Chests

Medieval Chests, Caskets, Keys and Locks

8th – 13th Century.

By Stephen Francis Wyley

2005 Australasian Medieval Conference Lecture.

Acknowledgments.

Thanks to the following people for providing information: Dr. Peter Beatson, Stuart Laird, Peter Raftos, Ian Rogers, Robert Schuster and Andrea Willet.

1) Introduction

These notes are to provide you with a quick overview of the storage devices such as chest and caskets from the 7th to the 13th centuries in Europe. Reliquaries, boxes, and chests and caskets of the 14th – 16th century will have to wait till another day. And a similar situation arises for chests and casket of the East, which will be a subject in itself.

I intend to cover such areas as: development, design and manufacture, materials used, provide a catalogue of extant items, details on locks and key, manuscript depictions of chests and caskets, and finally, a section on how to go about making you own. Other information will also be found in the appendix, including extant metal finds from chests and actual chest plans and drawings. In the catalogue I have endeavoured to provide information on a range of extant chest and casket, indicating the date of the piece, where it originated from, the current collection details, and then some details of the extant finds themselves (materials, dimensions, design, decoration and contents).

I intended to see this information published in the Varangian Voice. Copies will also be made available on request.

Stephen Wyley

(Sven)

January 2005.

2) The uses of chests and caskets

The main purpose of a chest or casket was secure storage for a range of items including personal belongings and furniture for the larger versions. It has been speculated that the Viking’s used their chests to sit on while rowing their Longboats.

In the following table are some examples of what was found in some extant chests and caskets. Most were found in burials, in a number of the case the chests themselves contained the mortal remains. The Mästermyr chest was a stray find in what was a bog in Viking times. Whereas, the Hedeby chest was found in the harbour weighted down with a stone, so presumably some one stole it and then dumped it in the harbour to avoid discovery.

Chest or casket contents:

Coffin Chests (Various): The dear departed.

Oseberg No. 149: Two lamps, a comb and pair of scissors.

Oseberg No. 156: Some hide, cloth and two combs.

Oseberg No. 178: Wild apples.

Mästermyr Chest Tools (wood and metal working tools). See Mästermyr Image Library

Swallowcliffe Down Casket: A bronze spherical container with ring ended handle, a spoon, five safety pins, on amber and one glass bead, and pair of knives.

Hedeby Chest: A stone.

3) Chest development in Europe

Dug out.

A chest made from a log by cutting a lid off the log and gouging out the interior of the chest out of the rest of the log, then reattaching the lid with hinges and a hasp.

12th century dug out chest from Gamla Uppsala, Sweden.

(Picture Source: http://www.greydragon.org/trips/stockholm/index5.html)

Six plank rectangular prism

A six plank chest consists of: a lid, a front and a back, two ends and a bottom, without legs.

Un-dated chest from Sweden's Museum of National Antiquities (Historiska Museet).

(Photo Source: http://www.greydragon.org/trips/stockholm/index3.html.)

Trapezoid on legs

A six plank chest where the ends of the chest slope inwards to the centre of the chest. In the case of one of the chest from the Oseberg find (Chest 149), the front also slope towards the back.

9th century Viking chest from the Oseberg ship burial, Oseberg, Sem, Vestfold, Norway. Universitetets Oldsaksamling, Oslo, 149

Rectangular prism on legs

A six plank chest where the ends of the chest are square to the centre of the chest and it stands on legs. In later cases, the leg where given cut outs in range of designs.

c. 1200 Chest for the Voxtorp church, Småland, Sweden. Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm, 4094.

Hutch

A rectangular chest made up of up to ten or more pieces, where the legs of the front of the chest add to the overall length of the chest, thus enabling a larger chest to be made.

12th – 13th century hutch chest from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Museum Number W.30-1926.

Hutch with long legs

13th century chest from the l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame Museum in Strasbourg, France.

(Photo source: http://www.greydragon.org/furniture/oeuvre.html)

4) Materials used in construction

Body of the chests and caskets: beech, elk horn, maple, oak, pine, whalebone.

Out of the chests and caskets studied, the most used material for the body of the chest is oak.

Attachment methods: wooden dowel, nails, corner brackets, strapping.

Fittings where made from: iron, bronze and brass.

