Shape: The Plain Mosaic shapes are as published in the British Museum catalogue (Eames 1980, 2, 1–328) with additions shown in Fig 10.14. The shapes from each site are listed in Chapter 27.
A distinctive feature of Plain Mosaic tiling is the extreme care taken in the cutting out and preparation of the tile shapes. Individual shapes can, therefore, be iden-tified with some precision. However, the exact size of each shape varies more between sites than within the assemblage of one site. This is even true of some of the most straightforward shapes, the small squares, found at every site, and might simply reflect the length of a knife blade. At Byland and Rievaulx, for example, the small squares are 70–75mm across while at Fountains they are 80–90mm. Tiles of the trellis patterns (M.24, M.25) also occur in various sizes. The large square tiles in the trellis arrangements at Byland are 105 or 110mm, at Meaux they were 75 or 100mm, at Sawley 110mm, while those re-set in the platform at Fountains are 85mm. A larger sized trellis mosaic at Fountains might be suggested by some square tiles of c.125mm re-set around a grave slab in the middle of the chapter house.
Tiles found in the barn at Easby but of uncertain prove-nance were of similar type but c.105mm across.
Statistical comparison of the assemblage of shapes from different sites was carried out in order to identify the degree of similarity between them. The method used was hierarchical agglomerative clustering with the analyses performed using version 4 of the SPSS statis-tical software system. A proximity measure was chosen that was based on the number of tile shapes at the two sites being compared, expressed as a proportion of the number of shapes found at the less diverse site.
Proximity would therefore reach a maximum value of unity when the tile shapes from one site formed a com-plete subset of those from another. It would decrease in value, reaching zero in the limit, as the amount of overlap decreased. For example, if 53 different shapes were recorded at site 1, and 82 at site 2, and if there were 12 shapes common to both, the proximity mea-sure would be 12/53. The interpretation of values based on small samples is difficult, since two sites using tiles from the same source might have different subsets of shapes. This difficulty is unavoidable in most proximity measures based on archaeological data.
As shown in Tables 10.1–10.4, the number of shapes in an assemblage increased with the size of the assemblage in most cases. The clear exceptions were Byland, where a huge sample yielded only 99 individ-ual shapes, and Meaux, where a much smaller sample yielded 238 shapes. As noted elsewhere, the sample size and composition of the Meaux assemblage was influenced by the history of collection at that site.
Fig 10.13: Reconstruction of Plain Mosaic from tiles found at Meaux Abbey, roundel M.78 after Beaulah 1929.
The only extant tiles of this roundel, outlined above, are now in the British Museum. Individually the tiles are of good quality but they fit together poorly, unlike other Plain Mosaic arrangements. Not to scale
Fig 10.14: (pp.110–14) Plain Mosaic shapes, additions to those published in Eames 1980, 2. Scale 1:3
S.329 S.330 S.331 S.332
S.333
S.337
S.340 S.341 S.342
S.343
S.347 S.348 S.349 S.350 S.351 S.352 S.353
S.354 S.355
S.344
S.345
S.346 S.338
S.339
S.334 S.335 S.336
S.356 S.357 S.358 S.359 S.360
S.361
S.369
S.370
S.371
S.372
S.373 S.374
S.375 S.376 S.377 S.378 S.379
S.362 S.363 S.364
S.365 S.366 S.367 S.368
Fig 10.14 (cont’d): Plain Mosaic shapes, additions to those published in Eames 1980, 2.. Scale 1:3
S.380 S.381 S.382 S.383 S.384
S.385
S.390
S.395
S.396
S.397 S.398
S.399 S.401
S.402 S.403 S.404 S.405
S.400
S.391 S.392 S.393 S.394
S.386
S.387 S.388
S.389
S.406
S.407
S.408
S.409
S.410
S.411
S.412
S.415
S.416
S.418
S.422 S.423
S.417
S.419
S.420
S.421
S.413 S.414
However, the difference in number of shapes at these sites is thought to be a genuine reflection of the relative complexity of the pavements. Nine sites were included in the analysis, although the sample sizes for some were small (particularly those from Helmsley, Newbattle, Sawley and Thornton). Given the limitations outlined above, the analysis suggested three or four sub-groups of material, as follows:
A. Byland, Rievaulx, Gisborough, Helmsley B. Fountains, Newbattle (may group with 1) C. Meaux, Thornton
D. Sawley
As some simple geometric shapes might be almost inevitable when making a mosaic floor, a second analy-sis was carried out in which shapes that occur in six or more of the nine sites (i.e. the commonest shapes) were ignored. The results suggested the same groups as above but showed the link between groups (A) and (B) as less likely.
