Riband

Riband (pronounced rib-uh-nd)

(1) A decorative ribbon, especially one awarded for some achievement.

(2) A flat rail attached to posts in a palisade

(3) In heraldry, a narrow diminutive of the bend, thinner than a bendlet.

(4) An archaic form of ribbon with excrescent -d.

1350–1400: From the Middle English ribane, (the spelling ryban does exist in the record but it seems not to have attained much currency and may simply have been a mistake which briefly spread) from the Old French riban (ribbon), a variant of reuban & ruban, probably from a Germanic compound.  The spelling riband endures as descriptor of awards, often in polo or other equestrian hobbies of the horsey set although the informal phrase “blue riband event” is applied also to what is considered the premier contest in a particular competition.  This includes things like the men’s 100 metre sprint at the Olympics, the Melbourne Cup during the Spring Racing Carnival or the Monaco Grand Prix in Formula One's calendar.  The origin of this use is in the wide blue ribbon worn by members of the highest order of knighthood, L'Ordre des chevaliers du Saint-Esprit, instituted by Henri III (1551–1589; King of France 1574-1589) in 1578, an order colloquially known as “Le Cordon Bleus” (the Blue Ribbons).  From this the world of cooking adopted Cordon Bleu, the famous French cooking school, founded in 1895, where chefs wear blue cord on their aprons, a color scheme still seen in many chefs’ uniforms.  Ribband & ribbandry are nouns; the noun plural is ribbands.

Lindsay Lohan in Phillip Lim (b 1973) Runway Tiered Ribbon Shell, Apple Lounge Grand Opening, West Hollywood, California, August 2008

Tiered ribbon constructions are based on the idea of successive layers of ribbons assembled (usually horizontally) and stitched to create a fabric that can be used for a variety of designs.  Because of the modularity, the layering makes possible multi-coloring or shifts in the texture but most designers using the technique seem to prefer solid colors in the same material.  The tiered ribbon concept produces a look similar to that seen on the bandage dress (a subset of the bodycon motif) except that, emulating ribbons, the layers tend to be of lesser depth and the construction not "body hugging" in the way the bandage generates its effect.  The term is used also in the wedding cake business where a thick ribbon is used to encircle each layer of the cake, the idea thematically to in some way tie in with the ceremony's optics, bridesmaid's dresses or table napkins often the match.  With the bride's gown, table cloths and cake icing all in white, Prussian blue is a good choice.

Young lady with tiered (panelled) dress.  The car is a first generation (1966-1969) 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS Sport Coupe; this was the last season cars could be sold in the US without side-marker lights and the Camaro’s final appearance with quarter-vent windows, the 1968 range introducing the “Astro Ventilation” system, Chevrolet’s “groovy” term for “flow-through ventilation”.

In dressmaking, although tiered (panelled), bandage and ribbon dresses use variations of the same visual effect (and often the same technique of construction), the term “ribbon” is, by convention, restricted to designs in which the successive “layers” are narrow enough to suggest an aspect ratio similar to the ribbons typically used in the wrapping of presents or to tie plaits, pony-tails and such.  What all three types have in common is that despite the appearance, not all are built with separate pieces of fabric, some a single length of material with an illusion of “separateness” (specifically un-gathered horizontal tiers (also referred to as horizontal piecing or banded construction)) created by strategic stitching.  Although the concept is simple, execution of any of these demands precision because each seam (or its emulation) needs exactly to be parallel with  all others regardless of the detail differences.  While most tiered dresses gather each lower band for volume, a “straight column” or “sheath” skirt can be built from successive horizontal panels sewn together edge-to-edge. This creates visible horizontal seam lines down the length of the garment, the advantage of this being the line is preserved without additional fullness.  Although it may seem “fussy detailing”, designers often use tiers on straight skirts because the horizontal bands creates an “architectural structure”, the “visual breaks” in the long, narrow silhouette there for the same reason such things appear on buildings or cars with a large expanse of otherwise flat panel-work.  Done well, it can demand a close inspection to determine whether the seamstress has used separate pieces of fabric or emulated the look with ticked or lapped seams.  The bandage dress is quite specific to the “bodycon” genre but, as a general principle, the tiered technique can be used for just about any style of skirt or dress although designers caution that with any accessories, it’s usually better to conform to the “horizontal motif”.  For those wishing to use the effect to the greatest the empire-line is recommended.

Mr Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (b 1960, formerly Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Admiral, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (an order of chivalry founded in 1348)).  Because of some "unpleasantness", he's now prohibited from donning his many military uniforms but remains entitled to wear his medals or the associated ribbon bars (although the latter are usually not paired with civilian dress).

Ribbon dates from the 1520s and was from the English riban, ryban & ryband, from Old French riban & ruban (persisting in modern French as ruban).  The origin is murky but etymologists suspect the source was likely from a Germanic compound with a second element cognate with English band (the Middle Dutch ringhband (necklace) translates literally as “ring-band”.  The Middle English forms displaced the native Old English þwǣle (strip, ribbon).  The modern spelling was (more or less) standardized in the sixteenth century, describing a “stripe in fabric”, the sense of a "narrow woven band of some find material" for ornamental or other purposes known by the 1520s while the familiar meaning (long, thin, flexible strips) dates from 1763.  The use to describe the "ink-soaked strip wound on a spool for use on a typewriter" was from 1883 and the idea of a “torn strip of anything” was in use by 1820 while the sense as a verb (adorn with ribbons) was in use by at least 1715.  The custom of wearing colored ribbon loops on the lapel to declare support for a cause (pink for breast cancer, copper for herpes etc) began is 1991 with AIDS red ribbons and there’s now such an array that of the hundreds of causes now ribboned, there are many duplications so the fabric (or its representation) sometimes include text, the other differentiation being to use multiple colors, teal & purple for example claimed by the suicide awareness community.  In military use, "ribbon bars" (or "military ribbons) are small, mounted fabric representations of military medals, decorations, or service awards worn on uniform dress shirts or service coats when full-sized medals are not appropriate.  The ribbon bars are a "slice" of the full ribbon used to connects the suspension to the brooch; made originally of silk synthetic materials such as polyester are now common.

