With a stein on the table and a good song ringing clear.
Richard Hovey, A Stein Song, 1898
In England the transition from the use of wood, horn, and leather drinking vessels to ceramic forms took far longer than one would expect. As with so many English innovations, when the change began it came from Europe, specifically from the German Rhineland. Potters there had been experimenting with salt-glazed stoneware, favored for its durability and liquid-imperviousness, since the thirteenth century. By the end of the fifteenth century these easily cleaned beer mugs were mass-produced in centers such as Siegburg and Raeren.
At first the preferred shapes were somewhat eccentric, like the funnel-mouthed form being made in an image of about 1455 (to your left). Stonewares in this style (1) were widely used in England, as evidenced by an earthenware version made in Surrey around 1540 (2). Most German beer mugs from the first half of the sixteenth century were more practical and far less elegant (3 and 4). Potters working in the London area did their best to copy these forms in lead-glazed earthenware (5).
1. Jug or mug, salt-glazed stoneware. Siegburg, Germany, ca. 1475–1525.
2. Jug or mug, lead-glazed buff earthenware. Surrey, ca. 1550–1580.
3. Mug, salt-glazed stoneware. Sieburg or Raeren, Germany, ca. 1475–1550.
4. Mug, salt-glazed stoneware. Raeren, Germany, ca. 1500–1550.
5. Mug, lead-glazed earthenware. London area, ca. 1540–1560.
