Medieval and Renaissance Furniture

by Daniel Diehl

  Cut the tenons on the short ends of the front and back panels as shown in the drawings. Again, the tenons do not go all the way to the top. You should now be able to attempt a first assembly of the legs and panels. The mortise and tenon joints should fit together with a light tap from a mallet or a firm rap with the palm of your hand. If you have achieved a good fit, the pieces of the chest should have no trouble standing alone as a chest frame without bottom or lid.

  Bottom Panel

  Note in the drawings that the bottom panel fits into the front, back, and end panels by dropping into a mortise that is open on the bottom—essentially a simple rabbet join. The only thing that prevents the bottom from falling out is the points at which the mortise runs through the legs. If you precut the angles on the top and bottom edges of the legs and front and back panels, the procedure for cutting the rabbet for the bottom will be slightly easier, although less true to medieval technology. Mark the position of the bottom panel onto the inner surface of the legs. If you did not precut the angles, the bottom will be level with the inner edge of these panels, not with the outer edge, which will be slightly lower because of the angle of the front and back.

  Disassemble the frame of the chest and cut the channel in the legs into which the bottom fits. If you precut the angles on the top and bottom ends of the legs, cut this channel at the same 2-degree angle, ensuring that the angle is parallel to those on the legs. If you did not precut the angles, cut the rabbet for the bottom board on a 2-degree angle so that the inner edge of the rabbet slopes away from the carved foot and toward the top of the leg. The rabbet does not go all the way through the inner face of the leg; it must stop 7/8 inch from the outside edge of the leg. If the rabbet runs all the way across the inner surface of the leg, there will be a hole in the end of each leg when the chest is assembled.

  The rabbets in the front, back, and end panels are a bit simpler to deal with. In the end panels, they are simple, square-cut rabbets the thickness of the bottom board and 5/8 inch deep. On the front and back panels, the rabbets are the same width and depth as on the end panels. On these panels, however, the rabbets are at a 2-degree angle. The side of the rabbet that rests against the inside surface of the bottom board must be cut at a 2-degree angle. If you precut the angles on the top and bottom of these panels, the angled side of the rabbet will be parallel to the angles on the top and bottom of the panel. If you did not precut the angles, the rabbet must be cut on a 2-degree angle so that the inner edge of the angle of the rabbet slopes away from the bottom edge of the side panel. Thus the rabbet will be slightly thicker at its inner face (the center of the side panel) than at its outer edge. Once the rabbets are cut in the legs, side panels, and end panels, the chest and bottom can be assembled. The entire piece should be able to stand without the use of straps or nails.

  Lid

  The basic assembly of the lid can be accomplished by positioning the lid braces beneath the outer edges of the lid boards as shown in the drawings. Pull the lid boards tightly together and nail them onto the braces with largeheaded cut nails as shown. The nails are driven through the lid boards into the braces and are visible on the top surface of the lid.

  Final Assembly

  The large, 1¾-inch-long nails that hold the chest together are rather unusual. The heads have a diameter of 7/8 inch and are 3/8 inch in height. The heads have a smooth surface, as if they were cast, but it is unlikely that nails were cast from steel before 1270. Thus they probably were forged by hand and finished to a smooth, rounded surface in the same way that weapons and early bits of armor were formed. To make accurate copies of these nails, they must be forged or machined on a lathe. To machine the nails, turn the shank of the nail first, leaving it rather thick in the body, not unlike a turned version of a forged nail. Then reverse the nail, placing the shank into the chuck and turning the head. If you do not wish to make your own nails, you can assemble the case with standard forged or cut nails of the same length, and apply an upholstery tack with a large, decorative head over the head of each nail.

  Clamp the chest together tightly before beginning to nail the corners. Drill pilot holes before nailing to prevent splitting the oak. Position the nails so that the large heads do not cross over the seams between the legs and side panels but still get a good bite into the wood of the tenon. If you have not yet leveled off the top and bottom edges of the front and back panels and the legs, do so at this time. First stand the chest upright, and with a plane or drawknife, level off the top edges of the front and back panels and the legs. Then, with the chest standing on a level surface, scribe a line around the bottom of each leg to the level of the inside of the foot—that is, the side of the foot that is raised slightly off the ground. Turn the chest on its top and plane or rasp the feet to the level of the scribed lines. Finally, level off the bottom edges of the front and back panels with a drawknife or plane so that they are level with the bottom board.

  Straps and Banding

  The bands that wrap the chest vertically help support the insubstantially mounted bottom board, and three of them form part of the hinges that fasten onto the lid. These straps are slightly narrower than those that encircle the chest horizontally. The two outermost straps continue around the chest and form hinges but do not line up front to back (see drawings). This is because the metal was forged into place while still hot and twisted as it was being applied. Additionally, these two straps were cut off on the front of the chest when the two outermost locks were installed.

  The topmost front end of the central band that wraps the chest contains the keyhole and reveals the location of the original lock on the chest. This enlarged lock plate, or escutcheon, is the most difficult to form. The straps originally were forged from much thicker pieces of metal, and their width and thickness could be controlled fairly easily. If you make the bands from commercially available banding iron instead of forging them, you have to either cut the entire band from a wider piece of metal to allow for the width of the escutcheon or weld the escutcheon onto the strap as a separate piece.

