Cheers! With the festive season behind us, many a person probably can’t see food or drink no more. In the early middle ages, many a feast took place as well, and a popular glass with which to pour out a toast back then was the tumbler. Finds of such glasses from West-Frisia have been found in Domburg and Bloemendaal, and from Central-Frisia in Ferwert, Wons, Makkum and Pingjum. The finds are currently part of the Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, the Huis van Hilde and the Fries Museum collections, respectively.
Tumblers are cone shaped glasses with a wide mouth that tapers to a round bottom. In company, this glass went from hand to hand, and couldn’t be put down until it was completely emptied. Some tumblers have wear marks on the rims showing that the glasses were actually used this way. These cone beakers weren’t made in Frisia itself, but were – like wine – luxury products imported from the German Rhineland. There, the glasses were blown into their distinctive shape, and the combination of sodium and chalk gave the glasses their characteristic green or translucid colour. This greenish glass from the Rhineland is known as ‘forest glass’. Tumblers are found throughout Europe, with them being mainly found in Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England in large trading settlements. In the trading centres of Hedeby and Birka, as well as in Lyminge in Kent, tumblers were found as grave goods. From this it can reasonably be derived that the glasses were considered to be valuable, but also that drinking from tumblers probably had a social significance. Drinking collectively from these cone-shaped beakers became an expression of a connected maritime culture around the North Sea, and took place at social – and perhaps ritual – gatherings. It is possible, for example, that the glass passed through a company in a toast when sealing a trade agreement. On good fortune and health!
Addition: important and interesting to mention is that all the tumblers found in Frisia are from weapon graves (Knol 1993). There was a discussion under the original post on Facebook about whether tumblers might have been used as oil lamps, rather than cups. See the original post here.
What do you think the glasses were for?
Sources and further reading:
- Broadley, R., ‘Preliminary observations on the Anglo-Saxon glass from Lyminge’ in: G. Thomas en A. Knox (red.), Early medieval monasticism in the North Sea zone (Oxford 2017) 117-126, aldaar 121.
- Looper, S., ‘Skol! Rijnlands glas in Frisia en Scandinavië’ in: M. Stoter en D. Spiekhout (red.), Wij Vikingen (Leeuwarden 2020) 152-153.
- Aanvulling: E. Knol, De Noordnederlandse kustlanden in de vroege middeleeuwen (Groningen 1993) 181-187.
Weblinks:
https://collectie.friesmuseum.nl/...
https://collectie.friesmuseum.nl/...
https://collectie.friesmuseum.nl/...
https://collectie.huisvanhilde.nl/...
https://collectie.huisvanhilde.nl/...
https://kzgw.nl/in-en-om-het-huis-plank-2/
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