Vertical caving terminology and methods > Personal SRT gear
The main harness that goes around your waist, with leg loops around your legs. Unlike a belay belt, a sit harness is intended to be PPE. SRT harnesses have connection loops at both sides, held closed using a D-ring. Climbing harnesses usually have a series of belaying loops at the front, and are closed with a buckle instead of a D-ring. Canyoning harnesses usually have one or two attachment loops at the front, and are closed with a buckle instead of a D-ring. SRT harnesses usually have either a single waist belt that is relatively narrow, or two waist belts, or a waist belt and a bum strap. Climbing harnesses ussually have a much wider, padded waist belt and padded leg loops. Canyoning harnesses normally have a simple or padded waist belt and leg loops, and have a protective sheet joining the belt and leg loops. SRT harnesses are designed to be relatively comfortable for sitting in for long periods, but are not designed to take a shock load, and can be relatively uncomfortable when not seated. Climbing harnesses are designed to be comfortable when not in use, and can take a shock load, but can be uncomfortable to sit in for long periods. Climbing harnesses usually have extra straps to hold the leg loops to the back of the waist belt, while caving harnesses usually do not. The sit harness is the main load-bearing harness. The two leg loops and two connection loops intentionally provide minimal redundancy, just in case part of the harness fails.
Harrow Hill, Cissbury Ring and Grime's Graves are late Neolithic flint mining sites in Britain, each with hundreds of mine shafts from 6-13 metres deep, dating from 4000-2200 BCE, 4000-3500 BCE and 2650-2300 BCE respectively (Harrow Hill has some slightly older open cast pits). The most common conjecture is that some sort of ladder might have been used for access, but there is actually no supporting evidence for ladders. There is evidence of a log being placed over the shafts (thought to be useful for running a rope over, to keep it away from the walls), and of rope rub marks on the walls, suggesting that the flint and waste chalk was removed by hauling. The rocks could have been tied up in individual pieces, but a basket or bag of some kind (such as leather) is thought to be more convenient and much more likely, and grooves in the passages suggest wooden sledges might have been used to pull rocks around. It would be most convenient for these sledges to double up as the basket for hauling. The most obvious means of access would have been for the miners to sit or stand on the same sledges in order to be lowered or hauled from the mines. There is no actual evidence to show whether this method was used, however, and it is purely conjecture, but if so, this would have been one of the earliest kinds of sit harness. Another alternative was that the ropes were tied directly to the miners in some way.
Some of the earliest harnesses would probably have originated with the use of a mechane (μηχανή) in Greek theatre, known as Deus ex Machina when used in Roman theatre. These were cranes situated above a stage, which could lift actors and other props as part of a performance, typically to symbolise gods or heroes, being able to lift themselves above regular people. Their earliest use is thought to be Aeschylus in 458 BCE for the play Eumenides, Sophocles for some unknown play, or Euripides in 438 BCE for the play Alcestis or 431 BCE for the play Medea. It is not known how they attached a rope to the actor, but a common conjecture is that a basket or chair was typically used for the actor to sit in or on, and this method was used for some productions such as The Clouds by Aristophanes (386 BCE). According to a series of vase paintings, Medea was performed using a chariot which the actor sat on (depicted in about 400 BCE in Italy), Stheneboea by Euripides (455-422 BCE, depicted in 400-375 BCE) had an actor on a flying Pegasus, and Carians by Aeschylus (499-456 BCE, depicted in 400-380 BCE) had actors floating in a forwards leaning position. However, it is not known when these approaches were used for each play, since the vases were made some time later, and may have used artistic license rather than accurately depicting a performance. It is most likely that ropes were normally tied around various limbs of the actor (or horse!), hidden beneath their costume, so that they could be held at whatever angle was needed. In China, the earliest known depiction of a Tyrolean traverse from 250 BCE showed what appeares to be a full body harness, made from two loops, with a single one under the buttocks, and one around the chest under the arms. It is possible that it is meant to be in two separate pieces, but it is not drawn clearly enough to tell.
