A Saint Nicolas gift the book Vivre au Moyen Age

I have got a nice book as a Saint Nicolas gift called "Vivre au Moyen Age - Archeologie du quotidien en Normandie, XIIe-XVe siecles" (ISBN 88-7439-00-9). This book contains some essays on medieval life in Normandy, France, as well as the illustrated catalogue of the exposition held in several museums in Normandy in 2002-2003. 

The amount of furniture shown inside is limited, but there are some beautiful excavated woodworking tools inside, including several clawhammers from the 14th century.  

Forging hammer, length 18 cm, width 4 cm.  Iron hammer without claw, length 10.3 cm, width 2.9 cm. Iron claw hammers, length 9.2 cm, width 3.2 cm and length 7.5 cm, width 1.4 cm, all from the Musee de Normandie Caen, France.

Claw hammer, length 11.7 cm, width 2.7 cm, and scissors (10 cm long)  from the Musee de Normandie, Caen, France.

Next to these tools, there are many artefacts shown of daily life. I found it interesting to see that 14th century pottery in France is different from that found in the Netherlands, where more Siegburg type stoneware is found. In Normandy, more earthenware is found which is decorated with typical floral designs and green or yellow-brown glazed.  

14th century drinking vessels and a jug found in Rouen, decorated with flowers and dots, and beige-yellowbrown glazed. 

Musee des Antiquites, Rouen, France.

The book also shown some jewellery dating from the 13th-15th century. The bronze rings shown in the background used to be bling-bling, but being buried in the ground for many centuries changes its former gold-like colour to a nice greenish patina. Stones are coloured glass. The three other rings are silver and gilded silver with an amethyst. Average size of the rings is 2-2.2 cm.

Nine finger rings in bronze, silver and gilded silver dating from the 13th-15th century. 

Musee de Normandie, Caen, France.

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Making a sella curulis starting with the wood

I decided to make the sella curulis of pear wood for two reasons. First it is historically correct (the St. Admont folding chair in the MAK in Vienna is also made in pear). Secondly, because pear has a nice pinkish colour. I will not paint the sella curulis; just decorate it with chip carving. Pear is also relatively easy to carve, at least a lot easier than oak.

The quartered pear plank with the markings of the chair stands.

 The drawing model card used to fit the chair stands on the pear plank.

I had acquired a pear plank of around 5 cm thickness. With a bit of puzzling, the four chair stands just fitted the size of the plank. I then cut the plank into two pieces with a scroll-saw to be able to manage the plank later when using the band-saw. Using the band-saw I again halved the plank, so I had 4 pieces. These were planed to exactly 5 cm, after which they were cut more precisely with the band-saw to four chair stands. These were shaved with a spoke shave to smoothen the saw cut.

Two of the four band-sawn chairstands of the sella curulis 

 Two smoothed chair stands ready for the next step.

 

The next step was to drill a hole for the connecting rail in the centre of the X, using a machine drill and a 3 cm forstner bit. As the connecting rail is meant to be invisible from the outside, the outside stands were not drilled through like the stands on the inside.

Then I had to remove half of the thickness of the centre parts by router in order to have the chair parts at the same level. For routing, I made a small jig, which made it easier to manoeuvre the router which was equipped with a guide bush. After routing, the remaining parts missed by the router were removed using a chisel. This allowed the parts of the X to be perfectly fitted.

 The part to be removed is marked by pencil. Note that this chair stand is for the inside of the chair as it is drilled through.

The routing jig is fixed by clamps onto the chair stand.

 Movement of the router is restricted by the jig and the guide bush.

 Two finished parts of the sella curulis, an inside and an outside of an X stand.

 Two parts of one X clearly show the perfect fit of the connection. Side view (top) and front view (below).

 

 

The chair stands give already a rough impression of the final sella curulis. 

Behind the chair, the medieval tool chest Bram is working on.

 

The 4 chair stands of the sella curulis showing the folded situation of the chair.

The making of the sella curulis will be continued in another post with the different side rails that connect the two X-stands.

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