A chair à tourner from 1383

So far the earliest mentioning of a strycsitten was a 'keerlijs' in a Flemish farmer household inventory from 1384 (thanks to comments by Bertus Brokamp), but now the time can be set even one year earlier. While looking through the book of Penelope Eames (Furniture in England, France and the Netherlands from the twelfth to the fifteenth century) for names of furniture items for the "multilingual medieval furniture dictionary" (see previous blogpost), I discovered a one person strycsitten (i.e. as the one in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and the Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte in Dordtmund) dating from 1383:

1383: From the Duke of Burgundy’s accounts

“769 … à Thomas de Sombreffe, maistre des muneus euvres de Mgr, pour le bois et façon de 2 chaieres qu’il a faites … du commendement de Mme pour mademoiselle Marguerite, c’est assavoir l’une à tourner et l’autre à laver.”

To Thomas de Sombreffe, master of minor works to the Duke, for the wood and for the making of two chairs … by order of the Duchess for Mlle Marguerite, namely, one chair à tourner and the other for washing.

More images

To end this post, I have some more - 15th century - strycsitten images.

All ages of men with a French type in the background from a French miniature of around 1420.

 A strycsitten in Le livre des bonnes moeurs. J. le grant, 15th century.

 Birth of Maria. Painting of Hans von Kulmbach showing a geman type strycsitten. 16th century.

Image from O. von Falke Deutsche Mobel des Mittelalters und der Renaissance.

 

 This is the bad quality photo of the one-person strycsitten in the Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte 

in Dordtmund, Germany, supposedly dated 1400.