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Identifying medieval glazed wares

Green-glazed jugs, splashed glazes, and the pottery of the castle kitchen.

Medieval glazed pottery is dominated by jugs: sandy fabrics with lead glazes in greens and ambers, often patchy or 'splashed' early on, fuller and more even later. Decoration runs to applied strips, stamped pads, face masks, and combed lines; baluster and rounded jug forms evolve century by century.

Glaze chemistry is a clue: copper turns lead glaze green; iron gives amber-brown. Highly decorated wares (anthropomorphic jugs, polychrome) mark the 13th–14th century high point; later medieval pottery tends plainer and harder-fired, shading into early post-medieval traditions.

Record fabric, glaze colour and coverage, decoration, and rim/base profiles. Regional wares are well studied — a glazed sherd plus its findspot can often be tied to a known production centre, which is exactly the kind of local knowledge the board enjoys exercising.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on pottery

Identifying pottery and ceramics — Fabric, surface, and how it was formed.

Identifying terracotta figurines — Mould lines and vent holes.

Identifying amphorae and transport pottery — Shape equals cargo.

Identifying tiles and brick — Fabric, stamp, and format.

Identifying Roman samian ware — Glossy red tableware with moulded scenes and potters' stamps.

Identifying Roman coarse wares — The kitchen pottery of the empire — greywares, mortaria, and flagons.

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