Terracotta flooring is an essential ornament in Cistercian buildings of the 12th century; the tiles were long made by the monks themselves using local clays.
The glazed terracotta tile technique is a medieval innovation that was widely developed by the Cistercians. From the middle of the 13th century onwards, the tiles were made in outside workshops. At Royaumont, a non-monastic Parisian workshop produced the bicoloured tiles used in the abbeys at Saint Germain des Prés, Royaumont and Maubuisson.
There are several types:
monochrome: geometric shapes vary, with the arrangement providing an opportunity to create ornamental designs. Glazings, which appeared in the second half of the 12th and the early 13th centuries, were yellow, red-brown, dark green or black.
hand-engraved: characteristic of the Cistercian abbeys dating back to the end of the 12th and the early 13th centuries, they are sometimes very large (up to 270 mm per side). They are hand-engraved using a stylus and the glazings are dark.
impressed: this is a more sophisticated technique using sculpted wooden relief moulds to print hollow patterns in the fresh clay. The technique made faster and more uniform mass production possible, lowering costs. The pressure needed to print the patterns brought about a reduction in the size of the tiles. Glazings tend to be dark.
bicoloured with inlaid decorations: these tiles appeared in the middle of the 13th century and were always combined with plain tiles forming borders separating the decorated tiles. The tile was made from a carved mould, stamped (to a depth of 3 to 5 mm maximum) and filled with a slip that was generally white and fairly compact, with the excess being scraped off with a knife. The patterns of the early tiles were geometric, then floral, with figurative patterns - architectural elements, animals, human figures - introduced at the end of the 13th century. The combination of several tiles (4, 9 or 16) provided scope for many different patterns, often circular. The technique produced tiles of good quality whose patterns remained visible even when the surface was worn.
bicoloured slip-painted: these tiles used the same manufacturing technique but the pattern was shallower (1.5 mm maximum), so that the tiles could be produced more quickly – albeit with lower quality. The tiles found at Royaumont and presented in the showcase are of this type. These tiles illustrate the Parisian style of the 1240s, a transition period between the mosaic tiles used in the Maubuisson abbey, classical up to that period, and the bicoloured tiles like those used at Royaumont, which were characteristic of Gothic art from the middle of the 13th century onwards.
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