Pottery from the Yesse convent: sober or chic? Between 1215 and 1594, a Cistercian convent for women was situated on the current boundary between Haren and Groningen. In recent years, new research (including excavations by the GIA) has increased our knowledge about the monastic buildings as well as daily life at the convent. An important point of interest in this research is to what extent the nuns of Yesse followed the rules regarding the sobriety of monastic life. In this article I discuss the pottery found at Yesse and what it can tell us about the ideas regarding sobriety at the convent. I argue that the (slightly) increasing amount of luxurious and decorated pottery that is found in the final period might be linked to the problems that affected conventual life because of the decreasing popularity of monasticism in the region, and not necessarily to the nuns’ ignorance of the sobriety ideal.