5) Chest and casket design and manufacture depend on a number of factors

Fashion (what is the latest style, import or design brought back from abroad).
Size of timber available (the width of the planks). The size of the planks available affects the size of the chest. Note the decline of good timbers of boat building in the later Viking age would have also influenced the range of timbers available for chest and casket building.
The tools available. The type of tools would also affect how the timber was used and thus the size of the chest and caskets built.
Knowledge and ability of the manufacturer. From the range of extant chest available to us it can clearly be seen that there were different levels of craftsmanship (ie Oseberg versus Voxtorp).
The desire of the market. As wealth increased, people need places to store their worldly goods and chest were there best option. This also fuelled the development in lock technology (ie. the transition from padlocks to slide locks to tumbler locks, and in some cases combinations of these existed.

6) Catalogue of extant chests and caskets

(heading links to a separate page )

7) Lock and key development

(add pictures of locks, explain how each works, pictures of keys (show differences between types).

- from Anglo-Scandinavian metalwork.

Padlock (external)

Slide key (internal)

Turn key (internal)

8) Manuscript depictions of Chests and caskets

(heading links to a separate page )

9) Making your own replica

The following are guidelines I would suggest in making your own replicas.

Considerations:

Your interest in a certain period of history will give a clear indication on the specific type of replica you wish to make. Choose from primary and secondary sources to support your design specifications.

With the period of history decided on and the sources available the type of replica should be obvious, however the following consideration will also influence your final decision.

The use to which you need a replica for should be considered. Swords will not fit in a casket and jewellery will be lost in a chest. For period encampments I suggest a range of storage facilities, each complementing the other.

The type of wood to be used will depend on level of expenditure and your desire for authenticity. Pinus radiata is cheap, easily available and in a range of plank widths, which enables you to make all of the chests in the catalogue. However, European woods are available in Australia and can be sourced from a range of supplies (see list), the only catch is the price and the width of planks available. It should be noted that chest designs can be made with any size of plank by using proportionality (a simple calculation whereby the dimensions of the original can be used to calculate the dimensions using a different plank width, I use an excel spreadsheet to aid the calculations).

It should also be noted that the skill level of the replica maker would have an effect on the difficulty of the project. If starting out I suggest starting with the simple boxes and with practice the more complicated design will seem less difficult. If you have carpentry skills nothing in the catalogue should daunt you. In regard to the metal work, the same applies, start with ‘hook and eye’ hinges and then move onto the strap hinges. Keys, locks and padlocks is a whole new kettle of fish…

Dowel or nail?

They did both dowelling and nailing. The evidence is clear from the extant remains, the Mästermyr chest is a good example. The timber joins are dowelled and the fittings are held on nails or staples. The Oseberg chest number 149 is covered in iron bands held in place by three rows of tinned head nails. Dowelling may have been cheaper but it could not be used to attach fittings.

The Mästermyr chest in fact held many tools including a tool to assist a blacksmith in putting heads on nails, such finds of nail headers in not that unusual.

Finish?

In regard to finishes, I have found no information so far. For my part I used one part boiled linseed oil to three parts turpentine to aid in the preservation of the timber of the replicas I construct.

Rope Handles on Viking chests

There has been speculation that the Viking chest were provided with rope handles and a number of reenactors have made such chests. In my research I have found no proof that such a practice took places. I will acquiesce if new information comes to light but until then I will speak out against the practice.

The two holes in the ends of a Viking chest which lead to such speculation could in fact have been the two dowel holes used to attach the ends to the base board, such as in the Mästermyr chest. Rope handles in the ends of a Viking chest used at sea would allow direct access, or by ‘wick action’, to the interior to seawater, thus damaging the contents of the chest. Later period (18th century) sea chests show a wooden block attached to the outside of the chest with a rope handle going through the wooden block, a much better solution.

Most of the extant Viking chests were not moved around great distances and spent most of there time in situ. If they need to be moved, thralls could be used or simple rope loops can be employed.

KISS

When deciding on a design and making a replica the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle should apply, unless you are trained in the craft. It is easier to make a hasp closure than a lock, and easier to make a rectangular prism chest than a trapezoid chest.

Making and fitting a lock that works takes about the same time or more that the time taking to construct a chest or casket.

Bibliography

Andersen, S.W., Lejre – skibssætninger, vikingegrave, Grydehøj , Aarboger for Norik Oldkyndighod og Historie, 1993.

Arwidsson, G. & Berg, G., The Mästermyr Find, A Viking Age Tool Chest from Gotland, Sweden, 1983.