The original caving sit harness was simply a boatswain's chair (or bosun's chair); a plank, stick or canvas seat tied to a rope, which a sailor or caver would sit on while someone else lowered or hauled them on the rope. Though there are many designs, there were two main designs that were used early on. The first is a stick tied to a rope as a cross bar, where the rope passes between the legs, is then tied to the stick, and the stick is used as a seat, commonly used on single-rope swings. The second is a flat plank with thinner ropes attached to the plank at each corner, or at the two ends. These ropes are joined together some distance above the plank, where they are tied to the main rope. This approach is commonly used for playground swings, but in a playground, they normally use two separate chains, instead of a single rope. These started out as an adaptation of the swing, whose history dates back to 1450-1300 BCE in what is now Greece, with Minoan ornaments from that era in Hagia Triada, Crete, clearly showing the flat plank design that would later be called a boatswain's chair. In Greek, they were called αἰώρα or ἐώρα (aióra or eóra).
Swings spread around the world, beginning with European and the Middle Eastern regions, with other artworks and writings from Greece in 540 BCE and Greek Cyrenaica (now Libya) 225-175 BCE, their first known depiction in Africa. Greeks often made them from a Δίφρος (diphros), a folding stool with tiny legs, and almost all early depictions show the legs. Romans called swings oscillum (sometimes said to be petaurus, but that involves a wheel throwing a person into the air, and that does not sound like a swing). Quintus Cornificius wrote about the use of swings during a festival in the Roman part of the Roman Republic (now Italy) and described the Roman swing legend, in about 80-50 BCE. He does not specify whether they used plank-style swings or cross bar swings or both, but people were trying to mimic ornamental discs (also called oscillum) which usually hung from a single string, so they could spin in the wind. The myth he described is nonsense, relating to the mythical Kings of Alba Longa, but the important part is that by the time he wrote it, Romans had known about swings for so long that they had forgotten their origin. (Surviving frescos from Pompeii may appear to depict the cross bar stick form, but are more likely to be a faded depiction of a woman holding a spear and shield.) Mesoamerican cultures later developed the same ideas, with artworks from 250-900 AD. They were then depicted in India around 400-500 CE, and in European artworks from 700-750 CE and 1338-1344. From India, they had spread back to sub-Saharan Africa, and onwards to Southeast Asia. Artworks depicting swings became increasingly common in most parts of Europe and Asia by the 1700s. The swing was traditionally called a meritot, meritote, totter, merry-totter or merry-trotter (with various spellings, all meaning happy oscillation) in English by the 1600s (first possibly recorded as "viritoot" - youthful oscillation - in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Miller's Tale in about 1387), escarpolette, brandilloire or the modern balançoire in French, while German already had the modern Schaukel and Italian had the modern altalena.
