caskets-boxes-bib - 12/24/02 A bibliography on medieval caskets and boxes by Master Magnus Malleus. NOTE: See also the files: caskets-boxes-msg, chests-msg, furniture-msg, chairs-msg, beds-msg, wood-msg, tools-msg, tools-bib, wood-finishes-msg, woodworking-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This article was submitted to me by the author for inclusion in this set of files, called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org Copyright to the contents of this file remains with the author. While the author will likely give permission for this work to be reprinted in SCA type publications, please check with the author first or check for any permissions granted at the end of this file. Thank you, Mark S. Harris...AKA:..Stefan li Rous stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 18:03:54 -0400 From: rmhowe Subject: Leather Boxes and Caskets (updated) To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu > I'm looking for any information dealing with the construction of boxes made from leather or wooden boxes covered with leather. - thanks, Rolf the Blunt < Okay, this is an item of mild interest to me so I'll give you a start... Try: Anker, Peter: Chests and Caskets; Norway, 1975. The author is the Director of the Museum of Applied Art in Bergen, and an expert on Norwegian folk art. English. Bibl.80 pp. 105 b&w ill. 4 col. ill. 8"x5 1/2". Softbound. ISBN 82-7003-054-6. Code: 2628 Price: $26.50, From: info at nordicartbooks.com, Nordic Art Books, 3650 Cross Creek Road Malibu, California, 90265-4946 U.S.A, tel: (310) 456-8762 or (818) 222-1122 / fax:(310) 456-5714 This is a fascinating history of the chest - and of its smaller relation, the casket - their practical uses, social functions, customs associated with them, materials, productions, and decorations. Chapters include: Before Drawers and Cupboards; The First Chests; The Dwellings of the Dead; House-Shaped Chests, Arks and Grain Bins; Gothic Chests; The Role of the Chest in the Past; Chests and Benches, The Craft of the Renaissance Joiner; Bridal Chests and Coats of Arms; Baroque Chests, The 17th Century; From the Traveller's Chest to the Trunk and the Suit-Case; Chests in Rural Storehouses; Rose-Painted Chests (The Halling Chest, the Telemark Chest); Carved Chests, Caskets, Chests Today, Chests c. 1000-1900. Berger, Ewald: Prunk-Kassetten, Europaische Meisterwerke aus Acht Jahrhunderten, Ornamental Caskets, Eight Centuries ; 1998: Arnoldsche, Stuttgart, cloth, dj, Text in English and German. The Hans Schell Collection, Graz., profuse color & b/w illus., 318 pages, 12 x 10, ornamental caskets / decorative art / metal work /gold boxes. ISBN 3-925369-83-X $110. Bestand katloge der Hanns Schell collection; Bd 1. (to be followed by others on cast iron objects, locks and keys, forged steel objects, and guild emblems.) Pp. 336, approximately 500 illustrations. Berger, Ewald: Ornamental Coffers; Eight Centuries of European Craftsmanship ISBN: 392536983X Arnoldsche Verlaganstalt GmbH, Jan.1999, US 110.00 Blair, John, and Nigel Ramsey: English Medieval Industries; 1992. An overview of the current level of knowledge in a number of disciplines, including wood, leather, fabric, and pewter casting. Has some small discussion on the matter. Buckley, J.J.: Some Early Ornamented Leatherwork. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland vol. XLV, part IV, 1915. pp.300-309 (Cumdachs and Polaires: Medieval Irish Book Shrines and Book Satchels) Camille, Michael: The Medieval Art of Love, Objects and Subjects of Desire, Harry N. Abrams Pubs., 1998, New York, ISBN 0810915448 Contains a range of objets d'amour including caskets. Pages 67 and 107 have two different caskets. The style of carving looks very two-dimentional, there's a background and a foreground with very little modeling. All the other detail is provided by paint. The one from Cologne on 67 is definitely similar in style to the Swiss casket on 107. Appears to be painted pierced applique put into a carved out depression. Cherry, John: "The Talbot Casket and Related Late Medieval Caskets" Archaeologica 107 (1982): 131-40. D'Allemagne, Henry Rene: Decorative Antique Ironwork, A Pictorial Treasury, over 4500 illustrations; Dover, New York, 1968, 416 pages, PB, ISBN 0486220826, contains many locks, keys and escutcheon plates on pages 36-104, and also contains many illustrations of medieval and renaissance chests and almsboxes on pages 391-408. My copy is 1968 but it's in reprint. Contains a number of pictures of caskets and fittings. Some of them are leather covered. : Deutsches Ledermuseum: Kunsthandwerk, Volkskunde, Vˆlkerkunde, Fachtechnik; Deutsches Schuhmuseum; 2.Aufl. Offenbach am Main, 1961. 