Brøgger, A.W., Hj. Falk & Shetelig, (ed.), Osebergfundet I – III, Oslo, 1917-1928.

Cockerell, S.C., Old Testament Miniatures, A Medieval Picture Book with 283 Paintings From the Creation to The Story of David, London.

Crumlin-Pedersen, O., Viking Age Ships and Ship building in Hedeby and Schleswig, Volume 2: Ships and Boats of the North, Roskilde, 1997.

Davidson, H.R., Viking and Scandinavian Mythology, Hong Kong, 1982.

Delort, R., Life in the Middle Ages, London, 1973.

Dunan, M., ed., Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient and Medieval History, London, 1967.

Hill, P., Whithorn and St. Ninian, The Excavation of a Monastic Town 1984 – 91, Sutton : Stroud, 1997.

Ottaway, P., Anglo-Scandinavian Ironwork from York, The Archaeology of York, Volume 17: The Small finds, York Archaeological Trust, 1992.

Phillips, D., & Heywood, B., Excavations at York Minster, Volume 1., From Roman fortress to Norman cathedral, Part 2. The Finds, London, 1995.

- 6.5 Iron-bound coffins and coffin fittings from the pre-Norman cemetery, by B. Kjølbye-Biddle, p. 489 – 521.

Raftos, P., Beatson, P., A Veneto-Byzantine Chest? Casket of the Blessed Juliana of Collalto, Varangian Voice, Issue 68, August/November 2004, New Varangian Guard Inc.

Roesdahl, E. & Wilson, D.M., Eds., From Viking to Crusader, The Scandinavians and Europe 800 – 1200, Sweden, 1992.

Schleining, L., Treasure Chests, The Legacy of Extraordinary Boxes, Newtown, 2001.

Wilson, D.M., ed., The Northern World, The History and Heritage of Northern Europe, AD 400 – 1100, London, 1980.

Web pages

Caskets

Viking Answer Lady, Carved Ivory Caskets and Reliquaries of Early Northern Europe http://vikinganswerlady.com/casket.htm

Franks Casket

Becker, Dr Alfred, Franks Casket (1973) Bremen. http://www.franks-casket.de

http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/britannia/earlychurch/franks.html [dead link 25 Aug 2020]

British Museum Online gallery object 1867,0120.01 https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1867-0120-1

Gamla Uppsala (Sweden)

Barclay, Peter (2003), Visit to Gamla Uppsala http://www.greydragon.org/trips/stockholm/index5.html

Mästermyr Chest

Sweden’s National Museum

Barclay, Peter (2003), Visit to Sweden's Museum of National Antiquities (Historiska Museet) http://www.greydragon.org/trips/stockholm/index3.html

Sven's How to make a replica of the Mästermyr Chest

Appendix 1. Metal finds related to chests

Source

Ottaway, P., Anglo-Scandinavian Ironwork from York, The Archaeology of York, Volume 17: The Small finds, York Archaeological Trust, 1992. 3371, part of a hinge with a bifurcated terminal, similar to a large hinge (M1654) from a charnel pit XK 216, excavations of York Minster.

Description

3386, the eye part of a “hook and eye” hinge, with a narrow neck before the bottom round terminal, and spatula shape end for the ‘eye’ on the other end.

3480, triangular shaped ‘hook and eye’ hinge.

3495, 3496, 3497 and 3498, a variety of hasps to close chests.

3606 and 3607, sliding bolt locks with springs.

3608 , a small lock bolt with attache leaf spring and part of a suspension loop.

3654 – 3661, are a range of keys for locks with sliding bolts and springs.

Roesdahl, E. & Wilson, D.M., Eds., From Viking to Crusader, The Scandinavians and Europe 800 – 1200, Sweden, 1992, page 245, Catalogue no. 67.

Sdr. Onsild, North Jutland, Denmark. 10th century. Danmarks Nationalmuseum, Copenhagan, no number (1009/72). Lock from casket (very similar to casket from Fyrkat).

“Found with hinges and handle of a box in a female grave; the preserved wood was maple.”

The hasp consists of an elongated triangulated strip of iron, with an upturned terminal to hold a ring. The hasp was attached to the casket by a “U” shaped staple. The lock consists of a rectangular lock plate with a rectangular slot for the hasp staple, a rectangular slot for the key, and a separate lever pulled the slide bolt to release the hasp.