Size: Leaving aside extreme outliers and tiles with a wear grade of 4 (i.e. those where no white clay or glaze remains), the tiles at Byland, Gisborough, Helmsley Castle, Newbattle and Rievaulx have a depth of c.35mm. Those at Fountains, Meaux, Thornton and York Minster are slightly thinner, with a depth of c.30mm, while the Newminster tiles are much thinner.
There are two depths of tile among the 17-tile assem-blage from Newminster in the British Museum: four are 12–15mm deep, seven are c.25mm deep. All the Newminster tiles share similarities in glaze and fabric.
The six other tiles are c.5mm squares or scored and
split triangles. They are c.25mm deep but some differ from other Plain Mosaic tiles in respect of glaze and an absence of keying. A complicating factor at Newminster is the presence of another tile series (Other Decorated Mosaic – Group 8) which includes c.75mm squares which are recorded in photographs but for which there are few extant examples. It is possible that some of these six tiles are of that group. The tiles from Sawley are thicker and larger than average, despite being worn.
The range of Plain Mosaic tile depths for each site were:
Byland: 30–40mm
Fountains: 24–37mm Gisborough: 30–40mm Helmsley: 28–39mm Meaux: 26–37mm Newbattle: 34–37mm Newminster: 12–27mm Rievaulx: 32–41mm Sawley: 38–46mm Thornton: 26–35mm York Minster: 25–28mm
Designs: Although designated the ‘Plain’ Mosaic Group, there are a few decorated tiles at each site (designs 1.1–1.15, 1.19–1.24, see Fig 10.15). These are found on either square or shaped tiles and, apart from the decoration, the tiles are exactly like other examples of Plain Mosaic. All the shapes with decora-tion are also found without decoradecora-tion. Details of the sites, designs, numbers and shapes are given in Table 10.5. Information about designs and decoration on tiles at Newminster is only known from the published report (Honeyman et al. 1929).
Fig 10.14 (cont’d): Plain Mosaic shapes, additions to those published in Eames 1980, 2.. Scale 1:3 S.427
S.424 S.425
S.426
S.428 S.429 S.430
S.431 S.432 S.433 S.434 S.439
There are no decorated tiles among the extant assemblages from Helmsley, Sawley or Thornton, but many of the tiles from these sites are worn.
The designs tend to be simple, stand alone motifs, probably made using small stamps. The two on 100mm squares (designs 1.13 and 1.15) could have formed continuous repeating patterns. Beaulah believed that these designs were used in arrangements like M.24 and M.30 but it is not known whether any
were found in situ. Tiles of design 1.13 were certainly found as wasters at the North Grange kiln site at Meaux and the physical characteristics of both types are the same as other Plain Mosaic tiles (Fig 10.16).
Decoration: A considerable variety of techniques was used to make these designs, as shown in Table 10.6. It can be seen that several designs were executed in more than one technique. However, it should be stressed that the numbers of decorated tiles were extremely small, forming a minute proportion of the whole Plain Mosaic assemblage. The proportion of decorated tiles was higher at Gisborough than at other sites (Fig 10.18).
The occurrence of different types of decoration, by site, is shown in Table 10.7. The most unusual of these, reverse inlay, involved coating the quarry with while clay, stamping the design into this and then using red clay as the inlay (Fig 10.19). In northern England this technique was only used by the Plain Mosaic tilers.
All the inlaid tiles re-set in the south transept at Byland are of design 1.7 with the rosette design inlaid to give a light-on-dark pattern (as in Fig 10.17). The roundel in reversed colours in the chancel does not have decorated tiles in the spandrels. These would have had to be reverse inlaid to fit the colour scheme. It is possible that the reverse inlay technique was not used at this site, although one reverse inlaid tile in the British Museum (BMC/1328) is attributed to Byland and at Old Byland one of the two tiles of design 1.7 is a positive version, the other a negative version.