China deserves a special mention here. It is often claimed that China supposedly had swings from 771-476 BCE, but the evidence is severely lacking, and all relates to a lost book called 古今藝術圖 (Ancient And Modern Art Pictures), probably written between 200-500 CE by an unknown author. Others who had actually seen the book and wrote about it (the earliest being after 554 CE), said it described a local legend that swings had been introduced by the northern region's mountain barbarians. One of them quoted the original book as saying "others say that" it was a group of mountain barbarians, that had been wiped out by 齊桓公 (Duke Huan of Qi), whose battles had been around 671-656 BCE (against southern enemies), 850-1150 years earlier at the start of the iron age. Even allowing imperfect translation (it might have meant "some say that"), it is very clearly a case of "some say this, others say that", not a statement of fact. In 1893, a British historian decided the mountain barbarians were a tribe who lost such a battle in 664 BCE (recorded in Chinese historical memoirs that do not mention swings). The original book describing the swing myth's existence had no evidence whatsoever to support it, and nothing has ever been found to support it, despite ample written records from that era. It has since been lost, with other authors quoting it. Some of their writings have also been lost and the original book's contents are only known because of the game of Chinese Whispers. And yet today, the China swing myth gets repeated everywhere as if it were proven fact. It is like me writing something like "in Britain, there is a rumour that we learned about horseback polo from a Cumbric tribe who were wiped out by Saxon King Eardwulf of Northumbria" (who ruled in 796-810 CE and actually fought Vikings), with absolutely no evidence. My book is then lost. Other people quote my book saying what they think I said, but some of their books are also lost. Other people quote what their books said. In the year 3500, people treat what they think I wrote as absolute fact, and claim "we had polo in Early Medieval Britain, which was 410-1066 CE" (it is a Persian game from about 600-500 BCE, and arrived in Britain via India in 1869). It is actually scary to think how many things that people commonly state as fact are based on this level of non-evidence. The claim that swings existed in China in 771-476 BCE should be considered utter nonsense, and it is safer to say that plank-style swings existed outside of what was then the main part of China, a few generations before 200-500 CE when the first book was probably written, which is consistent with the idea spreading from the Middle East. Having initially been considered an activity for girls, it was first conclusively mentioned in a Chinese dictionary in 523 CE, and subsequently considered something mainly for women and children. Anyway, I have now digressed too far. Back to boatswain's chairs.
Their first use other than as a swing was likely to have been in the mining, fruit picking or drama industries, as a means to lower someone out of a building, or for lifting a person upwards temporarily during other leisure activities (but more on that later), but there is no known proof of which came first. Boatswain's chairs had existed in sailing for such a long time that their first usage is not recorded. They are named after a nautical job title, and it is very common to see the claim that they originated in sailing. However, there is no known evidence of their use by sailors before the 1700s (although a couple of somewhat related ideas appeared briefly in the mid 1500s), and it is clear that their use at sea was recorded much later than several other purposes. They were occasionally used almost exclusively to lift ladies on or off ships by the end of the 1700s, and earned the name "lady's chair" by the 1830s. They remained uncommon for normal work on ships until the later part of the 1800s, and do not appear in sailing dictionaries until then, with the earliest known published mention of them with the name boatswain's chair being in the Bombay Gazette from 1855, and then in a sailing book from 1858. They were also known as a boatswain's cradle from 1860, and known as a "rigger's chair" from the 1880s onwards.
In the 1070s, the Norman Bayeux Tapestry depicted Anglo-Saxon Harold Godwinson, then Earl of Wessex, sailing to Normandy in 1064 to meet William The Conqueror, then Duke of Normandy. The voyage was made using a longship, which was one of the most advanced ships of its time, used by the Anglo-Saxons, Normans and Vikings to cross oceans. A lookout sailor is shown manually climbing to the top of the (fairly thin) mast in order to see the distance better, by manually gripping the mast with hands, arms and legs. Although other sailors are shown using ropes to haul the sail up the mast using pulleys, they did not lift the lookout up the mast. If boatswain's chairs had existed in sailing at that point, they would have been using them, but they were definitely shown not doing so. Martin Bostal, Doctor of Medieval archaeology, Université de Caen Normandie and Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, stated (personal communication) that he had "never found any mention of such devices in sources related to navigation during the Middle Ages", and confirmed that the tapestry shows the lookout's tunic, not a chair of any kind. No depictions are known of their use in the 1400s and 1500s, with gang planks and gangways being the main methods shown for noblemen and noblewomen to board a ship, with rope ladders used when boarding from rowing boats, and King Henry VIII being shown using a rigid ladder to climb from a rowing boat into a ship, in a painting that was made for him of the actual event. These approaches continued, including for the nobility, through the 1600s, with no known evidence for the use of boatswain's chairs, even though cranes existed at docks, and other items were hoisted onto ships on platforms that could have inspired a chair.
