Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Potters in medieval Yorkshire: their products, techniques, and origins

Yannick Signer, University of York

Fragments of medieval ceramic vessels are frequently found on excavations in Yorkshire, yet the people and techniques involved in creating them are often poorly understood and rarely investigated. Similarly, it has long been recognised that pottery production as a craft developed considerably in England during the medieval period, but how this took place in Yorkshire and who was driving these changes has yet to be established.

Based on a recently completed doctoral research project that analysed material from more than ten Yorkshire pottery production sites, this talk will present a new narrative on how (and perhaps more interestingly) why pottery production changed between the 11th and 13th centuries, and beyond. This new perspective not only lets us compare what is happening in Yorkshire with the rest of England, but also brings us closer to understanding who these potters were and where they learned their craft.

Biography: Yannick Signer is an archaeologist and postgraduate researcher at the University of York who specialises in archaeological pottery and medieval landscapes. Yannick just finished an AHRC-funded (through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities) research project on the development of Yorkshire’s medieval pottery production with a particular focus on the 11th to 13th centuries.

7pm in the Tempest Anderson Lecture Theatre in the Yorkshire Museum on TUESDAY 6th October 2026.

YPS Members and students free, non members £5.