Over 500-odd years, words fall in and out of fashion.

Google Ngram (a quantitative and not qualitative measure): Because of the way Google harvests data for their Ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, Ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts (typically a scanner might misread an “f” for a long “s” or a “u” for an “n”) of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI (artificial intelligence) should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested. 

SS United States.

Although not formalized until 1935, the Trans-Atlantic Blue Riband is the honor awarded to the passenger liner in regular service crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest time (and thus the highest average speed).  Over more than a century, 35 liners have held the record, the accolade first (retrospectively) won by the British SS Sirius which, in May 1838, took 15 days to cross at 7.31 knots (13.54 km/h), the last by the SS United States which in 1952 made 35.59 knots (65.91 km/h).  The 1952 mark (set over 3 day, 10 hours, 40 minutes) remains unbroken; those vessels that subsequently have achieved higher speeds have not been ocean liners and the fastest have been built specifically to set the record.  Other awards have been created to acknowledge the absolute speed records in various classes of competition so the Blue Riband remains historically unique.  Once both the fastest, safest and most economical way to make the crossing, it was the advent of the jet-age that doomed the fast ocean-liner.  The Boeing 707 and Douglas DC8 both began regular trans-Atlantic services in 1958 and the business of the big ships went into decline, revived periodically during periods of economic buoyancy as cruise liners with an emphasis on packaged tourism for the middle-class and luxury for the rich rather than speed so the record of the SS United States seems unlikely to be broken.  Although as early as the mid-1950s piston-engine aircraft had eroded the market, by 1960 the jets made it clear the universe had shifted and the days of the mass-market trans-Atlantic liners were almost done. 

A “ribbon braid” and hoodie combo in (of course) pink.  Babes in Hairland provides detailed instructions for constructing (that really is the best word) a ribbon braid.  The concept is simple but execution demanding; it takes much practice to produce a result as accomplished as this.

Without the need for speed, the cruise ships have got bigger and what were once called “floating hotels” are now better imagined as “floating towns”, some with a capacity of close to 10,000 passengers and crew (including a maximum 7,600 passengers although most go to sea with fewer than 6,500).  The term “big ship” certainly has assumed a new significance in the twenty-first century, the largest maintained by the cruise operators measuring 1,198 feet (365 metres or close to ¼ mile) stem to stern with a gross displacement over a quarter-million tons.  By comparison, the largest Dreadnought (battleship) ever launched was the IJN’s (Imperial Japanese Navy) 大和 (Yamato, 1940-1945) and she was 863 feet (263 metres) in length, displacing 72,000 tons.  The biggest of the modern cruise ships are rated for some 23 knots (42 km/h) and while as an exercise in nautical architecture it would in theory be possible to build an ocean liner able (under ideal conditions) to cross the Atlantic at 50 knots (93 km/h) or more while carrying at least as many passengers as the SS United States (around 2,000), such a venture would not be economically viable because demand at the price point(s) required to ensure profitability would not exist.

Last days afloat for USS United States: Moored in Florida awaiting scuttling.

The only traditional ocean liner still sometimes used for the crossing is the RMS Queen Mary 2 (in service since 2004) and although in sea trials able to achieve 30 knots (56 km/h), her usual operating maximum is 26 knots (48 km/h).  In truth, even the Blue Riband winning run in 1952 was not typical of trans-Atlantic operations, the speed achieved at the cost of fuel consumption, the excess volume carried and burned over the 3½ days unsustainable in any commercial operation; the one-off sprint for the ship's maiden voyage was a publicity stunt to ensure the US regained the title from the British, the RMS Queen Mary between 10-14 August, having crossed in 3 days, 20 hours, 42 minutes at 31.69 knots (58.69 km/h).  Because most mail transported over distances is now carried by air, “RMS” (Royal Mail Ship) is now mostly a historic relic with the UK’s Royal Mail usually granting warrants for the prefix to be used only on the handful of vessels still used for the purpose.  Despite no longer being a mail carrier, Cunard’s Royal Mary 2 was granted an “RMS” because of the line’s long tradition.  When introduced in the nineteenth century the “SS” prefix stood for “Single-screw steamship” but, as technology evolved, use was clipped to a generic “steam ship”.  As a footnote, the tale that in 1945 the board of S.S. Cars in England voted to change the company’s name to “Jaguar” because of unpleasant memories of the Nazi era SS is an urban myth, the re-branding made just to achieve distinctiveness in the marketplace (ie product differentiation).

The SS (ᛋᛋ in Armanen runes; Schutzstaffel (literally “protection squadron” but translated variously as “protection squad”, “security section” etc)) was formed (under different names) in 1923 as a Nazi party squad to provide security at public meetings (then often rowdy and violet affairs) and was later re-purposed as a personal bodyguard for Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945).  The SS name was adopted in 1925 and during the Third Reich the institution evolved into a vast economic, industrial and military apparatus more than two million strong to the point where some historians (and contemporaries) regarded it as a kind of “state within a state”.  The Waffen-SS (armed SS (ie equipped with military-grade weapons)) existed on a small scale as early as 1933 before Hitler’s agreement was secured to create a formation at divisional strength and growth was gradual even after the outbreak of hostilities in 1939; it was the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 that triggered the Waffen-SS’s expansion into a multi-national armoured force with over 700,000 men under arms.  As well as the SS’s role in the administration of the many concentration and extermination camps, the Waffen-SS widely was implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

SS United States (upper) and SS America (lower), New York Harbor, 7 April, 1963 with the Manhattan skyline in the background.  This was a postcard issued by the Steelograph Company, One Broadway, New York City.