Several additional reverse-inlay permutations exist among the Gisborough tiles (Fig 10.18). On one example of design 1.1 the background was inlaid in white, the tile stamped again and the background re-inlaid in red. The motif, in the red clay of the body fab-ric, appears with a white outline against a red clay background. The quarry of another example of design 1.1 was coated with white clay before a stamp that depressed the background of the design was applied, leaving the design upstanding in white clay. The back-ground was then filled with red clay. This ends up as the light-on-dark effect of ordinary inlaying. Perhaps the stamp that depressed the motif had been mislaid.
The techniques used on the worn tiles of design 1.1 at Old Byland are unclear but the motif appears in dark-on-light, light-on-dark and outlined modes. Similarly complex sequences of stamping and inlaying were used on a tile of design 1.3 from Fountains. Not every design is known in reversed colours. Among the extant assemblage from Gisborough, design 1.2 is only known in a light-on-dark form, and designs 1.5 and 1.6 only as dark-on-light motifs.
The reverse inlay of the six extant inscribed tiles from Meaux (designs 1.19–1.24) might suggest that stamps were used in the manufacture of these tiles (there are few signs of the scratching associated with the sgraffiato technique; see Chapter 9, p.87). The Lombardic lettering was carefully and evenly executed Table 10.5: Sites with Plain Mosaic designs
Sites Designs Shapes
Byland Abbey 1.5 S.34/5 1.7 S.3, 4 Fountains Abbey 1.3 S.34
R1.3 S.373
1.9 probably 90mm square 1.10
1.11 S.11 [?1.17] S.4 Gisborough Priory 1.1 S.34, 36
1.2 S.34 1.5 S.34 1.6 S.110, 117
1.7 S.3, 4, 47, 48, 58, 163, 346 Meaux Abbey 1.7 S.3, 34, 102, 129, 157,
208, 263, 265, 330, 367 1.8 S.3
North Grange kiln 1.13 c.100mm squares Newbattle Abbey 1.7 not extant, unscaled
drawing (Richardson
Rievaulx Abbey 1.4 S.110 1.7 S.3, 4, 36 [?1.16] S.3 [?1.18] S.4, 129 Wether Cote kiln [?1.16] S.3 York Minster 1.7 S.34/5
1.13 c.100mm squares 1.15 c.100mm squares Old Byland Church 1.1 S.36
1.7 S.4, 11
Designs 1.16–1.18 are uncertainly assigned to the Plain Mosaic Group and are listed with a question mark and square brackets. ‘R’ indicates reversed colours.
1.1 1.2 1.3
1.4
1.7a
1.7b
1.7c
1.7e 1.8
1.9
1.10
1.11
1.12
1.13 1.14
1.15
1.5 1.6
1.7d
but there had been problems with bleeding of the glaze during firing. However, the use of stamps for an inscription like this would be unusual. Stamps were usually only cut when they were going to be used many times over. Inscribed tiles were often decorated by hand. It is uncertain whether the counter relief design 1.12, also from Meaux, was intended as lettering (I or H; BMC/13008–9). One example was found with a segment of roundel M.73 about half way down the nave (see Fig 10.12a and entry 61, Chapter 27: Area M).
A few designs, as shown in Table 10.5, are uncer-tainly assigned to Plain Mosaic. Although the shapes and other characteristics of these tiles suggest that they belong with Plain Mosaic, the quality of the decoration is unusually poor for this group. In particular some fea-tures of design 1.16 might be attributed to the Inlaid
Copies Group. Design 1.16 is found on three squares at Rievaulx and on one at Wether Cote kiln site. One of the Rievaulx examples is inlaid while the others have an olive-yellow glaze over the whole of the upper sur-face, with the stamp having only made a very slight impression on the quarry (see Chapter 12, pp.137–9).
