Medieval Furniture: Plans and Instructions for Historical Reproductions [Paperback]

Daniel Diehl (Author), Mark P. Donnelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1999

14 projects based on medieval designs

Color photos of the original pieces

Following the success of Constructing Medieval Furniture (0-8117-2795-5), this new book offers 14 more designs for historic pieces from the Middle Ages-a game board, tax box, writing slope, church pew, hewn-timber chest, library shelves, half-tester bed, ambry, wheelbarrow, coffer, work table, cathedral cabon, Spanish settle, and barrel chair. The detailed plans are based on careful study and measurement of accurate reproductions or originals from European museums. Step-by-step instructions, materials lists, and notes on woodworking, metalworking, carving, and finishes provide the means for creating history in the home workshop. A brief survey of medieval decorating and a directory of sources complete this authoritative book.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Those wishing to create furniture very few living people have seen the like of need look no further than this book. The furniture described in it is based on one-of-a-kind museum pieces 400 years old and older. Many of the originals haven't met the test of time very well, it is true, and Diehl and Donnelly fudge the measurements a tad, if only to make things come out reasonably square and true. Those who dive into this book and its predecessor, Constructing Medieval Furniture (1997), should possess considerable woodworking skills and able carving and metalworking hands. These projects aren't for beginners, and the pieces themselves aren't what one would see in a typical modern home. It also helps not to forget that, for example, the church pew herein was originally built when you got 10-foot boards 2 inches thick and 18 inches wide by heading out to the forest and harvesting them. Very much on an offbeat subject, this book is simply wonderful because of that. Jon Kartman

About the Author

Mark Donnelly has collaborated with Dan Diehl on 11 books and more than 100 hours of documentary television, including programs for the Discovery, History, and Biography channels.

Daniel Diehl lives in Pennsylvania and has collaborated with Mark Donnelly on 11 books and more than 100 hours of documentary television, including programs for the Discovery, History, and Biography channels.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books; 1ST edition (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811728544
• ISBN-13: 978-0811728546
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,118,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Repeats many of the errors from his first book., October 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Medieval Furniture: Plans and Instructions for Historical Reproductions (Paperback)

Unfortunately, this edition repeats many of the inaccuracies of the first book. If you are an experienced woodworker, the measured drawings and photos are useful; but ignore the so-called historical notes. A number of the projects are reconstructions of reconstructions, so there are many leaps of faith that the design is authentic. For accurate information on period furniture joinery, decoration, etc., see Victor Chinnery's book "Oak Furniture, the British Tradition." For information on how to build furniture using hand tools in a period fashion, see Roy Underhill's "Woodwright" series of books.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not bad, January 3, 2007

By 

PADDY "Roheamon" (Aus) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Medieval Furniture: Plans and Instructions for Historical Reproductions (Paperback)

I think this is a good book for someone who is interested in the medieval gendra.It may not be the best woodworking manuel but it gives a good overview of the furniture and its construction .Anyone with enthusiasm and access to a workshop can reproduce this rough one off type of furniture.The beauty of everything in the medieval world is that everything is a unique piece.I believe this book will help the experianced and the novice woodworker by giving them a starting point to produce their own unique furniture.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yet Another Outstanding Book for Actual *Construction* of Mediaeval Furniture!, September 1, 2009

By 

Charles Gadda (People's Democratic Republic of Kalifornia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Medieval Furniture: Plans and Instructions for Historical Reproductions (Paperback)

This book has the same strengths and weaknesses as the first one - take a look at my review on that as it is applicable here as well. This second book does add some excellent colour photos, a feature lacking in the first volume and much appreciated here.

Again, the point of this book and its predecessor was primarily to provide plans and simple, straightforward, practical instruction on actual furniture construction, nothing more. The expectations demanded by "A Customer" are rather unrealistic, and in any event irrelevant to the purpose of this book.

Look at it this way: if you want to have clear, concise direction on making ~80-90% accurate period furniture then this book along with the first volume will get you there. If, on the other hand, you are expecting to learn how to: identify the proper genus of wood, cut it down and split it into timbers using period tools, smelt bog ore into wrought iron and hand hammer on an authentic charcoal forge into period correct nails, forge your own period accurate chisels, planes, etc., make your own boar bristle paint brush, mix authentic pigments for precisely correct paints.... well, then, I guess these books will fall short of your expectations (and those of "A Customer" and the fifty uptight authenticity Nazis that marched in goosestep agreement with him.). If you can possibly manage to bring such lunatic expectations down to Earth (from, apparently, somewhere outside of Pluto's orbit) then even those who want to go for greater accuracy will nevertheless find much useful information within the covers of these books.