SS America had a desultory and often unhappy career after in 1964 being sold by USL (United States Line), her end coming in 1994 when she ran around in the Canary Islands while under tow to Thailand where a refit as a floating hotel was planned.  Over the decades, rough seas broke up the wreck and by 2026, even at low tide, nothing remained visible.  SS United States remained in trans-Atlantic service even after ceasing to be profitable and, in a sigh of the times, USL struck it from their active list in 1969, the year in which the Anglo-French SST (supersonic transport) Concorde and Boeing 747 “jumbo-jet” undertook their maiden flights.  Between 1969 and 2026, remarkably, she never re-entered service or fulfilled any commercial purpose, instead passing between owners who had a variety of plans, all of which were abandoned once accountants, with due diligence, ran the numbers.  Finally, after all those peripatetic years moving from port to port, on Wednesday 11 November, 2026 (a day ahead of schedule to avoid bad weather), she was taken in tow and scuttled some 22 nautical miles north-west of Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Florida, creating (at 990 feet (302 metres) stem to stern) the planet's largest artificial reef, open as a shared space to both fish and divers.  The latter are able to use coordinates 30^o 07.148' N, 86^o 46.755' W (30.119133° N, 86.779250° W in decimal degrees) to locate the wreck's offshore deployment site, the former left to their own devices.  The event was live-streamed.

Chamber

Chamber (pronounced cheym-ber)

(1) A room, usually private, in a house or apartment, especially a bedroom (now archaic or poetic).

(2) A reception room or audience room in an official residence, palace, etc.

(3) The meeting hall of a legislative or other assembly.

(4) In law, a place where a judge hears matters not requiring action in open court.

(5) In England, the quarters or rooms that lawyers use to consult with their clients, especially in the Inns of Court.

(6) A legislative, judicial, or other like body.

(7) An organization of individuals or companies for a specified purpose.

(8) The place where the moneys due a government are received and kept; a treasury or chamberlain's office (obsolete).

(9) As chamberlet, a small chamber.

(10) Of or relating to, or performing chamber music.

(11) To put or enclose in, or as in, a chamber.

(12) To provide with a chamber.

(13) The space between two gates of the locks of a canal, dry dock, etc

(14) An enclosure for a cartridge in the cylinder of a revolver or for a shell in the breech of a cannon.

(15) An enclosed space, compartment or cavity; the smallest chamber in a cave.

1175-1225: From the Middle English chamber (a room in a (usually private) house) from the eleventh century Old French chambre (room, chamber, apartment), derived from the Late Latin camera (a chamber, room), variant of camara (vaulted room) from the Ancient Greek kamára.  In an interesting linguistic twist, the Old French and Middle English words were also used alone and in combinations to form words for "latrine, privy" from the idea of the "bedroom utensil for containing urine".  The word in the fourteenth century was adopted for use in to anatomy in the sense of "an enclosed space in a body" and this was extended to machinery after 1769, the use in gunnery or ballistics meaning  "part of the bore in which the charge is placed" dating from the 1620s.  The familiar use to refer to the rooms where legislative bodies assemble (ie upper & lower chambers) has been in use since circa 1400.  Chamber music dates from 1789; the distinction being it described a type of music meant to be performed in private rooms instead of public halls.  Chamber-lye, disturbingly to modern ears, meant "urine used as a detergent" and dates from the 1570s and the obviously related chamber-pot (also chamberpot) (vessel for urine used in bedrooms) came into use a decade earlier.  A chambermaid was (1) a female servant who dresses a lady and waits on her in her bedchamber and (2) a woman who makes beds and cleans rooms in a private house, palace or inn, a form which emerged in the 1580s and obviously derived from bedchamber (also bed-chamber) (a room for sleep or repose) which had been in use since the mid-fourteenth century.  Bedchamber is now archaic and used only in relation to royalty (an then mostly in historic reference), expensive hotels and hopeful real-estate salespeople.  The verb chamber was in the late fourteenth century derived from the noun and was used in the sense of (1) to restrain, shut up as in a chamber and (2) to furnish with a chamber" (implied in chambered); the related form was chambering.  The adjective chambered (divided into chambers) was from the same era and was the past-participle adjective the verb.  The famous reference to nautilus shells dates from 1819.  Chamber & chambering are nouns & verbs, chamberful & chamberer are nouns, chambered is a verb & adjective, chamberless & chamberlike are adjectives; the noun plural is chambers.

The cult of the combustion chamber.

In an ICE (internal combustion engine), the combustion chamber is the (temporarily) sealed space in which a quantity of fuel and air is compressed and then ignited (ie the mix is combusted), the energy released moving a piston or rotor, that energy subsequently transferred by a series of mechanical connections so the movement (transferred energy) can be applied to some purpose.  All else being equal, the larger the chamber and the more of them, the more energy can be produced, expressed usually as power or torque.  In an ICE, these ignitions happen thousands of times a second so the transfer of energy from the fuel to a mechanical action can be considerable.  Combustion chamber design has for well over a century occupied the time of engineers and a number of “standard types” emerged including the “wedge”, “hemi” “poly” and “swirl”.  For those designing a device for a single purpose the task can be a relatively simple quest for optimal efficiency (for short-duration purposes such as drag or sprint racing when all that matters is power & torque) whereas if there are a number of parameters it’s a matter of balancing out competing specific efficiencies (in endurance racing, economy matters as well as power & torque).  In mass production units for general sale, as well as striking a balance between output and economy, engineers also have to factor in the cost & ease of manufacture as well as (for the last 60-odd years) the toxicity of emissions.

Smith & Wesson Model 648 .22 WMR Revolver.  In a revolver, the bullets are housed in chambers (typically between 5 & 10) in the revolving cylinder.

Popular in the “female market” (in the US, a sector for some years exhibiting consistent growth) and something of a “sweet spot” for small-game-hunting and plinking (recreational target shooting), the .22 Magnum cartridge is suitable for both handguns and long-arms; inherently an accurate cartridge, the ballistics out of a 6-inch (150 mm) barrel handgun are at least equal to those of a 22 LR out of a 24-inch (610 mm) barrel rifle.  Smith & Wesson’s 648 was produced in runs between 1989-1996 and 2003-2005, the re-introduction in 2020 much welcomed.  The most recent edition uses a stainless steel version of S&W’s 6-inch K-Frame barrel with an 8-chamber cylinder.

