions. Journal of the NorthAtlantic, Special Issue 1: 89–108.

Mellor, M. 2004. Changing Rooms: Fixtures,Fittings, and Movable Goods inEuropean Lifestyles. Medieval Ceramics,28: 125–38.



http://www.canterburytrust.co.uk/old-site/annreps/pdfs/1990/post_excavation_1989_90.pdf







MPRG (Medieval Pottery Research Group)2001. Minimum Standards for the Processing,Recording, Analysis, and Publication of Post-Roman Ceramics. MPRG Occasional Paper2. London: Medieval Pottery ResearchGroup.

Naum, M. 2010. Re-emerging Frontiers,Postcolonial Theory, and the HistoricalArchaeology of the Borderlands. Journalof Archaeological Method and Theory, 17:101–31.

Naum, M. 2013. Premodern Translocals:German Merchant Diaspora betweenKalmar and Northern German Towns(1250–1500). International Journal ofHistorical Archaeology, 17: 376–400.

Naum, M. 2014. Multi-Ethnicity andMaterial Exchanges in Late MedievalTallinn. European Journal of Archaeology,17: 656–77.

Page, T. 1973. Excavation at Edward Street,Lewes, 1971. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 61: 113–14.

Parfitt, K., Corke, B. & Cotter, J. 2006.Townwall Street, Dover: Excavations 1996.Canterbury: Canterbury ArchaeologicalTrust.

Pelham, R. 1928. Timber Exports from theWeald during the Fourteenth Century.Sussex Archaeological Collections, 69: 170–82.

Pelham, R. 1930. Some Further Aspects ofSussex Trade during the FourteenthCentury. Sussex Archaeological Collections,71: 171–201.

Pelham, R. 1933. The Exportation of Woolfrom Sussex in the Late Thirteenth Century.Sussex Archaeological Collections, 74: 131–39.

Pieters, M. & Verhaege, F. 2008. MedievalCoastal Fishing Communities in CoastalFlanders (Belgium) and their Relation toWestern Mediterranean Commodities.Medieval Ceramics, 30: 103–18.

Poulain, M. 2013, Notes on the Quantificationof Post-Medieval Pottery in the LowCountries, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 47:106–18.

Rix, M. & Dunning, G. 1955. Excavation of aMedieval Garderobe in Snargate Street,Dover, in 1945. Archaeologia Cantiana, 69:132–56.

Rudling, D. 1976. Excavations in WindingStreet, Hastings, 1975. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 114: 164–75.

Rudling, D. & Barber, L. 1993. Excavationsat the Phoenix Brewery Site, Hastings,1988. Sussex Archaeological Collections, 131:73–113.

Saul, N. 1986. Scenes from Provincial Life:Knightly Families in Sussex 1280–1400.Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Sindbæk, S. 2013. Broken Links and BlackBoxes: Material Affiliations and ContextualNetwork Synthesis in the Viking World.In: C. Knappett, ed. Network Analysis inArchaeology: New Approaches to RegionalInteraction. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, pp. 71–94.

Stevens, S. 1997. Excavations at the Old PostOffice Site, 15–17 High Street, Crawley,West Sussex. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 135: 193–208.

Stevens, S. 2004. Excavations at 1–3 HighStreet, Seaford, East Sussex. SussexArchaeological Collections, 142: 75–92.

Stevens, S. 2011. Archaeological Investigationsat the Ropetackle Site, Shoreham-by-Sea,West Sussex. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 149: 59–158.

Stevens, S. 2012. Archaeological Investigationsin the Vicarage Garden, Causeway,Horsham, West Sussex. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 150: 123–38.

Sylvester, D. 2004. The Development ofWinchelsea and its Maritime Economy.In: D. Martin & A. Martin, eds. NewWinchelsea, Sussex: A Medieval Port Town.King’s Lynn: Heritage Marketing &Publications, pp. 7–20.

Thomas, G. 2005. Refining the Biography ofa Marketplace Tenement: A RecentExcavation and Archaeological InterpretativeSurvey at ‘The Marlpins’, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. Sussex ArchaeologicalCollections, 143: 173–204.

Van Oyen, A. 2013. Towards a Post-ColonialArtefact Analysis. Archaeological Dialogues,20: 81–107.

Van Oyen, A. 2015. The Roman City asArticulated through Terra Sigliatta. OxfordJournal of Archaeology, 34: 279–99.






BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Ben Jervis is a lecturer in archaeology atCardiff University, specializing in thearchaeology of medieval Britain and theanalysis of ceramics. His research seeks touse material culture to understand howpeople coped with and experienced

change, and how the roots of contempor-ary society are planted in the medievalperiod.

Address: School of History, Archaeology, andReligion, Cardiff University, John PercivalBuilding, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU,UK. [email: [email protected]]

Céramique et communautés côtières en Europe médiévale (XIIe au XIVe siècle) : lanégociation de l’identité dans les ports anglais de la Manche

L’exemple des céramiques importées dans les ports de la Manche sur la côte sud-est de l’Angleterre nouspermet d’examiner le rôle que cette céramique a joué dans la genèse et la médiation des communautéscôtières. Sur la base d’études récentes, nous soutenons qu’il n’est plus possible de considérer la céramiquecomme simple porteur d’identité ou comme élément d’un « paquet culturel » dont le sens apparaitraitavec l’interaction entre les communautés et le matériel à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur des milieux por-tuaires. Nous proposons que la céramique importée a trouvé son sens de manières diverses, suivant lecontexte dans lequel elle a été acquise et utilisée, remplissant ainsi un rôle de médiation dans différentesformes de communauté et d’identité. Notre article se termine sur les implications de ce type d’approche àune échelle plus grande, en particulier dans les études sur la culture matérielle, le commerce et l’identitédes villes en Europe médiévale. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Mots-clés: Angleterre, archéologie médiévale, céramique, commerce, identité, communauté,culture matérielle

Keramik und Küstengemeinschaften im mittelalterlichen Europa (12. bis 14.Jahrhundert): die Vermittlung der Identität in den englischen Häfen amÄrmelkanal

In diesem Artikel wird am Beispiel der Keramik, die in die Häfen der südlichen Küste Englands impor-tiert wurde, ein Ansatz zur Untersuchung der Rolle der Keramik in der Entstehung und Vermittlungder Küstengemeinschaften entwickelt. Gemäß der neueren Forschung ist es nicht mehr möglich, dieKeramik einfach als Träger einer Identität oder als Bestandteil eines „Kulturpakets”, wo die Bedeutungder Identität mit den Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Menschen und Keramik innerhalb und außerhalbder Hafenumgebungen herauskommt, anzusehen. In der vorliegenden Studie wird vorgeschlagen, dassdie importierte Keramik verschiedene Sinngehalte hatte, je nach den Umständen, in welchen sie erwor-ben und gebraucht wurde. Sie war also bei der Vermittlung von verschiedenen Formen vonGemeinschaften und Identitäten beteiligt. Am Ende des Artikels werden die weiteren Auswirkungensolch eines Ansatzes betrachtet, vor allem für andere Studien über materielle Kultur, Handel undstädtische Identität im mittelalterlichen Europa. Translation by Madeleine Hummler

Stichworte: England, Mittelalterarchäologie, Keramik, Handel, Identität, Gemeinschaft, materi-elle Kultur



mailto:[email protected]




Documents

Ceramics and Coastal Communities in Medieval (Twelfth ...€¦ · relationships amongst humans, animals, plants and material things’ (Harris, 2014: 89). Harris’s concept of the