  The straps on the underside of the lid not only help strengthen the lid, but also hold the hasp ends of the locks. Consequently, these inner straps must be formed with half of a hinge on one end. The top of the hasp forms the other end of the hinge. The body of each hasp strap is decorated with a spade-shaped end. These were originally forged into shape, but they can easily be cut to shape from a length of strap iron. Cut the straps and form them into shape around the chest as explained on page 9. Then drill holes at the locations shown in the drawings, and attach the strap work and lock plates with 1-inch forged nails.

  PROJECT 21

  Vestment Chest

  Vestment Chest, English, fourteenth century. Oak and metal, 23½ inches x 8 feet, 10 inches x 31 inches. Collection of Haddon Hall, Bakewell, Derbyshire, England. Photo by D. Tyler Huff.

  The Roman Catholic Church, with its power and pageantry, was an integral part of the fabric of the medieval world. While the various feudal states of Europe and Britain alternately threatened and made treaties with one another, the Holy Church was one of the few binding threads that ran throughout the fragile structure of Western civilization.

  Vestments are the elaborate gowns worn by members of the clergy. In the Middle Ages, when the outward display of wealth was equated with the holding of power, the costlier the clothes, the more power was attributed to the wearer. For an ambitious churchman to advance himself properly, he had to look the part. The richly ornamented vestments of the politically powerful clergy were stored in almost as much grandeur as they were worn, in vestment chests such as this one. This oak vestment chest belonged to one of the early household chaplains at Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, England. The simplicity of the coats of arms on the chest suggests that it is probably from the mid to late fourteenth century. This chest has probably remained at Haddon Hall throughout its entire six-hundred-year existence, moved only from the chapel to its current location in the long gallery.

  Construction N
otes

  This massive vestment chest is monumental in both size and the bulk of materials necessary to construct it. If you do not have the space for a piece of furniture this size, it can be scaled down to two-thirds or half size for use as a storage chest or tea table. Medieval chests were constructed in every size, level of ornamentation, and degree of security imaginable. It is interesting to find dovetail corner joints on such an early piece. Although rudimentary in execution, these joints illustrate an important development in the art of cabinetmaking. The feet that can be seen in the photo are late additions and thus are not included in the plans here.

  Materials

  This chest is made entirely of oak, including the original doweling. The planks from which it was constructed may have been split with mallets and wedges, rather than sawn from logs, and then smoothed with a single-∂edged broad ax and drawknife. Because of the large size of the planks, you will have to glue up the materials from smaller boards (see page 2).

  Lid

  The two planks that form the lid of the vestment chest are pegged together. The stress from the weight of the top caused these pegs to break long ago. You could compensate for some of this stress by increasing the diameter of the dowel from 5/8 inch to ¾ inch.

  Place the two boards of the lid on top of each other with the edges to be pegged together abutted. At intervals of roughly 4 inches, mark doweling locations across the face of both boards. The markings on the boards must be perfectly aligned with each other or the dowels will not line up properly. A doweling jig will facilitate accurately locating the dowels. Next, drill the dowel holes. Keep them straight so that they line up from one board to the next. To ensure enough support to carry the weight of the planks, drill the holes at least 2½ inches deep into each board.

  Taper both ends of the dowels slightly so that they seat easily. For the greatest control in joining the planks, dowels should be alternately seated, first in one board and then the other. Then place the two boards on a level work surface and draw them together, either by tapping them with a mallet or preferably by pulling them together with bar clamps. They must be brought together almost simultaneously along the entire length. If one end is pulled too far out of line, the pegs may bind, making it difficult if not impossible to bring the boards back into square. Pull the boards tightly together; the tighter the seam between the boards, the less the chance that the pegs holding them together will break.

  The pegs and lid boards may or may not have originally been glued into place. Certainly, using a good cabinet glue along the seam between the boards would help take some of the strain off the pegs. When the boards are joined, lay the lid facedown on your workbench and mark the location of the edge chamfer, which runs along three sides of the lid. The back edge remains flat to accommodate the hinges. Cut the chamfer with a drawknife to give it the slightly wavy surface found on the original lid, then set the lid aside.

  Dovetailing

  Each corner of the chest has a triple dovetail joint. One of the wedgeshaped tails is visible on the front of the chest at the left and right corners. There are two additional dovetails on each front corner, but they are covered by the metal brackets that bind the corners of the chest together. At the top edge of the chest, there is a slight lap joint where a sliver of the side plank extends to the front of the chest, as shown in the top and side view drawings of the dovetail.

  Lay out the dovetails on the sides and ends of the chest. Cut the dovetails with a coping saw or reciprocal saw (saber saw). Cutting through the 2½-inch-thick oak is not easy, but it is part of what makes this chest so secure. Cut the dovetails one corner at a time. When a corner fits, mark the location of that corner and move to the next. Marking the corners is important because inevitably there will be slight variations from corner to corner, and you need to know which pieces fit together for the final assembly. When all four corners are dovetailed, assemble the sides of the chest on a level surface.