The Court of Star Chamber

The former Court of Star Chamber (1836), engraving by unknown artist, published in Edward Walford’s (1823-1897) Old & New London (Volume 3, 1881), reproducing a visual record of the historic chamber shortly before it was demolished.

Named for the star pattern on the ceiling of the room in Westminster Palace where sittings were convened, the Court of Star Chamber (known almost always as the Star Chamber), was an English law court that operated in parallel with the common-law courts although its authority was drawn directly from the king's sovereign power and privileges; it was not bound by the common law or legal precedent.  Created originally to ensure the enforcement of laws against the socially and politically well-connected (those "ordinary" courts often for whatever reason hesitant to convict "the rich"), the Star Chamber evolved from the medieval King's Council.  There had been a tradition of the king presiding over a court composed of his Privy Counsellors and in 1487, under the supervision of Henry VII (1457–1509; King of England 1485-1509 and the first Tudor king), the Court of Star Chamber was established as a judicial body separate from the council (analogous with the way by the nineteenth century the courts of final appeal referred to as (1) the House of Lords and (2) the Privy Council had become specialized bodies with a small, judicially qualified membership while retaining the existing names).  The original rationale was for the Star Chamber to (1) oversee the lower courts, (2) act as a court of appeal and (3) hear petitions seeking redress addressed to the king.  Initially, the court heard cases only on appeal, but Henry VIII's (1491–1547; King of England 1509-1547) chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1473–1530; Lord High Chancellor of England 1515-1529) encouraged suitors directly to lodge writs of appeal and not await verdicts from the common-law courts (a concept that might have appeal for some modern-day litigants and lawyers).  Although most of the cases heard involved property rights, trade, government administration and public corruption, the Tudors especially were concerned with public disorder and Cardinal Wolsey referred matters involving forgery, fraud, perjury, riot, slander, and anything else he considered a breach of the peace. Following the Reformation, the Star Chamber was used (and much misused) to punish religious dissenters.

Procedurally the Star Chamber would begin a case with a petition or with information brought to the attention of the judges and depositions would be taken to discover the facts.  Accused parties could be put on oath to respond to the charges and answer detailed questions. No juries were used; members of the court decided whether to hear cases, passed verdicts and assigned punishments.  Structurally, the court was thus a hybrid with influences from the common law, Roman civil law, developments in Chancery (equity) law and the Court of Exchequer.  Interestingly, the court did not have capital jurisdiction so instead declared its choice of punishment was wholly arbitrary and not at all governed by precedent, guidelines or laws, judges able to choose (indeed even invent) the punishment(s) they felt most appropriate to the crime or criminal and on the bench there were some imaginative folk.  The sentences handed down included fines, time in the pillory (stocks), whipping, branding, mutilation or imprisonment for any length of time.  In Australia, there are critics of the NSW (New South Wales) ICAC (Independent Commission against corruption) who compare its operations with the Star Chamber; in this they’re only partially correct in that there are some procedural similarities but the comparison is not valid regarding punishments.

Tucked up: Lindsay Lohan in her bedchamber under tufted bedhead.

The Star Chamber offered an expeditious resolution to legal conflicts. It was popular with the Tudors because quickly it could enforce the law (or the will of the king when the letter of the law proved tiresome) when other courts were slow or tainted by corruption.  In royal circles it was valued because it could be relied upon to deliver "satisfactory remedies" in cases  where the common law restricted punishments able to be inflicted or failed to address specific infractions.  These days, some might call it "judicially efficient".  Under the Tudors, Star Chamber hearings were held in public, proceedings and verdicts subject to inspection, that alone inducing most judges to act with reason and try to deliver fair justice; it was in the seventeenth century, the court evolved into something secretive and corrupt, the Stuarts using the court to enforce their royal proclamations (ancestor of the "executive order" now much associated with the White House), holding sessions in secret and allowing no appeals.  Charles I (1600–1649; King of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1625-1649) saw the court as a substitute for Parliament when he tried to govern without calling the legislature into session and resentment grew as the Stuarts used the court to prosecute members of the nobility who otherwise would not be subject to prosecution in common-law courts.  The Long Parliament in 1641 abolished the Star Chamber and, except in historic references, the term "star chamber" is now almost always pejorative and used to describe social and political oppression through the arbitrary use and abuse of the powers wielded (in political science, the doctrine of separation of powers is held to be the most effective means to prevent abuse of power by the state; at its most simple, it means the executive can no longer in individual cases impose the sanctions of criminal law, a function belonging exclusively to the courts.  The verbal shorthand for the concept is "judicial independence".

Not often was the Court of Star Chamber a cause for mirth but William Shakespeare (1564–1616) found a way in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602), Justice Shallow in Act 1, Scene 1 saying: “Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.”  The context was the carefully named Justice Shallow, an arrogant, pompous provincial magistrate from Gloucestershire, was furious because Sir John Falstaff and his followers had insulted and robbed him and his cousin.  That this petty crime was not the sort of thing to come before the Star Chamber was the joke, showing Shallow’s puffed-up sense of self-importance and legal pedantry.  The Court of Star Chamber was a classic example of an institution that “seemed a good idea at the time” that came, through a process of “mission creep” later to be "re-purposed" and misused to the extent it became something worse than the problems it was created to solve.  The early records are sketchy so the origins are obscure but the critical point was that despite the creation of several layers of courts and the evolution of the English common law, no sovereign ever surrendered their “supreme jurisdiction” and by the thirteenth century, when sessions of the King's Council became regular (and functionally distinct from parliament), this residual supreme jurisdiction continued to be exercised by the King in council.  What happened was that as the common law administered by the courts introduced (by the operation of precedent) a certain predictability, the more erratic judgments handed down by the council (a body with unlimited jurisdiction) resulted in an increasing volume of complaints but, such was the state of constitutional development (essentially the balance of power between the king and parliament), successive parliaments had little success in effecting reforms.

