Midlands purple and Cistercian-type wares in the west Midlands in the 15th-16th centuries

This project aimed to develop understanding of a major ceramics industry, its products being some of the commonest wares on late medieval-post-medieval ('transitional') sites though it is an industry whose origins, dating and distribution are not sufficiently well understood. The core of this project is characterisation of the main centres of early production of Midlands purple coarse and Cistercian fine wares in the west midlands (here, south Derbys, Shropshire, Staffs, and Warks). The results of a variety of characterisation techniques (standard fabric characterisation methods alongside chemical (ICPS) and petrographic analyses) were compared with data obtained by the same techniques using ceramics from key consumer sites with stratified early material as a test case (viz Austin Friars Leicester, and Bordesley Abbey, Worcestershire). This is the first study of this west midlands industry on a region-wide basis. The outcomes of this pilot study can be used to inform future curatorial and managerial strategy for both production and consumer sites. The project also has the potential to inform further research: it lays the foundations of a broad knowledge base and indicates how that might be developed.