"Monastic pottery" from the monastery Hirsau in the Black Forest

Abstract

In the St Aurelius as well as the adjacent St Peter and Paul monastery in Hirsau (town of Calw, Baden-Württemberg) archaeological examinations of the last decades produce many finds of pottery vessels and oven tiles the consistency of which resembles that one of contemporaneous roof tiles. They mainly (exclusively) date to the High Middle Ages. As the need of »hard« roofing material in each larger monastery was considerable it must be assumed that monasteries incorporated own tileworks. The identical consistency of structural pottery and pottery vessels and additionally the Observation that the vessels were made without potter's wheel is interpreted here as an indication for the exclusive production of Containers and oven tiles by the monasteries' tileworks on demand.