Sir Edward Coke (published 1792), line engraving by Thomas Trotter (circa 1750-1803), after a portrait by Cornelius Johnson (Cornelius Janssen van Ceulen, 1593-1661), published by publisher & bookseller Thomas Cadell the Elder (1742-1802), National Portrait Gallery, London.

As late as the nineteenth century, historians were still writing of the Star Chamber (after operating for a half-century odd) “ceasing to exist” towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) with the court’s powers reverting to the Council.  The extant records are contradictory but whatever the terminology used, it would seem a deliberative body at least “Star Chamber-like” sat concurrently with the Council and, by whatever processes, the two bodies were again separate institutions late in the reign of Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603).  The murkiness seems to stem from the Act of 1540 including the phrase “in the Star Chamber or elsewhere” and this may explain why it became difficult to determine a clear distinction between the duties of the Privy Council and those of the Star Chamber; essentially, it wasn’t clear in what capacity members were sitting and there’s little to suggest they made jurisdictional distinctions.

The uncertainty is illustrated in the writings of eminent jurist Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634 Chief Justice of the King's Bench 1613–1616) who observed the Star Chamber “is (or may be) compounded of three several councils: (1) the Lords and others of the Privy Council; (2) the judges of either bench and the barons of the Exchequer; (3) the Lords of Parliament, who are not, however, standing judges of the court.”  Sir Edward usually is regarded as authoritative but William Hudson (circa 1577-1935), an advocate who practiced before the court, in 1621 claimed all peers had the right of sitting in the court and it’s not clear when that right was extinguished but definitely the privilege did not exist late in the seventeenth century.  Hudson’s Treatise of the court of Star Chamber (1621) was a quite strident defence of the Star Chamber, a response to complaints about the body’s haphazard ways with the records of pleadings and judgements.  Critics compared the court’s inconsistent, unstructured approach with the at least semi-codified methods by then adopted by Westminster’s other courts and found a “lack of diligence”, claiming the Star Chamber was no “settled, ordinary court of justice”, nor a “court of ordinary justice ever tied to form” but effectively “a committee for such great causes as it pleased the king”.  Hudson did not deny the administrative neglect but observed it was something new, the court in former times a model of record-keeping.  By the time Parliament abolished the Star Chamber, one of the distinctions MPs drew between it and what they deemed the “ordinary, legitimate courts of common law” was precisely that the former had no proper record whereas the latter did.

The Court of Star Chamber, Westminster (undated), lithograph by unknown artist, The National and Domestic History of England (circa 1890) by William Hickman Smith Aubrey (1858-1916).

That grumble really was a product of how “records” was defined.  The court produced an abundance of material, just not in the predictable, structured form used by other courts, a form that would come to be accepted as the proceedings of a “court of record” (ancestor of the modern law report).  If judged by volume alone, the Star Chamber certainly was productive, its documents including lengthy bills in the form of petitions through to rejoinders, demurrers, interrogatories, and depositions.  In a modern phrase, that was "a lot of data but not much information", lawyers finding it difficult to “mine” all this stuff for findings or facts, let alone incontrovertible determinations.  As an outgrowth of the authority of the sovereign, the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was as vague as its constitution, Hudson making the point it was “impossible to define” without offending the supporters of “the prerogative” by a limitation of its powers, or the advocates by attributing to it “an excessive latitude”.  Given that, it’s hardly surprising the jurisdiction remained effectively close to unlimited and the vista was extraordinary, encompassing from time-to-time riots, murder, forgery, felony, perjury, fraud, libel and slander, duels and acts tending to treason, as well as of some civil matters, such as disputes about land between great men and corporations, disputes between English and foreign merchants, and testamentary cases.  It can be understood only as analogous to a delegation of the powers of an absolute monarch dispensing justice from his throne and that was of course the body's medieval root.  As Hudson put it: “All offences may be here examined and punished if the King will.”  Not constrained by the limitations and guideposts of the common law, Hudson’s critique was summed-up by a later reviewer as: “Its procedure was not according to the Common Law; it dispensed with the encumbrance of a jury; it could proceed on rumour alone; it could apply torture; it could inflict any penalty but death.”

The paradox of such an institution was that it was thus “admirably calculated to be the support of order against anarchy, or of despotism against individual and national liberty.”  So it proved, operating in the former light under the Stuarts and in the latter under the Tudors, shifting from “a tribunal constantly resorted to as a resource against the ignorance or prejudices of a country jury” where, in such investigations “it showed itself intelligent and impartial.”  Under the Stuarts, the Star Chamber became “the great engine of the royal tyranny” with “hateful and excessive punishments inflicted on those brought it judges”.  Amusingly, despite that perception, even as late as 1629 the Barons of the Exchequer felt moved to observe the Star Chamber was “one of the most high and honourable courts of justice.”  Although in 1641 abolished by an act of parliament, twenty years later the "gap in the judicial market" was considered by a committee of the House of Lords, their lordships reporting “that it was fit for the good of the nation that there be a court of like nature to the Star Chamber.”  The mood had however shifted and the matter wasn’t pursued.

Chair

Chair (pronounced cherr)

(1) A seat, especially if designed for one person, usually with four legs (though other designs are not uncommon) for support and a rest for the back, sometimes with rests for the arms (as distinct from a sofa, stool, bench etc).

(2) Something which serves as a chair or provides chair-like support (often used in of specialized medical devices) and coined as required (chairlift, sedan chair, wheelchair etc).

(3) A seat of office or authority; a position of authority such as a judge.

(4) In academic use, a descriptor of a professorship.

(5) The person occupying a seat of office, especially the chairperson (the nominally gendered term “chairman” sometimes still used, even of female or non-defined chairs).

(6) In an orchestra, the position of a player, assigned by rank (1^st chair, 2^nd chair etc).

(7) In informal use, an ellipsis of electric chair (often in the phrase “Got the chair” (ie received a death sentence)).

(8) In structural engineering, the device used in reinforced-concrete construction to maintain the position of reinforcing rods or strands during the pouring operation.

