In 2008 I reviewed in JFRR Richard Bebb’s extraordinary survey, Welsh Furniture 1250–1950: A Cultural History of Craftsmanship and Design, the startup publication of his press, Saer Books (a subsidiary of his main business, Country Antiques [Wales] Ltd.). At the time he announced work on the book under consideration here, his coauthor for which, Sioned Williams, is Curator of Furniture at St. Fagans: National History Museum. The Bardic Chair is focused more narrowly on the chairs presented to winners of local and national eisteddfods (competitive folk festivals of a sort), a subject only touched upon in the first book, and seems intended for a different audience. While the broad sweep, formal tone, and scholarly apparatus of Welsh Furniture is suited to an international readership of material culture historians, The Bardic Chair is written in a more accessible style and is, as the title indicates, bilingual, with the text in both Welsh and English. It thus appears to be meant primarily for Welsh readers familiar with their native language and the eisteddfod tradition but who are not necessarily furniture specialists.
The book’s potential interest to the folklore discipline, it seems to me, hinges on its exploration of the intersection of material culture and custom; studies of inter-genre relationships in real-world practice are always a welcome contribution. For the custom part of this equation, the eisteddfod, a gathering of Welsh artists, can be dated at least to 1176 at the court of Rhys ap Gruffydd in Cardigan, where the lord awarded chairs to the best poet and musician (the institution of professional bards and harpers patronized by the nobility most likely had its origins in Celtic society). Such events grew larger in scale and higher in judging standards through the Elizabethan period, then fell into decline until 1789, when Thomas Jones organized an eisteddfod at Corwen to which the public was admitted for the first time. Its success led to a revival and, by 1860, to a National Eisteddfod which merged with the Gorsedd movement founded in 1792 by Iolo Morganwg (the bardic name of Edward Williams), a Romantic reimagining of ancient druidic practices such as the costumes still used by those officiating at National Eisteddfods.
The material culture part of the equation consists of the chairs themselves. The Oxford English Dictionary associates “chair” with a situation of authority as early as the 1300s (and the academic use of that meaning by the 1400s). Bebb and Williams believe that early bardic chairs were simply examples of whatever vernacular types were available and illustrate a range of possibilities from different eras. The first chair known to have been made specifically for an eisteddfod was commissioned from Carmarthen cabinetmaker David Morley for the 1819 event in that town (40¬–41). It is in the gothic revival style, and like many bardic chairs to follow, is of local oak. In the 1870s, the typical eisteddfod style emerged, modeled on panel-back armchairs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It has a flat plank seat, squared front legs, and event-specific carving that might include the Welsh national emblems of red dragon, Prince of Wales feathers, leek (a plant still featured in Welsh cuisine and worn on St. David’s Day), and harp (a musical tradition more or less continuous in Wales since at least the Middle Ages). The Mystic Mark (three vertical lines radiating outward from the top, a Gorsedd emblem representing the virtues of truth, justice and love), the Celtic cross and interlaced designs, local or family coats of arms, and Welsh inscriptions were also frequently carved. The 1923 Aberystwyth inter-college eisteddfod chair, relatively restrained in its carving (150), was won by Iorwerth Peate, a poet, folklorist, and co-founder of the Welsh Folk Museum (now called St. Fagans: National History Museum),
"who was much concerned with what he saw as the evils of industrialization and held a romanticized view of true Welsh craftsmanship as representing the ideal of beauty through simplicity and functionality. He disliked ostentatious ornament, whether in chapel architecture or furniture, and in 1929 criticized ’the oak chairs which in many instances are elaborately carved in a manner which reveals the loss of native tradition and sense of artistry’" (151).
Bardic chairs sometimes were upholstered for greater comfort or customized from factory production, and in the 1930s they began to be more diverse and contemporary in style, reflecting modernist taste. An extreme example is that by Robert Jones for the 2002 National Eisteddfod at St. David’s (210–11). Idiosyncratic and asymmetrical, its blocky base with shaped seat is oak, but its tall back, massive front post on one side, and elevated Celtic cross on the other side are of an unidentified material resembling polished granite. A slender blackthorn tree of wrought iron grows from one side to branch over the top and, according to the maker, represents the Welsh people, who “have had to bend or change” in their “struggles of life.” Other striking chairs were commissioned by Welsh expatriates living elsewhere, such as those for the 1926 Swansea and 1933 Wrexham Nationals with elaborate openwork carving by Chinese craftsmen (154–55, 166–67), the 1928 National at Treorchy presented by the Blackstone Welsh Society of Queensland with Australia’s coat of arms, a kangaroo, and ostrich carved in one of the back panels (162–63), and the 1935 Caernarfon National featuring tribal designs by New Zealand Maori woodworkers (170–71). The chair made for an international eisteddfod at the 1893 Chicago World Fair has a prominent American eagle joining a harp and Prince of Wales feathers on its back (82–83).
Bardic chairs often were kept by the winners of strict-meter or free-meter poetry, harp, and choral competitions, but some were just loaned and recycled for later events. The authors include photographs of winners posing with their collections of prize chairs; Alfa (William Richards), an early-twentieth-century bard, is said to have won over 150, many still owned by descendants or displayed in chapels where he preached (160–61). And the prize chair was not always usable as such; it could also be a miniature in silver or an image on a medal.
Following an introductory section The Bardic Chair proceeds chronologically, surveying those years for which eisteddfod chairs could be found and illustrated; for each, basic contextual information on the event, prize winner, and maker (when known) is provided. This organization is useful in following the evolution of bardic chair design. Besides high-quality photographs of many of the chairs themselves, illustrations are taken from eisteddfod programs and archival and family collections, with the National Eisteddfod of Wales, National Library of Wales, National Museum Wales, and private owners being the main resources. Technical details about the chairs (dimensions and construction materials) are not always provided, further suggesting an intended nonspecialist audience for the book.
Although the heyday of bardic chair production was the 1890s through the 1930s, the custom of presenting them at eisteddfods is still practiced, however much their designs have strayed from the more traditional type; the last example included in the book was made for the 2008 National in Cardiff (214–15). Folklorists will be especially interested in The Bardic Chair as a case study of folk-cultural revival, although one would like to see more details about the actual festivals, with examples of winning poetry (on page 5 there is only a brief discussion of the two types), while photos of chairing ceremonies raise questions about gender (the role of women at these events) that go unaddressed. But finally, the book is about the bardic chair itself, not just as an object to be appreciated for its craftsmanship or even as a tangible slice of Welsh history, but as an icon of national identity and pride, or as Welsh scholar Hywel Teifi Edwards says in the foreword, as “the prime celebratory symbol of the Welsh poet’s place in the life of his nation over many centuries” (ix).
NOTE: The Bardic Chair can be ordered at www.welshfurniture.com.
--------
[Review length: 1313 words • Review posted on March 9, 2010]