Design stamps: Despite the use of the same, often elaborate, decorative techniques at several sites, Table 10.5 shows that only designs 1.7, 1.13 and 1.15 were found at several different locations. In the case of design 1.7 (the rosette) a number of different stamps were in use, with the individual stamps rarely used at more than one site. One may have been used at both Rievaulx and Gisborough, and another at Meaux and York Minster, but it is impossible to say for certain Fig 10.15 (left and above): Plain Mosaic designs. At Meaux, design 1.7 occurs in counter relief on several different shapes (see, for example, Fig 10.4). On 75mm square tiles, it was used as a pair to the counter relief fleur-de-lis of design 1.8. Design 1.14, a reverse inlaid fleur-de-lis from Newbattle, only survives as a few fragments (see Fig 10.19b). The drawing of design 1.14 is based on an illustration by Richardson 1929. Designs 1.16, 1.17 and 1.18 are uncertainly attributed to the Plain Mosaic Group. Scale 1:3
Fig 10.16: Plain Mosaic wasters, North Grange, Meaux:
distorted and fused example of design 1.13; shaped tiles fused together
Fig 10.17: Plain Mosaic in Byland Abbey church, south transept chapels (step D in Fig 27.3), showing risers of M.4 with one tile inlaid with the rosette design 1.7c 1.16
1.19
1.22 1.23 1.24
1.20 1.21
1.17 1.18
with such a simple design. The rectangular tile at Meaux stamped with three rosettes could have been made using a stamp of a single rosette. The stamps of design 1.5 could not be compared at Byland and Gisborough. Stamps of design 1.1 at Old Byland and Gisborough might be the same, but the Old Byland tiles may have been re-used in their present location
(entry 70, Chapter 27). The stamps of designs 1.13 and 1.15 at Meaux, Newbattle and York Minster prob-ably were the same at all three sites. All the stamps were well cut.
J.S. Richardson (1929, 292) suggested that the large reverse inlaid fleur-de-lis from Newbattle (design 1.14;
Fig 10.19b) might have been stamped with an existing tile of this shape. Though only extant as several frag-ments, the Newbattle tile does appear to be the same size and shape as some fragments of a mosaic fleur-de-lis at Meaux, and similar to a largely complete example from Thornton (S.406). However, to allow for shrinkage in fir-ing, the stamp used for the Newbattle tile would have had to be larger than the extant mosaic pieces.
The way the tiles with decoration were used in Plain Mosaic pavements may have varied on a site by site basis. At Byland, for example, two-colour versions of design 1.7 were used on risers and in the spandrels of the M.65 roundel in the south transept. At Meaux, this design is only found in counter relief, usually on the dark coloured 75mm squares. It was used in conjunc-tion with design 1.8, the counter relief fleur-de-lis Table 10.7: Types of decoration by site
(P=present)
Sites Inlaid Reverse Inlaid Counter relief
Byland P ?P
Fountains P P
Gisborough P P
Meaux P P P
Newbattle P P
Newminster P
North Grange kiln P P
Old Byland P ?P
Rievaulx P P
York Minster P P
Table 10.6: Designs found in different decorative techniques
Designs Inlaid Reverse Inlaid Background stamp used Counter relief (on dark) Counter relief (on light)
1.1 Y Y Y
1.2 Y
1.3 Y Y Y
1.4 Y
1.5 Y Y
1.6 Y Y Y
1.7 Y Y Y
1.8 Y
1.9 Y
1.10 Y
1.11 Y
1.12 Y
1.13 Y Y Y Y
1.14 Y
1.15 Y Y Y
1.19–1.24 Y
Fig 10.18: Plain Mosaic from Gisborough Priory re-set in the west end of the parish church. Photograph taken by S.I. Hill
which is only known from Meaux, and is always on light-coloured 75mm squares. In the British Museum regis-ter (Acc. 1955, 10–14) G.K. Beaulah recorded that, although both designs were found in situ in a coherent area of Mosaic M.107, the decorated tiles were placed haphazardly with no particular arrangement.
