In the Medieval times, art was something that was pretty tightly controlled by the emperor and the church. Mainly because they were the ones commissioning all of the art to be made in the first place. They made all the rules as well, so life was lived according to their wishes in many different aspects of the daily goings on of Byzantine people. In the form of art, many things were and were not okay to produce in the eyes of the church. However, something that was completely out of the control of both the church and the emperor was the imagery that was portrayed on ceramics. Things that would have been completely banned in other areas were fair game to potters. Hybrid animals, stories from pagan mythology, even sexual images, all existed in pottery from the middle ages.













Most popular images for table wares of the times were usually associated with food in some way or another. Most usually in the form of the hunt. Originally seen on fine silver dishes, images of high class hunting pr…