From Ancient Greece all the way through to the middle ages, building work seems to have used only traditional approaches of ladders and scaffolding, even when working on the tall spires of towers and churches. While winches were used extensively, they are only ever depicted lifting building materials, never people. In Roman times, scaffolding was used which could be inserted into sockets in the walls of large buildings. This approach was also used throughout the middle ages, and appears in many Medieval manuscripts depicting castle building, along with scaffolding and ladders. These sockets, in spite of providing a vulnerability that an enemy could use, are shown on the outside walls of castles, typically only near the top. However, large planks, which were called stages (now often called hanging staging), could be hung over the side of a building by ropes, potentially accessed using a ladder. Stages provided something to sit on and work from at any height, but were a lot larger than a boatswain's chair, and would have enough space for more than one person to work from at once. Because of this larger size, they typically needed two entirely separate ropes, one at each end, hanging separately from the top of the wall, and their position could not be easily adjusted while in use. They did not provide any additional safety, and both hands would normally have been needed for any work. This is something that had been in use since at least Medieval times, seen in the French manuscript Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César in 1210, and considered ancient already by that stage (since it was depicted in a Biblical scene). However, it was probably not used in Roman times, and is not known to be depicted in Roman manuals, so hanging staging probably emerged between 500 CE and 1100 CE. In fact, even though the Roman Tomb of the Haterii (100-200 CE) has a carving of a crane with some workers shown working at height, they are shown holding onto ropes and sitting on the pulleys, not using a harness of any kind.
The first confirmed use of a suspended seat as something other than a simple swing is from 14-37 CE, depicted on a tiny Roman spintria coin (spintriae are tokens depicting adult activities, that were probably used in brother tells, but their precise purpose is not known). The depiction shows what appears to be a boatswain's chair using the same approach as the plank design, with ropes from the sides that appear to join into a single rope, going to a pulley up above, and back down to a person who could raise or lower the chair, exactly like a modern boatswain's chair. The seat seems to be a small bench with a wide scroll leg, but might possibly be a basket with the person sitting on its flat lid, or be a flat surface covered in a loose piece of cloth. Its purpose is clearly visible as a sensory touch complex swing. (Early analysis from 1869 invented a second rope and removed other details, but the author was working from a very poor photograph from 1843.) The Christian Bible includes a story based in 33-36 CE, described in the Book Of Acts, most likely written around 80-90 CE, and again in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, most likely written in 55-56 CE, where the character Saul of Tarsus (who later becomes St. Paul) is supposed to have been lowered down a wall in a basket. The original Greek texts suggest it was a woven basket, but the two times it is mentioned do not agree whether it is small or large. Whether or not it actually happened is a matter for theological debate, but what matters is that when the story was written, someone thought that a basket would be useful as a sit harness. In about 500 CE, the earliest form of merry-go-round appeared in the Byzantine Empire, in an area which is now Turkey. This had people sitting in baskets, spun around at the top of a pole.
In 559 CE, 高洋 (Gao Yang), ruler of 北齐 (Northern Qi), now part of China, executed hundreds of members of the 元 (Yuan) family, by tying increasingly complex kites to them, and throwing them off buildings. Since survival was not part of the plan, it is unlikely that harnesses of any kind were used, and it sounds like they were just tied directly to the fabric or structure of the kite, sat on top of it, or held onto a rigid bar. Most other man-lifting kite stories from China can be considered pure fantasy, not least because they often refer to deity figures rather than actual people, and were generally passed down as legend rather than written historical records. Even historical records were often heavily modified or embellished to promote the ideologies of a specific ruler, so the kite execution story may also be heavily modified. Much later attempts in other continents would use actual harnesses, at which point they become relevant here.
