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Although there are some highly ornamental cauldrons, some with inscriptions ('I am a pot of great honour, to hold meat of good savour' etc.), most of them are ordinary, serviceable utensils, intended for kitchen use. Their profiles vary slightly, but they all have a pair of handles for suspending them over a fire, and three feet to steady them in the embers or on the kitchen shelf. They are known from the 12th century, but came into more general use in the 14th, continuing as a standard item of household equipment into the 17th and later. They generally have vertical seams running down each side, showing that they were cast in clay or sand moulds whose two halves were fitted together.