154 pp. 58 ills. GALL, G‹NTHER.: Leder im europ‰ischen ; Kunsthandwerk. Braunschweig, 1965. 4to., orcl., xii, 406 pp., w. 16 pl. in color 304 ills. in text. (Bibl. f¸r Kunst u. Antiquit‰tenfreunde, Bd. XLIV). Klinkhardt & Biermann - Braunschweig. - It is flat out stunning in the variety of items. There are fantastic things in it like crown cases, reliquary cases, leather caskets and trunks, cases for all sorts of things, many of them repouseed in very high relief. There are a number of leather covered shields in it. A few early ones, many from around 1600. On the subject of shoes, it has only a shoe foot reliquary, and I don't recall any saddles. The entries are from many different museums and countries. - There are a number of differently styled leather bottels than we are used to seeing although there is a short section on English style jacks, bombards, and costrels. - There are cases for silver and crystal cups, one particularly fine piece is a leather cover for a fully rigged silver ship centerpiece, masts, flags, rigging and all. - There are some knife scabbards but no sword scabbards except for a case for a sword of state. - A few of the pieces are religious. Most are secular. The majority of the book is simply masterpiece quality work. - A number of the pieces such as the shields and caskets are illustrated from more than one view, in the case of the caskets usually front and back or front and top, but not ends. I was very impressed with the number of leather caskets in it. The majority of this book is later Middle Ages and Renaissance and the material seems to end about 1920, but there is very little modern work in it. This is one of the ultimate books on the subject. Hoving, Thomas: Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages; Published by E.P. Dutton and Co. in association with Metropolitan Museum of Art, First Edition, Reproductions, photos, Cloth, 1975. ISBN (cloth) 052549507x; (paper) 0870990969 Many leather items, some have some raised leather with glue/ dust inserts under it. Kup, Karl. "Notes on a Fifteenth-Century Cofferet" Connoisseur 140 (1957): 62-66. Leland, Charles G.: Leather Tooling; Sterling Publishing Co. New York, 1975. Oak Tree Press, London and Sydney. Various dates. First published as Leather Work: A Practical Manual for Learners in England, 1892. Not much on caskets or trunks but really excellent on tooling and full of medievally inspired designs. Excellent on the subject. Mullbacher, Eva: Europaische Lederarbeiten vom 14. bis 19. Jahrhundert; (European Leatherwork from the 14th to 19th Centuries); Staatliche Museen Preussicher Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1988. Aus dem Sammlungen des Berliner Kunstgewerbemuseseums 1988. 19.5 x 24.5 cm., Brosch, 96 pages, 80 b&w and 18 color illustrations. Vorwort 3; Einfuhrung 4; Lederarbeiten mit geschnittenem dekor, Katalog 1-26 p.6.; Lederarbeiten mit gemalten Dekor, Druck und Golddruck, Nenno, Rosita: "Gerbeverfahren, Lederverarbeitung, und Zeirtechniken" in: Europa"ische Technik in Mittelalter, 800 bis 1400, Tradition and Innovation, Ein Handbuch, by Uta Lindgren, Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin, 1996. ISBN 3786117489. Leather article covers pages 487-92, includes closeups of several highly molded caskets. Newman, Thelma: Leather as Art and Craft: ISBN 0 517 505754, there is a photo of a leather covered box from 15th C. Italy from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. de RÈcy, Georges: Leather Work; From the French of Georges de RÈcy (The Decoration of Leather) translated by Maude Nathan, (1905) Reprinted 2000, The Caber Press, Jack C. Thompson, Editor. http://home.teleport.com/~tcl/caber.htm Originally 104 pages reduced to 48, retaining the period Middle Ages and Renaissance information and pictures, dropping the modern material. Eleven pictures depict leather caskets (3); An Italian 15th C.case of cut and embossed leather cuir bouilli; a French 14th C. Coffret, incised, colored and gilt, a case of cut and punched leather - German, 15th C., an Italian cover of a Case for a cup in wood covered embossed leather - cuir bouilli, embossed, painted and gilt, about 1500; A Powder-flask of wood covered with leather - cuir bouilli, cut and embossed - Italian 16th C.; An Italian 16th C. Shield of cut and embossed cuir bouilli; A Blind stamped leather bookbinding oF the Winchester Domesday Book - English 12th C.; A 15th C. German Brown Leather bookbinding, cut and engraved with punched background - German MS. Chronicle of Events; A blind-stamped Morroco binding with gilt roundels and coloured cameo design - Celsus. De Medicina, Venice 1477, A cover of a work box of wood covered with embossed leather, cuir bouilli, German 16th C.. Sections include Tools and Leather, Choice of Skin, Methods of working in leather: tracing the design on the leather, Incising the leather, Modelling Tools, Embossing leather, modelled leather with Punched background, Leather Hangings and Furniture, Some extracts from the report of the committee on leather for bookbinding appointed by the Society of Arts, February 1900. No chests in this one but some excellent inspiration and tips: Russell, Janet: English Medieval Leatherwork; Arch. Journal 96 (1) 1939, pp. 132-41 and plates I-VI. Discusses metal stamps, embossed and relief designs, blunt tool engravings, incised designs, cuir bouilli, painting and gilding, guilds, illustrates sheathes, part of a saddle, shoe toe, short select bibliography. Plate I contains a fifteenth century knife sheath with fleur-de-lis stamps in an under and over double lattice running between diamonds (quite attractive), and the upper and lower pieces of an embossed thirteenth century knife sheath at roughly 2/3 scale size, totaling about nine inches each. Plate II shows an embossed fifteenth century Rondel Dagger Sheath with incised coil decoration; Part of stamped and incised Fleur-de Lys decoration on a belt (very intricately and numerously stamped; and a small bit of Moulded Relief decoration on a cuir-bouilli inkwell, showing three saints in arcaded little panels over a man (Saint Sebastian probably) with his hands tied behind him and three arrow heads to either side of his arcade, with archers on either side of him in their arcaded panels. Plate III shows an incised knife sheath, fifteenth century (9 1/2"); an engraved knife sheath with embossed birds in acanthus scrolls of the 12th C. (8"); and Part of a sword-sheath decorated with punched and engraved fleur-de-lys of the 14-15th centuries (13"). Plate IV shows the upper part of a knife sheath, back engraved with animals in Acanthus Roundels and the front having designs of chevrons and three shields in both embossed and lightly stamped and cut designs. Plate V shows a 14th C. knife sheath with dull tool embossed cross-hatch designs; a 15th C. sheath with engraved and pricked design of diamonds with strapping between them and varying designs within them; and a small part of a 13-14th C. zoomorphic design. Plate VI shows a suggested part of a saddle (now taken to be an upper arm guard) with foliage and animals. Plate VII shows the triangular supposed toe of a shoe, which is taken to be the highest degree of Medieval Leather Craftsmanship attained in the late middle ages. The article is probably the best discussion of decorative styles of leatherwork and cuir bouilli to be found. I know a scale case isn't exactly a box but: Scull, Christopher, with many assorted other authors: Excavation and Survey at Watchfield, 1983-32; Arch. Journal 149, 1992, pp.124-281. Includes many photographs and drawings of an early Anglo-Saxon Cemetery and itís inhabitants and their possessions from the Vale of the White Horse. Some finds are neolithic to medieval, one is 1700ís knife handle, other finds include glass and bone beads, brooches, weapons, shield rivets, handles and umbos, a deteriorated leather scabbard and a scale case made of leather with scales and weights and inscription, cauldron bits and fittings, tweezers, knives, buckles, saucer brooches and oneís construction, ear spoon, square headed brooches, amber, dress pins, skeletal remains with analysis, remains of horn handle for sword, electron pictures of grooves cut in carnelian by a bow drill, reconstructions of the pattern welded sword blades (similar to Sutton Hoo but not quite as complex, nine page bibliography. Most things