(9) In glass-blowing, a glassmaker's bench having extended arms on which a blowpipe is rolled in shaping glass.

(10) In railroad construction, a metal block for supporting a rail and securing it to a crosstie or the like (mostly UK).

(11) To place or seat in a chair.

(12) To install in office.

(13) To preside over a committee, board, tribunal etc or some ad hoc gathering; to act as a chairperson.

(14) To carry someone aloft in a sitting position after a triumph or great achievement (mostly UK and performed after victories in sport).

(15) In chemistry, one of two possible conformers of cyclohexane rings (the other being boat), shaped roughly like a chair.

(16) A vehicle for one person; either a sedan chair borne upon poles, or a two-wheeled carriage drawn by one horse (also called a gig) (now rare).

(17) To award a chair to the winning poet at an eisteddfod (exclusive to Wales).

1250-1300: From the Middle English chayer, chaire, chaiere, chaere, chayre & chayere, from the Old French chaiere & chaere (chair, seat, throne), from the Latin cathedra (seat), from the Ancient Greek καθέδρα (kathédra), the construct being κατά (katá) (down) + ἕδρα (hédra) (seat).  It displaced the native stool and settle, which shifted to specific meanings.  The twelfth century modern French chaire (pulpit, throne) in the sixteenth century separated in meaning when the more furniture came to be known as a chaise (chair).  Chair is a noun & verb and chaired & chairing are verbs; the noun plural is chairs.

The figurative sense of "seat of office or authority" emerged at the turn of the fourteenth century and originally was used of professors & bishops (there once being rather more overlap between universities and the Church).  That use persisted despite the structural changes in both institutions but it wasn’t until 1816 the meaning “office of a professor” was extended from the mid-fifteenth century sense of the literal seat from which a professor conducted his lectures.  Borrowing from academic practice, the general sense of “seat of a person presiding at meeting” emerged during the 1640s and from this developed the idea of a chairman, although earliest use of the verb form “to chair a meeting” appears as late as 1921.  Although sometimes cited as indicative of the “top-down” approach taken by second-wave feminism, although it was in the 1980s that the term chairwoman (woman who leads a formal meeting) first attained general currency, it had actually been in use since 1699, a coining apparently thought needed for mere descriptive accuracy rather than an early shot in the culture wars, chairman (occupier of a chair of authority) having been in use since the 1650s and by circa 1730 it had gained the familiar meaning “member of a corporate body appointed to preside at meetings of boards or other supervisor bodies”.  By the 1970s however, the culture wars had started and the once innocuous “chairwoman” was to some controversial, as was the gender-neutral alternative “chairperson” which seems first to have appeared in 1971.  Now, most seem to have settled on “chair" which seems unobjectionable although presumably, linguistic structuralists could claim it’s a clipping of (and therefore implies) “chairman”.

Chairbox offers a range of “last shift” coffin-themed chairs, said to be ideal for those "stuck in a dead-end job, sitting on a chair in a cubicle".  The available finishes include walnut (left) and for those who enjoy being reminded of cremation, charcoal wood can be used for the seating area (right).  An indicative list price is Stg£8300 (US$10,400) for a Last Shift trimmed in velvet.

The slang use as a short form of electric chair dates from 1900 and was used to refer both to the physical device and the capital sentence.  In interior decorating, the chair-rail was a timber molding fastened to a wall at such a height as would prevent the wall being damaged by the backs of chairs.  First documented in 1822, chair rails are now made also from synthetic materials.  The noun wheelchair (also wheel-chair) dates from circa 1700, and one so confined is said sometimes to be “chair bound”.  The high-chair (an infant’s seat designed to make feeding easier) had probably been improvised for centuries but was first advertised in 1848.  The term easy chair (a chair designed especially for comfort) dates from 1707.  The armchair (also arm-chair), a "chair with rests for the elbows", although a design of long-standing, was first so-described in the 1630s and the name outlasted the contemporary alternative (elbow-chair).  The adjectival sense, in reference to “criticism of matters in which the critic takes no active part” (armchair critic, armchair general etc) dates from 1879.  In academic use, although in the English-speaking world the use of “professor” seems gradually to be changing to align with US practice, the term “chair” continues in its traditional forms: There are chairs (established professorships), named chairs (which can be ancient or more recent creations which acknowledge the individual, family or institution providing the endowment which funds the position), personal chairs (whereby the title professor (in some form) is conferred on an individual although no established position exists), honorary chairs (unpaid appointments) and even temporary chairs (which means whatever the institution from time-to-time says it means).

In universities, the term “named chair” refers usually to a professorship endowed with funds from a donor, typically bearing the name of the donor or whatever title they nominate and the institution agrees is appropriate.  On rare occasions, named chairs have been created to honor an academic figure of great distinction (usually someone with a strong connection with the institution) but more often the system exists to encourage endowments which provide financial support for the chair holder's salary, research, and other academic activities.  For a donor, it’s a matter both of legacy & philanthropy in that a named chair is one of the more subtle and potentially respectable forms of public relations and a way to contribute to teaching & research in a field of some interest or with a previous association.

Professor Michael Simons (official photograph issued by Yale University's School of Medicine).

So it can be a win-win situation but institutions do need to practice due diligence in the process of naming or making appointments to named chairs as a long running matter at Yale University demonstrates.  In 2013, an enquiry convened by Yale found Professor Michael Simons (b 1957) guilty of sexual harassment and suspended him as Chief of Cardiology at the School of Medicine.  Five years on, the professor accused Yale of “punishing him again” for the same conduct in a gender-discriminatory effort to appease campus supporters of the #MeToo movement which had achieved national prominence.  That complaint was prompted when Professor Simons was in 2018 appointed to, and then asked to resign from a named chair, the Robert W Berliner Professor of Medicine, endowed by an annual grant of US$500,000 from the family of renal physiologist, Robert Berliner (1915-2002).  Professor Simons took his case to court and early in 2024 at a sitting of federal court ruled, he obtained a ruling in his favour, permitting him to move to trial, Yale’s motion seeing a summary judgment in all matters denied, the judge fining it appropriate that two of his complaints (one on the basis of gender discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and one under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act (1972)) should be heard before a jury.  The trial judge noted in his judgment that there appeared to be a denial of due process in 1918 and that happened at a time when (as was not disputed), Yale was “the subject of news reports criticizing its decision to reward a sexual harasser with an endowed chair.”

