Though the great antiquity of chimneys is not disputed, too little information has been collected to enable us to determine, with any degree of certainty, the period when they first came into use. If it be true, as Du Cange, Vossius, and others affirm, that apartments called caminatæ were apartments with chimneys, these must, indeed, be very old; for that word occurs as early as the year 1069, and perhaps earlier[948]; but it is always found connected in such a manner as contradicts entirely the above signification. Papias the grammarian, who wrote about 1051, explains the word fumarium by caminus per quem exit fumus; and Johannes de Janua, a monk, who about 1268 wrote his Catholicon, printed at Venice, says “Epicaustorium, instrumentum quod fit super ignem caussa emittendi fumum.” But these fumaria and epicaustoria may have been pipes by which the smoke, as is the case in our vent-furnaces, was conveyed through the nearest wall or window: at any rate, this expression, with its explanations, can afford no certain proof that chimneys are so old[949]; especially as later writers give us reason to believe the contrary. Riccobaldus de Ferrara[950], Galvano Fiamma or Flamma, a Dominican monk from Milan[951], who died in 1344 professor at Pavia, and Giovanni de Mussis, who about 1388 wrote his Chronicon Placentinum[952], and all the writers of the fourteenth century, seem either to have been unacquainted with chimneys, or to have considered them as the newest invention of luxury.
That there were no chimneys in the tenth, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, seems to be proved by the so-called ignitegium, or pyritegium, the curfew-bell of the English, and couvre-feu of the French. In the middle ages, as they are termed, people made fires in their houses in a hole or pit in the centre of the floor, under an opening formed in the roof; and when the fire was burnt out, or the family went to bed at night, the hole was shut by a cover of wood. In those periods a law was almost everywhere established, that the fire should be extinguished at a certain time in the evening; that the cover should be put over the fire-place; and that all the family should retire to rest, or at least be at home[953]. The time when this ought to be done was signified by the ringing of a bell. William the Conqueror introduced this law into England in the year 1068, and fixed the ignitegium at seven in the evening, in order to prevent nocturnal assemblies[954]; but this law was abolished by Henry I., in 1100. From this ancient practice has arisen, in my opinion, a custom in Lower Saxony of saying, when people wish to go home sooner than the company choose, that they hear the Bürgerglocke, burghers’ bell. The ringing of the curfew-bell gave rise also to the prayer-bell, as it was called, which has still been retained in some protestant countries. Pope John XXIII., with a view to avert certain apprehended misfortunes, which rendered his life uncomfortable, gave orders that every person, on hearing the ignitegium, should repeat the Ave Maria three times[955]. When the appearance of a comet and a dread of the Turks afterwards alarmed all Christendom, Pope Calixtus III. increased these periodical times of prayer by ordering the prayer-bell to be rung also at noon[956].
The oldest certain account of chimneys with which I am acquainted, occurs in the year 1347; for an inscription which is still existing or did exist at Venice, relates that at the above period a great many chimneys (molti camini) were thrown down by an earthquake[957]. This circumstance is confirmed by John Villani, the historian, who died at Florence in 1348, and who calls the chimneys fumajuoli[958]. Galeazzo Gataro, who in the Dictionary of Learned Men is named De Gataris, and who died of the plague in 1405, says in his History of Padua, which was afterwards improved and published by his son Andrew, that Francesco da Carraro, lord of Padua, came to Rome in the year 1368, and finding no chimneys in the hotel where he lodged, because at that time fire was kindled in a hole in the middle of the floor, he caused two chimneys, like those which had been long used at Padua, to be constructed, and arched by masons and carpenters whom he had brought along with him. Over these chimneys, the first ever seen at Rome, he affixed his arms, which were still remaining in the time of Gataro[959].
While chimneys continued to be built in so simple a manner, and of such a width as they are still observed to be in old houses, they were so easily cleaned that this service could be performed by a servant with a wisp of straw, or a little brushwood fastened to a rope; but after the flues, in order to save room, were made narrower, or when several flues were united together, the cleaning of them became so difficult, that they required boys, or people of small size, accustomed to that employment. The first chimney-sweepers in Germany came from Savoy, Piedmont, and the neighbouring territories[960]. These for a long time were the only countries where the cleaning of chimneys was followed as a trade; and I am thence inclined to conjecture that chimneys were invented in Italy[961], rather than that the Savoyards learned the art of climbing from the marmots or mountain-rats, as some have asserted[962]. These needy but industrious people chose and appropriated to themselves, perhaps, this occupation, because they could find no other so profitable. The Lotharingians, however, undertook this business also, and on that account the duke of Lotharingia was styled the Imperial Fire-master. The first Germans who condescended to clean chimneys appear to have been miners; and our chimney-sweepers still procure boys from the Hartz forest, who may be easily discovered by their language. The greater part of the chimney-sweepers (ramoneurs de cheminées) in Paris, at present, are Savoyards; and one may see there everywhere in the streets large groups of their boys[963], many of whom are not above eight years of age, and who, clad in linen frocks, will, when called upon, scramble up at the hazard of their lives, with their besoms and other instruments, through a narrow funnel often fifty feet in length, filled with soot and smoke, and in which they cannot breathe till they arrive at the top, in order to gain five sous; and even of this small pittance they are obliged to pay a part to their avaricious masters[964].
FOOTNOTES
[904] Winkelmann in his Observations on the Baths of the Ancients.
[905] The following are the principal authors in whose works information is to be found respecting this subject:—Octavii Ferrarii Electorum libri duo. Patavii 1679, 4to. This work consists of short treatises on different subjects of antiquity. The ninth chapter of the first book, page 32, has for title, “Fumaria, seu fumi emissaria, vulgo caminos, apud veteres in usu fuisse, disputatur.”
Justi Lipsii Epistolarum selectarum Chilias, 1613, 8vo. The seventy-fifth letter in Centuria tertia ad Belgas, page 921, treats of chimneys, with which the author says the Greeks and the Romans were unacquainted.
Eberharti a Weyhe Parergon De Camino. To save my readers the trouble which I have had in searching for this small treatise, I shall give them the following information: E. von Weyhe was a learned nobleman of our electorate, a particular account of whose life and writings may be found in Molleri Cimbria Litterata, vol. ii. p. 970. In the year 1612 he published Discursus de speculi origine, usu et abusu, Eberharti von Weyhe. This edition contains nothing on chimneys, nor is there any thing to be found respecting them in the second, inserted in Dornavii Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Socraticæ Joco-seriæ, Hanoviæ 1619, fol. i. p. 733. But this treatise was twice printed afterwards, as an appendix to the author’s Aulicus Politicus: Francf. 1615, and Wolfenb. 1622, in quarto; and in both these editions may be found at the end, Parergon de camino, inquirendi causa adjectum. In this short essay, which consists of only two pages, the author denies that the Jews, the Greeks, or the Romans had chimneys. Fabricius, in his Bibliograph. Antiquaria, does not quote Von Weyhe, either p. 1004, where he speaks of chimneys, or page 1014, where he speaks of looking-glasses.
Balthasaris Bonifacii Ludicra Historia. Venetiis 1652, 4to, lib. iii. cap. 23. De Caminis, p. 109. What this author says on the subject is of little importance.