medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Hi, Henk,

>You wrote:
> >Have to be carful with etymologies.
>
>Oh I know, but if you can't trust the great big Dutch Etymological 
>Dictionary, who or what can you trust?

The OED (and I have the full set of 16 volumes, not the condensed) 
does have errors, some on etymology, some on usage, but as they 
always give quotes to show etymology and usage (which is how you can 
spot slip ups in both), I tend to trust them when it comes to English.

The main problem here is that some of this confusion is a question of 
English usage.

>  > The one you cited seemed forced; so, I looked it up...
>
>First time I heard an etymology being called 'forced'. ;-)

OK, looked a great deal like a pseudo-etymology.... just didn't want 
to say it. :-)

>It is a bit wider reaching but got there in the end. Or do I read this wrong?

Well, temporary room/hut is not a "cave."

>  >It's easy enough to follow the semantic range extending from a
>temporary hut to a small temporary room, to a small permanent room,
>to a cupboard, to a closed cupboard (ca. 1530)... which does not need
>to have drawers to be a cabinet.
>
>It does when you base your knowledge on a study of furniture as I 
>have. Mind you, don't confuse it with a chest of drawers or the 
>drawers containing type of chest on legs called the 'credence'. It 
>might also contain pigeon holes. The doors should not be confused 
>with those in cupboards of the credence types as well.

Here is where we get down to nub. You are using specialized 
terminology from the history of furniture. A cabinet in US usage does 
not need drawers or two doors. It is just a rectangular box to which 
you add a door and a back for stability and you can have anything you 
want inside... shelves, drawers, whatever type of storage space is 
needed for the matter at hand. A cabinet can also have legs or a 
base, hang on a wall or be built into a wall.

  >No cabinets? Then what about Latin armarium: "a cupboard, set upright
>in the wall of a room, in which were kept not only arms, but also
>clothes, books, money, ornaments, small images and pictures, and
>other articles of value. The armarium was generally placed in the
>atrium of the house
>
>An armarium is quite a different piece of furniture. It's a wall 
>cupboard (in Dutch we have the words 'kist' for chest, the 
>horizontally placed receptacle with a lid, and 'kast' for all 
>upended receptacles with doors and drawers, makes it easier to talk 
>about this furniture and not having to think about what a 'cupboard' 
>was supposed to be again...) and would be best described by closet or wardrobe.

Yep, but a wardrobe (stick to items that are not built-in) is still a 
rectangular box with a door or doors and a back. A large cabinet.

>  The latter word is also thick with meaning, having been a room as 
> well, especially meant for keeping clothing in, at first, and later 
> containing all kinds of costly stuff, mainly in royal or noble 
> households. It contained wall closets which took over the name from 
> the room, same as the cabinet, At first it was also built into or 
> fixed to the wall, but later became a freestanding wardrobe.

Well, I do know about this... Oddly enough, I am a competent 
woodworker. As every time we made another intercontinental move I had 
to come up with replacement storage and bookshelves, I built the 
replacements... and have designed and built storage walls and kitchen 
cabinets, secretaries (what you called a bureau-cabinet), beds and 
sofas, panel-doors, free standing bookshelves and built-in 
bookshelves (and have always managed to sell the free-standing items 
when we moved -- again).  I have two book shelves full of books on 
cabinets, doors, even on building replicas of Medieval furniture 
...  (there's that lovely Medieval book-shelf reading stand I covet, 
but now I'll never get around to it) not to mention a seven foot high 
x three foot wide break-downable, portable storage cabinet (<G>) full 
of woodworking tools -- including doweling (pegs) jigs. (And the 
portable cabinet was sold as a cabinet.)

>BTW what do you mean by the atrium of the house? The roman posh hall 
>open to the air in a cloister like manner? Or the hall of a house 
>(hall is another case of many meanings)?

The Roman interior courtyard.

