This paper gives a documented overview of Mediaeval and Modern potters’ workshops in Picardy. Listing the different groups of clay and a typology of the different shapes manufactured, it shows the local potential. This craft industry had been rooted since the Gallo-Roman period in the potters’ villages of the districts of Beauvais and Noyon. Whereas most of the pottery  manufacturing centers of the Middle Ages and above all of Modern times were located in the Oise, a number of other isolated workshops are unevenly scattered throughout the area, as the discovery in particular of a Merovingian potter’s workshop at Soissons(Aisne) shows. Certain local products were distributed on a very small scale. On the other hand, at the end of the 12th century, very sophisticated goods (for example the highly decorated Noyon and Lacroix-Saint-Ouen pottery) must have been distributed to almost all parts of Picardy and maybe beyond. In the late Middle Ages and especially in the Modern era, the Beauvais district was certainly the main center  supplying the towns in Picardy and the Paris district with table ware and storage ware, and notably with stoneware and glazed pottery.

Traduction : Margaret & Jean-louis CADOUX