The Plan of St. Gall :: :: University of Virginia Library

Moritz Heyne[247] and Joseph Schepers[248] ascribe its invention
to the Romans, but this supposition has recently
been shattered by André Parrot's extraordinary discovery
of two fireplaces from the bathrooms of the Palace of Mari
in Mesopotamia, which date from the beginning of the
second millennium B.C. (fig. 372).[249]

The smoke flues of these fireplaces consist of conical
hoods encasing a vertical stack of tubular flue tiles, with an
opening at the bottom for the fire which burned on a platform
that formed a quarter of a circle. Hence the Romans
cannot claim to be the first inventors of this device. They
may have rediscovered it, but until a chimney-type Roman
corner fireplace has actually been excavated—and so far no
one has had the good fortune to find one—even this assumption
must remain hypothetical. Conversely, it must be
stressed that wall or corner fireplaces with chimneys were
not a feature characteristic of Germanic house construction,
and were not known at all in the northernmost areas
held by Germanic peoples. We know this is so not only
because of hundreds of house sites that have actually been

[ILLUSTRATION]

376. GRYTEN, VÄSTERGOTLAND, SWEDEN

[after Erikson, 1947, 427, fig. 546]

CORNER FIREPLACE
WITH DOMESHAPED
HOOD AND OVEN

[ILLUSTRATION]

377. SANNAP, HALLAND, SWEDEN

[after Erixon, 1947, 426, fig. 545]

CORNER FIREPLACE WITH OVEN
SURMOUNTED BY CONICAL
HOOD

excavated, but also because, when chimneys were finally
introduced at the Norwegian court during the reign of Olaf
Kyrre (1067-93), this was an event so unusual that it was
considered worthy of being recorded in Snorri's Lives of the
Kings of Norway: "It was an old custom in Norway that
the King's high seat was in the middle of the long bench.
The ale was borne round the fire. King Olaf was the first
to install corner fireplaces."[250] (Ofnstofur, the Old Norse
term, like the Latin caminus retains etymological consciousness
of the fact that the masonry fireplace is an offspring of
the oven !) Iceland resisted this innovation even longer. The
first masonry-built Icelandic wall fireplace was constructed
in 1316, in the timbered hall of Bishop Laurentius at
Hólar.[251]

[247]

Heyne, I, 1899, 119.

[248]

Schepers, 1954, passim.

[249]

Parrot, II, 1958, 201-5. The excavations were conducted as early
as 1935-38, but publication of the results was delayed by World War II.
The report does not comment in any manner upon the historical significance
of these corner fireplaces found in rooms that also contained
several bathtubs and privies.

[250]

"Þat var siđr forn í N'regi, at konungs hásæti var á miđjum langpalli,
var öl um eld borit; en Ólafr konungr lét fyrst gera sitt hásæti a
hápalli um þvera stofu, hann lét ok fyrst gera ofnstofur" (Heimskringla,
ed. Unger, 1868, 629; and in English translation by Monsen, 1932
576).

[251]

We can infer this from a passage in the Biskupa Sögur, where it is
said of Bishop Laurentius that "he installed a stone fireplace [steinofn]
in his timbered hall at Holum, such as they were wont to have in Norway,
and made the chimney of that fireplace so large that he himself could sit
down in it" (Biskopa Sögur, ed. Sigurdsson and Vigfusson, I, 1856,
830; for the date, Gudmundsson, 1889, 179-80).