White clay and glaze: The layer of white clay applied to tiles to be glazed yellow measures 1–3mm on most Plain Mosaic tiles with wear grades 1–2, i.e.
where the full depth of white clay is known. Similar depths are found among the inlaid and reverse inlaid tiles. The depth of white clay is most varied at Meaux, Fountains and Rievaulx. At these sites there are a few tiles with only a thin layer of white clay, which might have been applied as a slip, while others have a layer 4mm deep. Among the Meaux assemblage, drips of white clay are visible on the sides of some tiles, even where the depth of white clay suggests it was applied in a plastic form. The tiles from Newminster in the British Museum have c.1mm white clay on the less worn tiles but also have a thin slip on the tile sides.
This might have been a result of wetting the tiles after the white clay was applied.
The commonest colours of the glazed tiles at all sites were dark green, black or dark brown over the body fab-ric, and yellow over the white clay. The main differ-ences between the assemblages were in the predominance of dark green over dark brown. Dark green predominated at Byland, Fountains, Helmsley, Rievaulx and York Minster. Both dark green and dark brown were recorded from Newbattle and Newminster.
Dark brown predominated at Meaux, Gisborough and Thornton. Few of the Sawley tiles had any glaze left on them. A few tiles (c.40 in all) were glazed bright green over a layer of white clay (Byland, Gisborough, Meaux, Newminster, Rievaulx; Fig 10.20). In addition there were some examples glazed olive at Fountains, Newbattle and Meaux, and some glazed orange from Meaux (but see also Inferior Mosaic, Group 2).
Nail holes: None.
Firing: Most tiles at all sites were partly or largely reduced in firing, with pink or red oxidised clay at the margins, a grey core and upper surface. There are a few completely oxidised examples from Byland and Rievaulx and some highly fired, completely reduced tiles from Fountains. Almost all extant examples from Sawley are reduced.
Fabric: Most of the tile fabrics were not markedly dis-tinctive at ×10 magnification. At Byland, Rievaulx, Gisborough, Helmsley, Meaux and Newbattle the fab-ric was laminated and in some cases had cracked or broken horizontally during firing. The quartz measured up to 1mm diameter and was of about 20% frequency.
Few other inclusions were visible. At Fountains and Thornton many of the tiles were made of a better-mixed clay with finer quartz. These tiles tended to have sharper edges and did not show signs of horizontal cracking. The few extant tiles from Newminster and York Minster also had these characteristics. The major-ity of the Fountains tiles, and some of those at Thornton, had c.5% of hard, black or red inclusions of 1–2mm diameter. However, at Fountains there were also some tiles with a coarse, sandy, laminated fabric (more than 20% frequency and up to 2mm in diame-ter). The only visually distinctive fabric among the Plain Mosaic tiles was that of a large proportion of the assemblage from Sawley. These had c.10% frequency of angular white inclusions 1–4mm in diameter. The visu-al fabric codes, recorded by site, were:
Byland 1, 5
Fig 10.19a: Plain Mosaic tiles of design 1.15 from York Minster. The tile on the right is inlaid in the usual way.
The fragment on the left is reverse inlaid
Fig 10.19b: A fragment of Plain Mosaic design 1.14 from Newbattle Abbey showing the layers of red and white clay used in reverse inlay decoration
Analysis of the chemical composition of a sample of c.10 tiles from each site, and of some tiles of the Inlaid and Usefleet Groups, was carried out by Dr M.J.
Hughes at the British Museum in 1992–3 (see Appendix 1 for the full report). Statistical analysis of the ICP results suggested a broad division of the Plain Mosaic tiles into two main groups as follows (and see Fig A.1):
A. Byland, Helmsley, Rievaulx and Wether Cote B. Fountains, York Minster, Sawley, Newbattle,
Gisborough, Newminster, Thornton
The results also showed that the ICP fabric ‘clus-ters’ grouped by site, but with more than one fabric
cluster for each site (see Table A.3). Plain Mosaic tiles from Byland were found in three adjacent clusters (4, 5 and 6) which did not contain tiles of other sites (excep-tions: one Byland Plain Mosaic was in each of clusters 1 and 3). Rievaulx tiles were in adjacent clusters 16, 17,
cluster for each site (see Table A.3). Plain Mosaic tiles from Byland were found in three adjacent clusters (4, 5 and 6) which did not contain tiles of other sites (excep-tions: one Byland Plain Mosaic was in each of clusters 1 and 3). Rievaulx tiles were in adjacent clusters 16, 17,