Medieval Canteen

 

“What did people in the Middle Ages use for a water bottle?”  You can tell that this is a summer question and almost everyone on tour had a plastic bottle of water with them.  In the Middle Ages the most common water “bottle” was made by the potter, but there were some made of leather or wood.  The same applied to cups or tankards at table.  In some places, thick leather was more popular than pottery and in the North, cups were sometimes made from animal horns. 

At the Ozark Medieval Fortress, the most popular water carrier is pottery that is even self-cooling!  Amazing but true.  This is done by not glazing the jug so that some of the moisture evaporates through the porous vessel and this evaporation makes it self-cooling. 

Pictured with a “Medieval Canteen” is Rasmus, who volunteered at the Ozark Medieval Fortress for the summer 2010 season and came all the way from Denmark.  The canteen shown was made and decorated by him at the potter’s hut.  Speaking of Denmark, that country has the oldest national flag in the world, dating back to 1218 (eight years before our castle’s Medieval date of 1226).