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. CHAPTER IV. Pottery of the Norman and Mediæval Periods--Examples from illuminated MSS.--Norman Potworks at Burley Hill--The Ferrars Family--Mediæval Pottery---Grotesque Vessels--Costrils--Mammiform Vessels--The Cruiskeen or Cruiska--Godets, &c.--Simpson’s Petition--Rous and Cullyn’s Patent--Bellarmines--Ale-pots--Salt glazing--Butter-pots--Dr. Plot--State of Staffordshire Potteries--Combed Ware--Ariens Van Hamme--John Dwight--The brothers Elers--The Tofts--William Sans--Tygs--Candlesticks--Cradles, &c. Of the pottery of the Norman period but little has been said by any writers, and that simply because but little was known. I had the good fortune, however, a few years’ back, to discover the remains of a kiln[30] of that period, in and around the remains of which were many vessels--“wasters” as they would be technically called--of various kinds. This discovery was all the more interesting and valuable, as being the only instance of the finding of a kiln either of the Anglo-Saxon or Norman periods, and it has enabled me to identify and appropriate to this age vessels from other localities. To these I shall presently refer. [Illustration: Fig. 262.] [Illustration: Pitcher, temp. Henry III.] [Illustration: Fig. 263.] [Illustration: Fig. 264.]