Mortars, medicine and knowledge in Medieval England

Stone mortars are a distinctive, but under-examined, feature of medieval food-related material culture. This paper presents the results of a survey of the distribution of mortars in medieval England, demonstrating that they are particularly associated with elite residences, large urban households and monastic institutions. It is proposed that a contextualised interpretation of mortars in relation to the spread of formalised knowledge relating to healthy diet and medicinal practice allows us to explore how these objects were implicated in the emergence of new gendered and status-based experiences in the Middle Ages.