Benches, Chairs & Stools

Some useful notes on late medieval turned triangle stools, backstools, and chairs.

Also at www.medievalwood.org/charles/folding_chair.html

A re-creation of an 11th century child's chair from Lund. Includes cutting pattern and instructions.

A scaled-down & simplified version of a chair with a design that goes back to at least the 14th century; the 16th century version is sometimes called a "Dantesca" chair, modified to facilitate dismantling the chair for transportation.

This chair is generally consistent in style with illustrations from the 14th to the 16th centuries, though is not patterned on any particular example.

Plans for a period stool that folds up.

Syr Raim y Hynnddyl provides assembly instructions for a combination bench and chest based on a settle seen in a 15th century painting.

This article describes how to build a simple Gothic-style bench. The materials are very inexpensive - around ten dollars or so. The skills needed to make this bench are not very demanding, as the design is quite simple and does not require much experience with woodworking. Complex tools are not needed. The bench that results can be packed as a relatively flat set of boards. Best of all, the result is both attractive and medieval.

A four-post backstool, turned from quartersawn English Beech with a natural rush woven seat (also called a "matted" chair).

Plans for sturdy plywood chairs that break down for transporta tion.

Boy Scout type folding wooden camp chair.

Chairs in museum collections, with related illustrations and paintings. Arranged by category: box chairs, caquetoires, Dantesca chairs, Glastonbury chairs, Savonarola chairs, and sgabelli.

Subjects covered in this issue: women's clothing, headdresses, and hairstyles in the late 15th century; and benches, chairs, and stools.

Subjects covered in this issue: medieval cookery and medicine; Tacuinum Sanitatis; benches, shelves, and tables; a typical Swiss or South-German coif; and late 15th century swords.

Pictures of Glastonbury chairs from cathedrals around the UK, pictures of the original chair in Wells, and pictures (and plans) for a reproduction.

Images of benches and stools from period manuscripts, and in museums. Includes a section on folding stools.

Master Terafan Greydragon's bench design.

An ongoing site with articles & links on furniture as it applies to the Middle Ages & the SCA.

Although the folding stool in this pamphlet is later period German, examples that are variations on this design can be found from the 13th century onward.

(Also at www.medievalwood.org/charles/foldstool.html )

What could be really cooler than your own period director's chair. For just basic comfort and relative simplicity, and the fact that the chair is period (within the context of the 10-foot-pole-rule anyway), this design is both relatively simple to make and spiffy at the same time.

(Also at www.medievalwood.org/charles/coff_chair.html )

A turned backstool, inspired by a chair in a Bruegel painting.

Making a simple bench, based on the Llandnothal Bench (constructed in England or Wales in the 16th century).

(Also at www.medievalwood.org/charles/4-board_plans.html )

A gallery of photos taken during a trip to the museum, including a folding table (1480-1500); casting molds; a brooch; some wooden combs; six candlesticks (14th-15th centuries); a clasp (13th century); belts (14th and 15th centuries); carvings in ivory and wood; a pig-face bascinet; a mail shirt; a 14th century dagger and some sword pommels; and a chest, stool, and bed at the Design Museum.

Paintings, manuscript illustrations, and museum examples.

A three-legg ed stool, with descriptio n of how it was made.

Being a true and accurate description of the manufacture and construction of the chair, known in some corners of the Middle Kingdom as The Peacock chair in honor of those individuals of that August company in the manufacture of 18 of these chairs in a single project.

(Also at www.medievalwood.org/charles/peacock_chair.html )

A variation of the Irish Tuam.