Very divergent views have been held about the constitution of the Church of Worcester in the centuries before Oswald established the Benedictine Rule. The ideas of eighteenth-century historians are perhaps of little importance to-day in the light of our further knowledge, for in the last fifty years the attention of an increasing number of scholars has been turned upon the investigation and elucidation of the history of that church, and much light has already been thrown upon its dark spots. But for a time there was considerable confusion, and it was a little hard to see where the truth lay, so various were the views put forward by investigators.

Ten years ago two pairs of Romano-British kilns for the manufacture of pottery were discovered by some boys from Bootham School, York, on the slope of the hill from Whitwell to the Crambeck, about thirteen miles north-east of York and five miles from the fortress of Malton. These were excavated by boys from Bootham School under the writer's supervision, and details of their structure and of the pottery made in them have been published. Earlier finds of kilns in the same neighbourhood were then recorded, and these, together with the amount of pottery recovered, made it clear that pottery manufacture had been very extensive in the district. Since that report was published, the importance of Crambeck wares and their wide distribution in the northern military area in the fourth century have been widely recognized. The discovery of another pair of kilns in 1936, which throw more light on kiln-structure than did those of the earlier find, provides, in the light of subsequent investigations, an opportunity for a fuller discussion of the date of their activity than was at that time possible.

It is well known that wooden vessels were in common use for domestic purposes in medieval times: dishes, bowls, etc., almost certainly made of this material are shown in use in the kitchen and at table in several documents, for instance, the Bayeux tapestry, the Luttrell Psalter, and Queen Mary's Psalter. It is seldom, however, that the actual wooden vessels are found in excavations on medieval sites: mention may be made of ‘two turned saucer-like bowls of beechwood, 8 in. in diameter, and about 1¼ in. deep’, found with other wooden objects and early medieval pottery in the filling of a deep shaft at Pevensey Castle.

A remarkable find was made in 1929 during excavations on the site of the Bank of England beneath the NW. side of the old Power of Attorney, that is, about 100 ft. south of the Lothbury frontage and 140 ft. west of the Bartholomew Lane frontage. A well, 7 ft. 6 in. in diameter, built of chalk blocks, of which nine courses remained, to a height of 5 ft. 6 in., had been sunk through the lower deposits into the gravel. The well was filled with greenish black slime, from which were extracted pottery vessels, a number of wooden bowls, a few broken animal bones, and a hen's egg. All the pottery appears to be of about the same date in the fourteenth century, and is of value as a group of associated types and in giving a date to the wooden bowls.

In certain continental museums there are examples of a curious form of detached St. John's Heads, made of a sort of hard alabaster, all so much alike as to indicate that they must all have been carved in one locality (and very probably in one workshop), and within a fairly short period of time. These heads, which seem clearly not to be English in origin—although by some scholars it has been assumed that they were—differ from medieval English alabaster carvings in character and in style, as well as in material.

The types of decoration used on Anglo-Saxon pottery of the pagan period in England have never yet received the detailed analysis which their variety and historical importance deserve. The time has not yet come when a comprehensive study can be attempted, for the great bulk of the pottery concerned either remains unpublished or has been published so inadequately that the student is compelled to go back to the originals before coming to any conclusions. But it does already seem possible to isolate certain of the commoner elements of the decorative schemes employed and to investigate their history and affinities. In the following pages the attempt is prompted by the exhibition and publication of two urns from Lincolnshire and one from London, all of which are in private ownership. These three vessels happen to illustrate three characteristic styles of decoration which seem to be fundamental in this line of study, and the following remarks are offered without any undue dogmatism, in the hope that they may at least make a start in the elucidation of what is undoubtedly the most neglected of all pre-medieval groups of English ceramic material.