are drawn and not photographed in the text. Excellent coverage of most materials and discussions of specific fields of items by specialists. Scurlock, William, ed.: Muzzleloader Magazine's Book of Buckskinning VII; Scurlock Publishing Co., Texarkana, TX, 1995, ISBN 188065505-5. Contains an excellent post period article on the "Goods of the Trunkmaker and His Trade" by Steven M. Lalioff, pp 198-221. Descriptions and photographs of original trunks, deed boxes, and chests. Also see plates VII-XII. By someone who has a large collection and remakes them. Singer, Charles, et al: A History of Technology, Volume II, 1956, Oxford. Covers the Mediterranean Civilization and the Middle Ages. Has a whole chapter on leather by Waterer. Includes cofferers. Snyder, W.E.: The Leathercraftsman. A Textbook on Leatherwork ; Worchester: American Handicrafts, (1936). cloth, gilt lettering, 176pp., Includes; A Brief History of Leather, Leathercraft Through the Ages, Construction and Decorating, Tools, Lacing, Steps in making a leathercraft article etc., etc., Illustrations, index. Society of Antiquaries of London : Archaeologia; or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity; published by the Society of Antiquaries of London; Volume CVII, London, 1982, pp.222, text-illustrations, plates. Includes: Swords and sequence in the British Bronze Age; Anglo-Saxon Glass claw-beakers; Anglo-Saxon button brooches; The sanctuary ring of Durham Cathedral; The Talbot Casket and Related Late Medieval Leather Caskets by John Cherry; The stained glass of the chapel of the Vyne and the Chapel of the Holy Ghost, Basingstoke; Ightham Mote: politics and architecture in Early Tudor England. Stohlman, Al: The Art of Hand Sewing Leather; 1977, Tandy Leather Co., Ft. Worth, TX. Stohlman, Al and Ann: The Art of Making Leather Cases Volume 1-2-3 ; 1979, Tandy Leather Co., Ft. Worth, TX. Stohlman, Al: Coloring Leather, 1985, Tandy Leather Co., Ft. Worth, TX. Stohlman, Al: How to Carve Leather, 1952, Craftool Co., Ft. Worth, TX. Tandy Leather, various dates. Modern techniques. Modern finish. Underhill, Roy: [Video] The Williamsburg Trunkmaker. Woodwright's Shop Series. WUNC-TV, Chapel Hill, NC. Mostly on other techniques of hand leatherwork but includes some discussion of chests and coffers, notably including that the wood was not nailed together but glued until the tacks holding the leather were driven in. Waterer, John William. "Irish Book-Satchels or Budgets"; Medieval Archaeology, Vol. XII, 1968, pp. 70-82., 13pp, 4figs, 4 b/w plates IV-VII. Waterer, John W.: "Leather" in Connoiseur Period Guides - Tudor 1500-1603. Edited by Ralph Edwards, Reynal and Company, New York, No Date, 60's-70's? Leather Chapter is pp.149-59 plus plates. Includes forcers, chests, saddle, gloves, buff tunic, Paten box, prayer book casket, leather lantern, flasks, bottells, bookcover, leather bedcover, on plates 81-4. Waterer, John William: Leather and Craftsmanship; Faber & Faber LTD., London, 66pp, 32 pls, 1950. Waterer, John William: Leather Craftsmanship; Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers, New York and Washington, 1968. Published in England by G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., London. Better than below for this purpose. Has a chapter that discusses leather boxes and some of the manner of their construction. Waterer, John W: Leather in Life, Art and Industry; London. Faber & Faber Ltd.; 1946. 320 pp., Frontis, 110 plates, & a further 20 illustrations in the text. With forewords by Sir Charles Tennyson and George W. Odey. "An outline of its preparation and uses in Britain yesterday and today together with some reflections on its place in the world of synthetics tomorrow." Brief mentions of caskets/trunks. Waterer, John William. "A Historical Forcer."; Connoisseur 134 (1954): 189-191. A Forcer is a casket. Waterer has another on Spanish Leather that is supposed to include it's use on caskets but it is primarily concerned with embossed late period leather used on walls, furniture, etc. Will that do for a start? I'm afraid I don't have any more time to search through diverse tomes today... :) (c) Master Magnus Malleus, OL, GDH Windmasters' Hill, Atlantia May be forwarded to sca or re-enactor email lists, but NOT to the Rialto (rec.org.sca) or ANY other newsgroup. Edited by Mark S. Harris caskets-boxes-bib Page 7 of 7