In 700-750 CE, a series of frescos were painted in St. Prokulus Kirche (Saint Proculus Church), Naturno, Kingdom Of The Lombards, now Italy. One of these, known as "The Saint On The Swing", shows a person being lowered through a gap in a wall, on a form of boatswain's chair (it cannot possibly make sense as an actual swing, as there was a wall in the way, and a swing would not work). The chair is probably meant to be made either from the rope itself being looped underneath him, or some fabric, but the detail is not good enough to tell. The most common interpretation is that this fresco depicts Proculus of Verona fleeing Verona, Roman Empire (now Italy), in around 290 CE, but it could also be Saul of Tarsus (though it definitely does not depict a basket). There is no record of Proculus of Verona actually fleeing the city that way, but when the frescos were painted, someone thought that a boatswain's chair made from a fabric of some kind could be used to get down a wall. This is the first version of the canvas boatswain's chair, and is the earliest known depiction of them being used for rope access purposes, an approach that would later be used by miners. The artist drew it with two separate ropes going upwards instead of joining them into a single rope, which would have made lowering someone extremely difficult, but this is likely to be due to an artistic mistake. From 1242 until 1718, the monks at Pfäfers, Holy Roman Empire (now Switzerland) would lower people 80 metres in a basket into the Taminaschlucht (Tamina Gorge), to use the Bad Pfäfers hot springs for their supposed healing qualities. They were blindfolded so they would not be too frightened. This was then replaced with a new bath outside the gorge, then a walkway was cut into the gorge. In about 1304, the Codex Manesse depicted a woman lifting her partner up to her window using a winch, with a bucket/basket instead of a harness, in Zürich, Holy Roman Empire (now Switzerland).
The Covolo di Butistone cave (known as Kofel in German) in the Brente river valley in Italy has been described since 1004 CE as being used as a fortress, situated part way up a tall cliff. Over the centuries, it has been modified heavily to add buildings and tunnels that were carved out of the rock, and to remove the holds that were originally used to access it by climbing. Most of the work is thought to have been done for the Scaligeri princes of Verona in 1321-1337, though it had changed hands several times after then (and a few times before), and any other group involved could have made changes. In most cases, it was too hard to reach to attack directly, and it was instead attacked through bombardments from the other side of the valley. It was controlled by the Holy Roman Empire (specifically Austria) from 1509 until 1797, in spite of the Republic of Venice having taken control of the countryside around it in 1511, and had its fortifications improved in 1509. For a long time, a hand powered winch was the only way to access the fortress, which had probably been installed between 1321-1337, since the space for it was provided by the early layout. The rope was described by Domenico Odorico Capra in a 1580 report to the Republic of Venice, being used to lift people 35 metres up, from within the cave, but the chair was not mentioned. The rope was mentioned in 1596 by a saboteur. It was described in 1598 by a visiting clergyman who sat on the army captain's lap to ascend to the cave "in company". The captain was described as "mounting" the thick rope (referring to a boatswain's chair), and the clergyman was tied to it, but it does not say exactly how they were arranged. According to the clergyman, the "magnificent captain" had "a cheerful face". It was described in the same year in a report by Venetian superintendant Francesco Caldogno, as "a rope sent down with a wooden seat to stay on" (using the word "seggetta", meaning a very simplistic seat or stool) to raise people "one by one". It was described as part of the fortress, where the fortress was made by "men in ancient times", suggesting that the rope and boatswain's chair were old enough by then for their origin to have already been forgotten. It was depicted in around 1610 (often mis-stated as early sixteenth century) in a painting by Matthias Burgklechner (or spelled Mathias and Burgklehner) showing a woman and child sitting on a cross bar boatswain's chair facing each other. (The painting also shows a separate rope for lifting a basket of supplies, guided by a tension traverse.) He also depicted it in an enormous map (bottom-right corner) of the Tyrolean Alps in 1611 with a person on a boatswain's chair. His visit may have been years earlier, and while the date of the painting is not precisely known (it was definitely before his death in 1642), it probably originated from the same sketch that would have presumably been used to make the map. Either way, the painting or the map are the first time a boatswain's chair is recognisably depicted as a method to access a cave.