> >Or, scrinium, a wooden bookcase/chest. These pieces of furniture were
>upright and not meant for portablity.
>
>A scrinium, in Dutch 'schrijn', was a chest first, then acquiring 
>legs became a dresser (tresoir or cupboard) then, when it got a 
>backpanel and sometimes displaysteps, a buffet. Etc. But I guess we 
>are straying from the path here a bit. A cabinet, from the 16th c 
>onwards in our part of Europe, was a specific type of 'cupboard' 
>which did not exist here pre-1500 (unless somebody earlier had 
>imported the wall of an Italian gabinetto into his palace somewhere, 
>but  I have not seen such sofar.

You are the expert on this, but I am wondering what you make of the 
typical writing stand -- which was a cabinet (rectangular box with a 
back for stability on either a base, a platform, or legs with a door) 
topped with a tilted work area. Writing stands antedate what you are 
defining as a "cabinet."

Point is that all these items, by whatever name or for whatever 
specific purpose, are basically just a rectangular box with a door or 
doors and a back for stability.

It just seems too unlikely that people who built chests (kists) back 
in the late centuries BC and early CE did not also build upright 
chests (kasts). They certainly had the know-how.

>Heck, I have caused some uproar by simply writing that a joiner was 
>not called a cabinetmaker before 1500 (in England) because there 
>were none at the time.

Not exactly, Henk. What you are saying is that in the specialized 
terminology of the history of furniture, there were no cabinetmakers 
at that date. The word "join," with the meaning to unite, to fasten 
parts is from OF via Anglo-Norman and the earliest attested use dates 
to 1297 -- so, obviously, a joiner did not exist in England 
pre-Norman Conquest -- at least not under that term. It tells us 
nothing about the existence of such workers earlier in ASE.

Cist, "box" (cognate of Dutch kist) is OE, as are carver and smith. A 
skilled craftsman was a "smea-wyrhta" (guess the closest translation 
would be thoughtful-maker/worker). An engraver was an "engrafan." A 
stonemason was a stan-craeftiga. A door was 'duru' and a door jamb 
was gedyre. A workshop was an "oden" and a wright was a "wyrhta." 
(Could go on down a long list of names for skilled workers -- even 
barmaids and bakers and candlestick makers.) As the word join in this 
sense replaced gefaestnian (ModE fasten), I'll have to check if there 
was a wudu-gefaestna or something along that line. Lots of everyday 
things did not make it into the limited existing OE vocabulary.

Further, they had guilds and all that guilds imply in terms of 
various skilled artisans; a guild-member was a "gegilda."  (Yes, 
*guilds*: everything/one in its place and a place for everything/one.)

They had lots of woods in ASE; wood was a major construction and 
furnishings material. So, they had boxes and doors and woodworkers of 
all sorts.

> >And as Chris points out, chests are cabinets. Stand a chest on one
>end and you have what we refer to as a cabinet.... which does not
>have to have drawers or two doors -- one door will suffice -- if the
>frame is not too wide..
>
>I have to disagree; that's not a cabinet, but a dresser (tresoir) 
>or, without the legs or very short ones, a cupboard (scapray). The 
>difference between the two tended to disappear in the 17th c.

As I wrote, "what we refer to as a cabinet." To non-historians of 
furniture, that's exactly what it is.  Not that I am unaware of the 
specialized terms, but even with all the specialization, it's all 
still variations of that original box with a door and a back.

Well, I know it probably is irritating for you, but there are reasons 
for the terminology problems.

>To get back to 1st century, as long as people had to move themselves
>and their equipment (whatever type of equipment -- clothes, tools,
>bedding) around -- you needed portability. Chests (backpacks and
>saddlebags) make more sense. If an artisan had work brought to him or
>her -- as would be the general case with smithies, then portability
>did not matter. BUT, woodworkers on buildings went to the project.
>
>I fully agree.
>
>Henk

I am glad that we agree on something :-)

Rochelle

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