What the documents presented in Federal court revealed was that Yale’s handling of the matter had even within the institution not without criticism.  In 2013 the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct found the professor guilty of sexual harassment and he was suspended (but not removed) as chief of cardiology at the School of Medicine.  Internal documents subsequently leaked to the New York Times (NYT) revealed there were 18 faculty members dissatisfied with that outcome and a week after the NYT sought comment from Yale, it was announced Simons would be removed from the position entirely and in November 2014, the paper reported that Yale had also removed him from his position as director of its Cardiovascular Research Center.  Simons alleges that these two additional actions were taken in response to public reaction to the stories published by the NYT but the university disputed that, arguing the subsequent moves were pursuant to the findings of an internal “360 review” of his job performance.  In 2018, Simons was asked to relinquish the Berliner chair on the basis he would be appointed instead to another endowed chair.  In the documents Simons filed in Federal Court, this request came after “one or more persons … sympathetic to the #MeToo movement” contacted the Berliner family encouraging them to demand that the University remove Simons from the professorship, prompting Yale, “fearing a backlash from the #MeToo activists and hoping to placate them,” to “began exploring” his removal from the chair.

School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

Later in 2018, Simons was duly appointed to another named chair, prompting faculty members, students and alumni to send an open letter to Yale’s president expressing “disgust and disappointment” at the appointment.  The president responded with a formal notice to Simmons informing him he had 24 hours to resign from the chair, and Simmons also alleges he was told by the president of “concerns” the institution had about the public criticism.  In October 2019, Simons filed suit against Yale (and a number of individuals) on seven counts: breach of contract, breach of the implied warranty of fair dealing, wrongful discharge, negligent infliction of emotional distress, breach of privacy, and discrimination on the basis of gender under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.   Three of these (wrongful discharge, negligent infliction of emotional distress and breach of privacy) were in 2020 struck-out in Federal Court and this was the point at which Yale sought summary judgment for the remainder.  This was partially granted but the judge held that the matter of gender discrimination in violation of Title VII and Title IX needed to be decided by a jury.  A trial date has not yet been set but it will be followed with some interest.  While all cases are decided on the facts presented, it’s expected the matter may be an indication of the current state of the relative strength of “black letter law” versus “prevailing community expectations”.

Personal chair: Lindsay Lohan adorning a chair.

The Roman Catholic Church’s dogma of papal infallibility holds that a pope’s rulings on matters of faith and doctrine are infallibility correct and cannot be questioned.  When making such statements, a pope is said to be speaking ex cathedra (literally “from the chair” (of the Apostle St Peter, the first pope)).  Although ex cathedra pronouncements had been issued since medieval times, as a point of canon law, the doctrine was codified first at the First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican (Vatican I; 1869–1870) in the document Pastor aeternus (shepherd forever).  Since Vatican I, the only ex cathedra decree has been Munificentissimus Deus (The most bountiful God), issued by Pius XII (1876–1958; pope 1939-1958) in 1950, in which was declared the dogma of the Assumption; that the Virgin Mary "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory".  Pius XII never made explicit whether the assumption preceded or followed earthly death, a point no pope has since discussed although it would seem of some theological significance.  Prior to the solemn definition of 1870, there had been decrees issued ex cathedra.  In Ineffabilis Deus (Ineffable God (1854)), Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an important point because of the theological necessity of Christ being born free of sin, a notion built upon by later theologians as the perpetual virginity of Mary.  It asserts that Mary "always a virgin, before, during and after the birth of Jesus Christ", explaining the biblical references to brothers of Jesus either as children of Joseph from a previous marriage, cousins of Jesus, or just folk closely associated with the Holy Family.

Technically, papal infallibility may have been invoked only the once since codification but since the early post-war years, pontiffs have found ways to achieve the same effect, John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) & Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) both adept at using what was in effect a personal decree a power available to one who sits at the apex of what is in constitutional terms an absolute theocracy.  Critics have called this phenomenon "creeping infallibility" and its intellectual underpinnings own much to the tireless efforts of Benedict XVI while he was head of the Inquisition (by then called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and now renamed the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF)) during the late twentieth century.  The Holy See probably doesn't care but DDF is also the acronym, inter-alia, for "drug & disease free" and (in gaming) "Doom definition file".  There's also the DDF Network which is an aggregator of pornography content.

The “chair” photo (1963) of Christine Keeler (1942-2017) by Hong Kong Chinese photographer Lewis Morley (1925-2013) (left) and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer (b 1961) in Scandal (1989, a Harvey Weinstein (b 1952) production) (centre).  The motif was reprised by Taiwanese-American photographer Yu Tsai (b 1975) in his sessions for the Lindsay Lohan Playboy photo-shoot; it was used for the cover of the magazine’s January/February 2012 issue (right).  Ms Lohan wore shoes for some of the shoot but these were still "nudes" because "shoes don't count"; everybody knows that. 

