Tile baker
Tile bakers were craftsmen who made tiles for ovens and, earlier, also for floors. The large stoves, often surrounded by a bench, were covered with stove tiles. The Cologne tile bakers had come together in a guild . In the Museum of Applied Art in Cologne a guild jug ( Bartmannskrug ) from 1555 can be seen.
Floor tiles are proven as early as the 11th century, e.g. B. in the headquarters of the Cologne family Hackeney on Neumarkt . In addition, the clay-fired and glazed floor tiles appear in the early sacred buildings . Only later did the tiles find their way into private houses.
The stove tiles in the Cologne area were mostly baked from the white clay there . The often artistically skilled craftsmen mostly made their models themselves. A famous tile baker of the 16th century was Cologne's Dyrych von Buir (Diederich Westermann von Buir).
In the period between 1372 and 1629 there were a total of 31 people in Cologne who practiced this profession.