  At this point, you must decide whether to execute the carvings on the front of the chest before or after assembly. If you want to do the carving before final assembly, place the front of the chest on your workbench and skip ahead to the section on carving. If you prefer to do the carving on the assembled chest, continue construction with the chest floor.

  Floor

  The floor of the chest is made from two boards of relatively the same width. They likely are pegged together in the same manner as the lid, because the bottom is also pegged to the sides. Check that the chest is square and plumb, then trim the bottom boards so that they fit snugly into the interior. Remove them from the chest and peg them together in the same manner as the lid, then insert the pegged bottom into the frame.

  Make certain that the bottom board is flush with the bottom edges of the side panels, then drill and dowel the bottom into place with 5/8-inch pegs. Dowel the bottom at six points along the front and back, placing one dowel 4 inches from either side of the central strap, and two dowels equally spaced between each outside strap and the chest corner. These dowels should reach a depth of 2½ inches into the floor board. Considering the massive construction of this chest, these few dowels were probably not intended as the only support for the bottom, but merely to hold the bottom in place until the metal straps were applied.

  Carving

  Enlarge the drawings of the coats of arms, by hand or on a photocopier, to the size called for. The border design is the same on both carvings. Transfer the designs onto the front of the chest, and execute them as relief carvings. Although the carvings are relatively flat, they are carved on three different levels. The designs on the coats of arms are at the same level as the face of the chest. The shield-shaped background is about ¼ inch below this, and the large circular background is ¼ inch lower still—½ inch below the surface of the chest. The shamrock shaped designs around the edge of the circle are only slightly lower than the face of the chest, but the center of each leaf in the shamrock is dimpled into a shallow bowl shape. For carving these bowl-shaped areas, refer to the section on gouge carving on page 4. If you executed the carving before assembling the chest, now do the floor construction, as explained in the preceding section.

  Straps and Banding

  To secure the corners of the chest, forge the horizontal corner brackets. The straps on the rear corners are 2 inches shorter than those on the front. The decorative ends on these brackets are wider than the flat stock on the materials list. Originally, these straps would have been forged from much thicker pieces of metal so that the width and thickness of the straps could be changed as the straps were forged. If you make the bands from commercially available flat stock rather than forging them, you have to either cut the entire band from a wider piece of metal or weld the decorative ends onto the strap as separate pieces. Drill nail holes and nail the completed corner brackets in place with 1½-inchlong forged nails.

  The bands that wrap the chest vertically help support the bottom and also form the back portions of the hinges that connect the lid to the chest. The two outside bands have the same decorative end designs as the corner brackets and the top ends of the hasps. The decorative fleur-de-lis-shaped ends of the central band are applied ornamentation. Cut the fleur-de-lis from flat metal stock, and place the end under the end of a short, square-ended arm on the central strap. Heat the top strap and bend it over the ornamental fleur-de-lis so that the central band and decorative ends lie flat on the face of the chest. On the lid, the butt end of the large central hinge has two decorative curls. Forge these curls from the same piece of stock as the body of the hinge (see page 10). The tiny fleur-de-lis ends at the tips of the curls have to be cut separately and welded into place. Locate the sections of the hinges that go on the lid, drill pilot holes, and attach them in place with forged nails, allowing the spine of the hinge to hang over the rear edge of the lid. Set the lid in place on the chest.

  Elevate the chest on blocks of wood so that you can pass the straps under the chest. Bend the long straps to fit around the body of the ches
t. The first bend should locate the spine of the hinge so that it can be pinned to the portion of the hinge attached to the lid. The remainder of the strap slides snugly under the bottom. Nail the straps to the back of the chest. Bend each strap around the front and nail it into place. Always drill pilot holes before nailing into the oak.

  Now form the hasps, following the drawings in this chapter and the instructions on page 10, but conforming them to the offset on the front edge of the lid. Attach the hasp to the lid of the chest. Cut the lock plates according to the drawings, and forge four lock plate staples. The staples should be higher than they are wide. File the ends to points as shown in the drawings. Pierce rectangular holes in the lock plates to receive the ends of the lock plate staples. Position the lock plates behind the hasps, and drill pilot holes for the staples and nails. Nail the lock plates into place on the face of the chest. Insert the staples through the lock plates and pilot holes, heat the ends of the staples where they come through the inside face of the chest, and crimp them with a hammer. Coat the chest with an oil finish as described on page 7.

  PROJECT 22

  Tax Box

  Tax Box, English, circa 1300 and 1600. Oak and wrought iron, 167/8 x 10¾ x 11 inches Collection of Haddon Hall, Bakewell, Derbyshire, England. Photo by Daniel Diehl.

  Although there is nothing visually striking or structurally complex about this tax box, it is historically an almost unique piece worthy of a place in this book. The box was hewn from a single block of English oak and fitted with a rudimentary iron lid and hasps. The workmanship is so basic that the piece is nearly impossible to accurately date. A reasonable guess places it between 1300 and 1600.