The Profumo affair was one of those fits of morality which from time-to-time would afflict English society in the twentieth century and was a marvellous mix of class, sex, spying & money, all things which make an already good scandal especially juicy.  The famous image of model Christine Keeler, nude and artfully positioned sitting backwards on an unexceptional (actually a knock-off) plywood chair, was taken in May 1963, during the moral panic over the disclosure the young lady simultaneously was enjoying the affection of both a member of the British cabinet and a Soviet spy.  John Profumo (1915-2006) was the UK’s Minister for War (the UK cabinet retained the position until 1964 although it was dis-established in the US in 1947) who, then 46, was found to be conducting an adulterous affair with the then 19 year old topless model at the same time she (presumably as her obviously crowded schedule permitted) fitted in trysts with a KGB agent, attached to the Soviet embassy with the cover of naval attaché.  Although there are to this day differing interpretations of the scandal, there have never been any doubts this potential Cold-War conduit between Moscow and Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for War represented at least a potential conflict of interest.  The fallout from the scandal ended Profumo’s political career, contributed to the fall of Harold Macmillan’s (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963) government and was one of a number of the factors in the social changes which marked English society in the 1960s.  Commendably, the former Grenadier Guards captain's sang froid didn't desert him: woken from his sleep to be told the scandal was about to break, he remarked: "Well, at least it was with a woman".  That line was for years quoted approvingly and it was only when the old Etonian's bisexuality became common knowledge it was re-appraised.   

Commercially & technically, photography then was a different business and the “chair” image was the last shot on a 12-exposure film, all taken in less than five minutes at the end of a session which hurriedly had been arranged because Ms Keeler had signed a contract which included a “nudity” clause for photos to be used as “publicity stills” for a proposed film about the scandal.  As things turned out, the film was never released (not until Scandal (1989) one would appear) but the photograph was leaked to the tabloid press, becoming one of the more famous of the era although later feminist critiques would deconstruct the issues of exploitation they claimed were inherent.  Playboy’s editors would not be unaware of the criticism but the use of a chair to render a nude image SFW (suitable for work) remains in the SOP (standard operating procedures) manual.

Contact sheet from photoshoot, Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum: exhibit E.2830-2016.

Before the “nude” part which concluded the session, two rolls of film had already been shot with the subject sitting in various positions (on the chair and the floor) while “wearing” a small leather jerkin.  At that point the film’s producers mentioned the “nude” clause.  Ms Keeler wasn’t enthusiastic but the producers insisted so all except subject and photographer left the room and the last roll was shot, some of the earlier poses reprised while others were staged, the last, taken with the camera a little further away with the subject in what Mr Morley described as “a perfect positioning”, was the “chair” shot.

The “Keeler Chair” (left) and an Arne Jacobsen Model 3107 (right).

Both chair & the gelatin-silver print of the photograph are now in the collections of London’s Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum (the photograph exhibit E.2-2002; the chair W.10-2013).  Although often wrongly identified a Model 3107 (1955) by Danish modernist architect & furniture designer Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971), it’s actually an example of one of a number of inexpensive knock-offs produced in the era.  Mr Morley in 1962 bought six (at five shillings (50c) apiece) for his studio and it’s believed his were made in Denmark although the identity of the designer or manufacturer are unknown.  Unlike a genuine 3107, the knock-off has a handle cut-out (in a shape close to a regular trapezoid) high on the back, an addition both functional and ploy typical of those used by knock-off producers seeking to evade accusations of violations of copyright.  Structurally, a 3017 uses a thinner grade of plywood and a more subtle molding.  The half-dozen chairs in Mr Morley’s studio were mostly unnoticed office furniture until Ms Keeler lent one its infamy although they did appear in others of his shoots including those from his session with television personality & interviewer Sir David Frost (1939–2013) and it’s claimed the same chair was used for both.  In London’s second-hand shops it’s still common to see the knock-offs (there were many) described as “Keeler” chairs and Ms Lohan’s playboy shoot was one of many in which the motif has been used.  The obvious choice of pose for Joanne Whalley-Kilmer’s promotional shots for the 1989 film in which she played Ms Keeler, it appeared also on the the covers of the DVD & Blu-ray releases 

Old Smoky, the electric chair once used in the Tennessee prison system, Alcatraz East Crime Museum.  "Old Sparky" was once the preferred but in modern use "the chair" seems to have prevailed.

"Then we'd get the chair": The Simpsons, season six.

Crooked Hillary Clinton in pantsuit.

Although the numbers did bounce around a little, polling by politico.com found that typically about half of Republican voters believe crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) should be locked up while fewer than 2% think she should “get the chair”, apparently on the basis of her being guilty of something although some might just find her “really annoying” and take the pragmatic view a death sentence would remove at least that problem from their life.  The term “electric chair” is most associated with the device used for executions but is also common slang to describe other machinery including electric wheelchairs and powered (heat, cooling or movement) seats or chairs of many types.  First used in the US during the 1890s, like the guillotine, the electric chair was designed as a more humane (ie faster) method of execution compared with the then common hanging where death could take minutes.  Now rarely used (and in some cases declared unconstitutional as a “cruel & unusual punishment”), in some US states, technically it remains available including as an option the condemned may choose in preference to lethal injection or the firing squad.  Interestingly, although during the successful 2016 campaign, Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025) made much of "locking up" crooked Hillary were he to be elected, once in the White House, the usefulness of the "promise" was exhausted.  His supporters however expected a prosecution and journalists did whether he would order investigations into the conduct of Bill  (b 1946; US president 1993-2001) and crooked Hillary.  He replied with a perfunctory shake of the head and an almost mumbled "No, they're good people" and that was the end of that.  It was an interesting insight into many aspects of Mr Trump's character and political techniques.    

Electric Chair Suite (1971) screen print decalogy by Andy Warhol.

Based on a newspaper photograph (published in 1953) of the death chamber at Sing Sing Prison in New York, where US citizens Julius (1918-1953) & Ethel Rosenberg (1915-1953) were that year executed as spies, Andy Warhol (1928–1987) produced a number of versions of Electric Chair, part of the artist’s Death and Disaster series which, beginning in 1963, depicted imagery such as car crashes, suicides and urban unrest.  The series was among the many which exploited his technique of transferring a photograph in glue onto silk, a method which meant each varied in some slight way.  His interest was two-fold: (1) what is the effect on the audience of render the same image with variations and (2) if truly gruesome pictures repeatedly are displayed, is the effect one of reinforcement or desensitization?  His second question was later revisited as the gratuitous repetition of disturbing images became more common as the substantially unmediated internet achieved critical mass.  The first of the Electric Chair works was created in 1964.