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A medieval potter's wheel

The potter's wheel is thought to have its origins some 6-7000 years ago, in the near east - the Levant and Mesopotamia - from its use spread slowly across Europe.  Wheels arrived in Britain with the Romans, and seemed to largely fall out of favour when the Romans left, but their use was revived in the medieval period.  Prior to that period, inference about the extent of spread and types of wheels in use is based largely on pottery remains, rather than the remains of the wheels themselves, or documentatary records - there being little in the way of either. However, in the mid to late medieval period contemporary illustrations start to give a clue as to the sorts of wheels which potters were using. One of these is a type of kick wheel - with a larger low-level wheel, which can be turned with the potter's foot, supporting a higher level smaller wheel on which the clay is worked. The other type consisted of a cartwheel, set on its side, with a raised platform for the clay, and often powered by spinning it with a stick inserted between the spokes. Such wheels can still be seen in use in village pottery workshops in India and Pakistan today [note 1].

Medieval potter's wheels: a kick wheel and a stick powered cartwheel [note 2]

 

As part of the pottery project we have been making medieval type pots on a treadle wheel - where a flywheel is turned by a lever powered with the foot: a human powered wheel, but not something that came into use much before the end of the eighteenth century. So, we were interested in seeing what might be like making pots on an actual medieval type of wheel, in this case one based on a cartwheel.

 

At the outset, it is worth saying that the idea was to build a wheel that behaved as its medieval equivalent would have done, not to emulate the entire process of making the wheel using only medieval tools and techniques - we have neither the skills nor tools of carpenters or blacksmiths of the period!  However, the principle was that the essential elements of the wheel were nothing that those craftsmen could not have achieved, albeit sometimes in a different way.

 

The first step was to source a reasonably large cartwheel, in a sufficiently good state of repair to provide a solid flywheel when mounted on its side. Fortunately the prevalence of cartwheels as garden ornaments means there is something of a  market for  wheels whose days of load carrying are long over though the condition of these can be variable. Fortunately we found an example, of about the right size and weight which, although it had been standing outside for some years, had been roughly painted so was in pretty good order.  It is about 0.9m diameter, with a substantial iron rim. It is not medieval, obviously, but although a wheel of that period would have been slightly different (in terms of the angle of the spokes, and the nature of the iron rim), functionally it does the same job.

The essential requirement for adapting a cartwheel to use as a potter's wheel is to create a bearing with as little friction as possible, to maximise the time that the momentum of the wheel will keep it spinning, and the energy that can go into shaping the clay. The logical, and technically simple, way to do this would have been with a 'cup and pin' bearing - a vertical static shaft with a hollow in the top into which a pointed metal pin located just under the wheelhead locates. In our case, for convenience, the cup and pin were machined (courtesy of Tenterden Village Forge) rather than hot forged. The pin is made from a substantial bolt, and is mounted in a wooden disc which fits exactly inside the iron collar on the upper side of the cartwheel hub (which is not excactly circular - hence the odd shape of the wooden disc!).

The cup and pin parts of the bearing; the pin was made out of a short bolt mounted in a wooden disc.

 

The iron shaft was mounted in a wooden stand. In practice, generally wheels would probably have simply had a shaft fixed into the floor of the pottery workshop, as they would not need to be moved around. Remains from some Roman workshops indicate this, and it is commonly the case with similar wheels in village potteries in India and Pakistan.

 

 

The structure that does the combined job of holding the pin in place, taking the weight of the wheel, and forming the platform for the wheelhead (see below) is certainly not medieval!  This approach was taken with a view to not having to directly fix into the structure of the original cartwheel - if the two wooden plates are removed the wheel is exactly as it was originally. The advantage of the approach is that the weight of the wheel (which is not inconsiderable) is taken on the pin under the top disc, but then transmitted to the lower disc, which bears directly onto the original iron collar on the lower side of the hub. This distributes the stress on the wheel structure. In practice a medieval craftsman could have solved this problem in a number of ways, without the use of plywood and threaded steel rod, particularly as they would have had no compunction about altering the wheel itself.

 

At the bottom of the hub, the wheel is stabilised on the shaft with a small collar - presently made out of a piece of nylon plate, but this will be replaced by a more authentic leather collar when we track down a suitably thick piece of leather!  Both upper and lower bearings are periodically greased.

 

The wheelhead itself takes advantage of the circular array of nuts holding the structure together and, via an equivalent series of holes, simply locates onto the upper side of the wheel. 

 

 

With the addition of a little additional bracing to the frame, and a rough coat of paint to match the cartwheel itself, the wheel was ready for use.

 

 

And with that a whole new learning process starts!

 

An important element of setting up the wheel is ensuring the iron shaft is as close to vertical as possible - which usually requires chocking under the corners of the stand to achieve a level. Once this is done and the wheel assembled, it runs very smoothly and can easily be brought up to the necessary speed with the stick. The initial stages of throwing a pot - centering all, or part, of a large piece of clay - creates quite a lot of drag, and the wheel needs to be brought up to speed again fairly frequently, but in the latter stages of making, when the contact with the clay is less forceful, it is possible to work on the pot for a minute or more without needing to attend to the wheel.  The biggest challenge is that while working on the clay the wheel is continuously slowing down, meaning you have to adjust the pressure and speed of movement of your hands on the clay continuously as well.  

 

The other challenge is the throwing position required to work 'over' the large wheel. Many medieval illustrations (such as that above) indicate the potter sitting on some sort of bench (often with their legs in a position that would challenge the most devoted yoga practitioner!). However the recurrence of illustrations showing variants on this position, and the detail of the footrest structures, suggests the images were based on direct observation. The problem with the cartwheel is that the full diameter of the wheel needs to be clear of obstruction above in order for the wheel to be spun with a stick inserted where the spokes join the rim.  It is possible to work at the wheel either seated or standing, but in both cases one is working further away from the body than with a normal wheel, which makes it less easy to brace your arms against either your body, or the wheel tray, as one might be used to doing with a modern wheel. This takes some getting used to (and can result in some wobbly pots!), but also may explain why some of the throwing techniques which are used by the potters working on such wheels, which are rather different from those conventionally taught in modern pottery [notes 1 & 3].

 

After some experimentation with seating positions I have found that the best solution (for me at least) seems to be the addition of foot benches - just below the level of the rim of the wheel - down either side, which mean one's legs are in a position to support the body when leaning foward towards the clay, and also provide good bracing for the forearms. In addition, the benches provide conveniently reachable locations for water, tools and a hook for holding the stick when not in use. Interestingly it seems to be a solution rather convergent with those shown in the medieval illustrations.

So, the learning process continues. We're getting pots, but it is going to take a while before we're producing the large and beautifully thrown jugs that the medieval potters at Rye and elsewhere were clearly able to do. They were skilled indeed.

 

Notes:

 

1. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EE-H128u4A  Although the forming of the pot bases by beating does not seem to have been common practice in Europe, the amazing facility and economy of work with which the pots themselves are thrown on the momentum wheel is probably the closest we can get to seeing how a medieval potter might have worked.

2. Both illustrations from: https://atelierable.nl/a-throwback-to-the-medieval-potters-wheel/ where there is also a really nice account of building a medieval kick wheel like that in the first illustration. The original sources are: A playing card from the Hofämterspiel 1455 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, Kunstkammer) and  'Jeremia visits the house of the potters', Petrus Comestor, c.1495 (Biblioteca Municipal de Lyon Rés Inc 58, f. 92)

3. The Japanese master potter Shoji Hamada throwing on a stick wheel  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwFtg8mBW3s   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouAp_rknhaw