Seriously, with any kind of period reconstruction project there is no such thing as a "one shop stop" for *all* of the information you need. For example, I'm in the planning stages of a reconstruction of the Dargen pot helm. I am not relying on one picture with accompanying blurb out of one book - I'm referencing detailed descriptions out of foreign language catalogues, hardness testing results from another article, pictures from various angles out of several other books, construction hints out of other articles and Brian Price's "Techniques Of Medieval Armour Reproduction: The 14th Century," and so forth. I'm even making (*gasp*) "leaps of faith", since in spite of all of the above I still don't have access to all the information I need (example: the thickness of the helmet plates and their variation across the helmet, which is not recorded anywhere since, apparently, museum curators cannot divine the method of use of a micrometer) and will just have to guess. Boo hoo. Such is the nature of the beast.

Likewise, if I want to make a truly accurate reproduction of a particular piece of furniture, I would only use Diehl's books as a starting point, and supplement with details from say the museum curator, other books, and so forth. It is not rational to expect to get literally everything crammed into one book.

Yes, I do wish the authors of these two books had done a better job documenting their sources. That said, when folks like "A Customer" get around to writing their "seminal masterpiece" on this subject, that "sets the record straight" to their satisfaction, I'll be sure to remember to be properly impressed...

Until then, those of you truly wanting to make reasonably period correct Mediaeval furniture (as opposed to sitting up in Ivory Towers quibbling over petty minutiae and never building a thing) will find these books remarkably helpful and a quite decent starting point. It is sad that the unreasonably harsh reviews of bunch of well organized but narrow minded fanatics have no doubt turned away many people who would otherwise have benefitted from and enjoyed the contents of this book and its predecessor.

For those desirous of a more in-depth look at Mediaeval furniture construction, whether out of curiosity or an interest in achieving greater historical accuracy, take a look at these books:

Chinnery, Victor. "Oak Furniture, the British Tradition" 1979. A very good book covering techniques and a wide range of furniture from the Middle Ages through the 19th century. Be advised that the majority of pictures are 17th century and later.

Tracy, Charles. "English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork" 1988. Catalogues Mediaeval furniture in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Lots of useful detail on specific artefacts, including measurements and occasional construction details.

Viollet-le-Due. "Le mobilier medieval" 2003 reprint (originally published in several separate volumes from 1858-1873) Has a lot of line drawings, some with dimensions, but the text is all French so unless you are fluent this book is probably of limited usefulness.

Bly, John. "Discovering English Furniture" 1976. This small Shire Publication is not as useful, since it really starts in the Tudor/Elizabethan period, but there are still some details to be found here and it is an inexpensive book.

Note that Chinnery and Tracy in particular are VERY expensive (I spent nearly four hundred shipped for both of these books). You might want to see if a local library has or can get them for you. Note also that this is pretty much *it* for additional references on Mediaeval furniture. As Diehl notes in his forward to Constructing Medieval Furniture, there is dearth of published material on this subject.

For woodworking techniques, Roy Underhill's books on the subject are probably the best, though there are a fair number of books that are readily available through Amazon and other sources.

Also, take a look at online resources. Do a search on "Mediaeval Furniture Construction" and one should find some very useful websites. Also, look up museums that have Mediaeval furniture in their collections. For example, the Victoria and Albert Museum in England has their collection online, and specific examples can be found and hi-res pictures purchased directly from them. I imagine the curators may even respond to e-mail questions, though one's mileage may vary.

Bottom line: both this and the first book are an INCREDIBLE bargain at the prices Amazon is charging. Even allowing for their flaws, they are very useful to anyone trying to reproduce Mediaeval furniture. I would simply ignore the negative reviews, not only because they are off base or irrelevant, but there also seems to be a personal axe to grind on the part of the anonymous "A Customer" and those agreeing with them. Can't prove it, but when I see a one star review with no logical basis given in the written rationale for such an overwhelmingly negative rating, coupled with fifty folks out of the blue who mindlessly agree, well, that just looks as though it were an orchestrated effort, and is thus positively *hinky* in my book.