Diehl Daniel - Medieval and Renaissance furniture: plans and instructions for historical reproductions

ALSO BY DANIEL DIEHL AND MARK P. DONNELLY

Pirates of Maryland
Pirates of Virginia
Death & Taxes
Pirates of New Jersey
Haunted Houses
Inventors & Impostors
The Big Book of Pain
Management Secrets from History
Eat Thy Neighbor
Tales from the Tower of London
Elbert Hubbard
How Did They Manage?
Medieval Celebrations
Medieval Furniture
Siege: Castles at War
Constructing Medieval Furniture

Copyright 2007 by George Bradford

Published by
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FIRST EDITION

Cover design by Caroline M. Stover

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Diehl, Daniel.
Medieval and Renaissance furniture : plans and instructions for historical reproductions / Daniel Diehl and Mark P. Donnelly. First edition.
pages cm
Contained herein are most of the projects from Constructing Medieval Furniture and Medieval Furniture, as well as several new projects that have never been published before.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8117-1023-7 (pbk.)
1. FurnitureReproduction. 2. Furniture, Medieval. I. Donnelly, Mark, 1967 II. Title.
TT197.D54 2012
684.1dc23
2012011468

eBook ISBN 978-0811-7-4879-7

FOREWORD

Roy Underhill

O travelerhere is your atlas!

The destinations within are the shapes that gave comfort and convenience to knights and knaves, merchants and monks. You, however, will travel as an artisansteam-bending ash for the barrel chair, draw-knifing elm for the banqueting table, adze-dubbing oak for the tax box. Fear not, though. You need not go native right at the start of your travelsfor the paths are laid out using turns and measures that you already know. But, if you be bold, if you be venturesome, the destinations are here. Keep them in sight and soon you will plot your own course.

In our journey to this foreign land, we trust this, our worthy guide. Here is no fantasy. No dragons and seamonsters fill blank spaces on these maps. Each shape presented here, either through accident or excellence, is a rare survivor that we now study for the truth of its time. Our guides have learned from them, and now may we.

We want our guides to share a vision for our journey, for these are not just distant shapes. These destinations were intimate with the people who made and used them. They made and had babies in them. They sat in them and ate off them and sometimes threw them. That living connection is here to discover. Our guides share the context of each piece, helping us see it in its place, see it with its people.

Our guides need to encourage us, as well as challenge us. For encouragement, we have easier destinations with the step-by-step path clearly marked, steps taken with the basic tools familiar to all. But within these pages are also destinations that can only be reached by riskier approaches. Eventually, you find a dowel will no longer take you where you want to goyou must cleave an oak pin. Roaring rotary tools brought you along at first, but now you need silence as the edge of your adze across the elm speaks to you in ancient whispers.

Now you are there. You no longer need your translator. Your guide is far behind. From the grain in the wood the spirit of the piece emerges. The form is there, and so is the texture. Where once you ventured cautiously, now your bold adventure begins. The wood becomes a partner with you and your steel. You emerge as a craftsman in the land ruled by risk, and the working of your tools is no more premeasured, and no less precise, than a broadsword in action.

The chair, the bed, the table await you at the end of your journey. Rest a while with the comforts of your own making, peruse this atlas for your next adventureand welcome home!

PREFACE

T his compendium follows our previous books, Constructing Medieval Furniture (1997) and Medieval Furniture (1999). When we began researching medieval furniture back in 1992, we had a difficult time finding good research in existing literature. Certainly there were many good books regarding the history of furniture through the ages, but information on medieval and Renaissance furniture in particular was scarce. We could not find much if anything in the way of plans and schematics for building or re-creating medieval furniture. Once we had completed the research for the projects we were building, we wondered if there might be a demand for a book or two on the subject, because to our knowledge there was nothing available in print. We were convinced of the demand for instructional books on the design and construction of medieval furniture, and the overwhelming popular response was gratifying.

After a decade and a half since our first medieval furniture book was published, we considered putting out a second edition. But we debated whether we should do a second edition of the first book, a second edition of the second book, or a new book with additional pieces. In the end we decided to do all three. The result is the book in your hands. Contained herein are most of the projects from Constructing Medieval Furniture and Medieval Furniture, as well as nine new projects that have never been published before.

In assembling this material, we have traveled to museums, castles, monasteries, stately homes, cathedrals, and universities throughout Europe and the United States. Once we managed to locate a piece of surviving furniture that seemed to be suitable as a candidate for inclusion, we set about getting permission to photograph it, take detailed measurements, and even in a few cases, carefully disassemble the original piece to detail the construction techniques. It has proven to be an interesting challenge and a fascinating journey. We believe it has been a worthwhile and important one, too, for not only has the general public embraced our previous work, but we have learned that it has become a permanent part of the libraries of such august institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as those of numerous theatrical houses and film production companies. This response has reinforced our belief that these rare and fine pieces of our physical past need to be carefully documented, ensuring that the work and techniques of medieval craftsmen are preserved for future generations to appreciate and emulate.

Many of the pieces of furniture presented here have never been previously cataloged, except, of course, in our two previous books. Some, like the thirteenth-century church pew, were erroneously listed many decades ago. We have attempted to present you with a wide variety of types and styles of furniture. Although there is not enough room in this book to take an in-depth look at the inventory of a complete households furniture from any one era, we hope that we have presented a tantalizing look into the lives of a variety of people from a wide range of time periods. To augment the furniture pieces themselves, we have included other sorts of furnishings such as lighting and architectural pieces. We hope that this will give you a better idea of the settings in which these wonderful objects were meant to be viewed. Only when we can envision the Middle Ages as a physical whole can we begin to develop a reliable image of the lives of the people who lived in it. Certainly we believe that a more realistic view of the physical world of our medieval ancestors will help us to understand their way of life and the hardships and limitations their world imposed on them.