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In recent years there has been a flood of books on woodworking, both modern and traditional, that range from excellent to willfully inaccurate. Listed here are some that I've found invaluable, others that were useful to a degree, and some to be wary of.
The following books I have found both useful and (for the most part) historically accurate. Most are currently available from booksellers, either in stock or by special order.
Oak Furniture: The British Tradition
Victor Chinnery
Antique Collectors' Club Ltd, Suffolk, England, 1979.
Perhaps the most useful single volume on historical furniture. While Chinnery's focus is on 17th century and later English furniture, he includes valuable background information on medieval and early modern furniture, trades, and the guild system. This book includes both academic information (such as the historical context of furniture and woodworking) as well as the practical (such as how period joints were constructed). Profusely illustrated, the book includes a photo index for quick reference. While this is an expensive volume, it is easily more valuable to the historical woodworker than any four other books I can think of (with one possible exception...).
The Woodwright's Shop
The Woodwright's Companion
The Woodwright's Eclectic Workbook
The Woodwright's Apprentice
The Woodwright's Shop (Television Series)
Roy Underhill
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
This series of books, based on Underhill's long-running public television series "The Woodwright's Shop," is invalulable to anyone who wants to learn to use period hand tools and techniques. A former master housewright in colonial Williamsburg, Underhill combines historical research with "experimental archaeology." While his focus is pre-industrial 18th and 19th century America, Underhill occasionally ventures back to the Middle Ages and Rennaisance and much of his later work is directly applicable to earlier periods. Particularly for those who do not have the benefit of personal instruction from a knowledgable teacher, Underhill's books and television shows are a valuable source of basic skills.
Wood and Woodworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval
York
Carole A. Morris
York Archaeological Trust, 2000
An outstanding guide to wooden artifacts recovered in York, England. Particular emphasis on turned items (such as bowls and cups) and stave-built items (buckets and barrels). Extensive analyis of wood types. Invaluable to anyone doing serious study of medieval turning or coopering.
Domestic Wooden Artefacts in Britain and Ireland from
Neolithic to Viking Times
Caroline Earwood
University of Exeter Press, 1993
An excellent overview of early carved, coopered, and turned articles from across Britain and Ireland. Out of print, but often available through used booksellers.
The Meastermyr Find: A Viking Age Tool Chest
Greta Arwidsson and Gosta Berg
Reprinted 1999, Larson Publishing Company
Compoc, CA 93436
Recently reprinted, this book provides a comprehensive description (with illustrations) of an 11th century tool chest that was plowed up in Gotland. While containing mostly iron-working tools, the chest also included a number of woodworking tools, including saws, shell bits, and chisels (not to mention the chest itself). Given the small number of surviving pre-16th century tools, this book is an important resource for anyone studying medieval woodworking.
Artefacts from Shipwrecks
Mark Redknap, Ed.
Oxbow Monograph No. 84
Oxbow Rooks, Park end Place, Oxford, 1997
A collection of essays on various historical shipwrecks, this book includes a wealth of information on medieval and Rennaisance artifacts. The essay on chests from the Tudor warship Mary Rose particularly stands out, providing exploded drawings of chest construction. Other highlights include horn lanterns, shoes, trestle tables, and metalwork.
Building in England down to 1540
L.F. Salzman
Oxford University Press, 1952
Though it may be a long and somewhat dry read, this book contains a wealth of information on the documented practices of woodworking trades in the Middle Ages. Based largely on period contracts, wills, and inventories, there are documentary references to faux-marble painting, using sharkskin as sandpaper, contractual requirements for seasoned wood, and other very useful tidbits. The essay on nails and ironwork, all 32 pages of it, provides valuable evidence that iron was, while somewhat expensive, not at all uncommon in everyday woodwork. There's even information on plumbing and privy construction.
English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork
Charles Tracy
Victoria and Albert Museum, 1988.
A catalog from the holding of the V&A, this book includes numerous excellent black-and-white photographs of period woodcarving and artifacts. While limited in its breadth of furniture types (heavy on decorative carving and chests), the quality of the photography provides more detail than is typical of furniture books.
Ancient Carpenter's Tools
Henry C. Mercer
Reprinted by Dover Books, 2000
Long considered the most authoritative survey of carpenter's tools, this book has become somewhat dated but still includes valuable information and examples. Mercer's focus was on pre-industrial American tools, but includes examples of Roman and medieval finds. Now in reprint from Dover books. If it whets your appetite, you can visit the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, PA, where Mercer's considerable collection is housed.
The following books are useful to the historical woodworker with some caveats: some contain information that has become out-of-date, others were written with such bias that the reader must approach the author's conclusions with caution. Most of these books are now out-of-print but can often be found in used book shops or through Inter-Library Loan.
Furniture in England, France, and the Netherlands from
the 12th to the 15th Century
Penelope Eames
One of the most comprehensive general surveys of medieval furniture, Eames is an excellent source for general information on various furniture types and documentary references. Archtypes are illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings and 72 black and white plates of surviving artifacts.
I do, however, have reservations with some of Eames' conclusions. Unlike Chinnery, she focuses on upper class items, holding that "The furniture historian's first task must be to analyse furniture in its most sophisticated context; from his finding here, some knowledge of the more slowly evolving styles of the poor may eventually accrue." I find this approach ignores many of the social and economic influences on furniture design and construction.
I find that Eames writes from an art historian's point of view, which tends to be more emphatic than an archaeologist would allow. For example, assertions such as "among native woods oak was at all times the first choice" (emphasis hers) is of course not literally true, or there would be no furniture of ash, beech, or other native species. And regardless, generalizations such as "at all times" are unproveable. Similarly, Eames' hypothesis that footed chests were exclusively for domestic use is not well supported by archaeological finds where footed chests are found clearly out of domestic contexts (e.g., the Mastermyr chest, the Mary Rose). It would seem Eames' focus on seigneurial households (and their mobility) may not account for the actual practices of the great majority that were less wealthy, less mobile, and more in touch with the practical. Eames also tends to rely on dating that has more recently come into questions, such as the "Hereford Chair," which she accepts as 12th/13th century, but more recently has been attributed as late as the 16th century.
Furniture, 700 to 1700
Eric Mercer
Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1969
For someone writing about medieval furniture, Mercer seems to have a strange bias against the medieval craftsman. For example, he states "Besides being scanty and ill-esteemed, early furniture was crude as well." He finds the practice of clenching nails "coarse" and "unfinished." However, this volume contains many valuable photographs of period artifacts.
Medieval Furniture
A.C. Wright
Not a scholarly work, this is basically a sketch book of medieval furniture designs based on period illustrations. A useful survey of furniture types.
Building Medieval Furniture
Medieval Furniture
Dan Diehl
Interesting for its photographs of period artifacts (and beware the reproductions). The author tries to provide "historical notes," but presents inaccurate (and un-sourced) statements (e.g., seasoned wood was "unknown" to the medieval craftsman). He provides no insight into medieval construction, and some of his modern construction techniques are dubious (such as crushing a flared tenon in a clamp to get it through a square mortise). It is unclear whether he has actually built these projects himself (such as a door and a window frame) and there are no photos of completed projects. I have been told by several people who have tried to follow some of his measured drawings that they require "adjustment" to work. The second book repeats many of the errors in the first, and even adds to them (though I'm told the measured drawings work better than in the first volume).
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Copyright 2006, Tom Rettie. Content may not be republished in any form without permission of the author.