Looking through the Glass : glass chemistry as a window on early Medieval recycling practices, technology, trade and contact, AD 700-1000

Abstract

The primary objective of this thesis is to characterise and contextualise the evidence for glass recycling between the 7th – 10th centuries based on evidence from early medieval glass found in England. It aims to examine this topic in a manner that builds on current scholarship in the area of glass recycling but seeks to move away from a somewhat one size fits all approach to recycling as a practice. The first section will provide a critical assessment of the current scholarship with regards to recycling and recycling practices. The second section will provide chemical characterisation of archaeological glasses. The analysis focuses on recycling indicators including evidence for repeated recycling, mixing of naturally coloured glass with coloured and mixing of different glass compositional groups. It characterises differing recycling practices related to colour, material, and chronology. The third section includes the methodology, results, and analysis of the recycling experiments. These experiments were specifically designed to test three key assumptions with regards to effects of recycling on glass chemistry and workability. These assumptions have formed the basis of much of the interpretation of the chemical signatures of past glass recycling practices; despite relying primarily on anecdotal evidence from modern glassworkers employing the use of high temperature gas and electric fired furnaces. Finally the Fourth section seeks to contextualise the evidence for recycling within the wider social and economic landscape of the early medieval period. Providing an assessment of chronological changes in recycling intensity over time, variation in recycling practice related tomaterialtype and colour, an examination ofthe potentialmechanismsfor and organisation of cullet collection and the connection of recycling to long distance trade and contact assessed, and finally a discussion with regards to the role of the Church in the organisation of recycling is had.