Covolo di Butistone's boatswain's chair was mentioned as a rope in 1615. The boatswain's chair was depicted in 1625 in a painting in the G. v. Pfaundler collection. It was described as a rope in 1640-1682. It was depicted again in 1649 (reprinted in 1679 and adapted by Johann Baptist Homann in 1716) by Matthäus Merian, clearly showing someone on a boatswain's chair. The method was described in detail in 1664 by French traveller Balthasar de Monconys as being 30 metres up a 60 metre cliff (it was actually 45 metres up a 180 metre cliff), using a rope and pulley. A stick was tied to the end of the rope as a boatswain's chair, which was used as a sit harness, the first time is is clearly described as a method to access a cave. A leather strap was tied to the rope, and fastened around the body to avoid falling off. It does not say exactly how the strap was used, but does not use the word for belt, so it may have been used as a chest harness, and would make most sense that way. A much later description (decades after it stopped being used) called it a belt, however. Although the fortress was primarily used for around 30-40 soldiers, the saboteur mentioned that the captain's "women" and family lived there with him, and Balthasar de Monconys reported that men, women and small children were in the cave, and they will all have accessed it the same way. It was later used to house prisoners too. The fortress continued to be accessed this way until 1797, and was mentioned by many travel writers. By the 1800s, it could only be accessed using very long ladders instead.
In the 1300s, a Japanese drawing (later adapted into a pair of engravings) and later engravings showing designs from the same time, showed an aerial ropeway called a "野猿" ("yaen", a wild monkey), using a basket as a harness, which a person could sit or stand in. In 1338-1344 in Flanders (now Belgium), illustrator Jehan de Grise depicted children on a swing, as an unrelated decoration for the manuscript Li romans du boin roi Alixandre. The swing was made from a loop of rope, and a child sat in the bottom of the loop. While this is certainly a much older method (it is probably depicted in the earlier fresco), it is the first time it is known to be depicted as a swing. It would continue to be used for centuries as a swing, with the rope eventually widened into a strap, which is occasionally still used for both swings and boatswain's chairs today. Some time between 1388 and 1423, the Hausbücher der Nürnberger Zwölfbrüderstiftungen illustrations from Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Holy Roman Empire, now Bavaria, Germany, included an image of a person making wire. The job is not important here, but he is shown sitting on a plank-style boatswain's chair, as a seat. The same approach is used for updated depictions in 1430-1504 and 1533. None of the illustrations show them being used to work at height, even though masonry, building carpentry, roofing, and exterior decorating work are shown as late as 1669. In all cases, scaffolding and ladders are shown instead. At some point during the 1400s, merry-go-rounds were being used in the Ottoman Empire for military training, which was depicted in a manuscript somewhere in what is now Italy. The seats are shown very poorly, but the rope appears to be simply looped underneath the thighs. In 1411, in the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany), Johannes Hartlieb depicted an aerial ropeway using baskets to carry goods or people. This approach was used for centuries, eventually developing into larger and larger baskets, gondolas, and carriages, resulting in the modern cable car. In 1468, Joana (Joan or Juana) of Portugal, then queen of Castile and León (now Spain) escaped from the Castle of Alaejos by being lowered somewhat unsuccessfully in a basket, and was injured when it was dropped. In the 1470s, the earliest known depiction of a parachute used a simple belt for a harness, thought to have been drawn by Francesco di Giorgio Martini in the Republic of Siena (now Italy). (This is often stated as being by Mariano di Jacopo, also known as Taccola, but listing the date as 20 years after his death.)
In the Holy Roman Empire, now Italy, Leonardo da Vinci drew several sketches of his ornithopter aeroplane in the Codex Atlanticus. A couple of these used a minimal full body harness consisting of a single (painful) strap or rope between the legs. They had either a couple of straps around the chest, or a single hoop and shoulder supports, because toppling sideways out of it would be extremely easy otherwise. The sketch's page (click "Verso") is undated, but others of ornithopter parts are from 1480, 1480, 1480, 1483, 1485, 1488-1490, 1488-1490, 1493, 1493, 1493 and undated, and the sketches showing the harness seem to match the early ornithopter design from 1480. (Much better sketches appear to be fake modern composites, not authentic drawings.) The same codex includes a 1485 sketch of a parachute (click "Verso"), which used the same single strap or rope between the legs, and a single strap or rope around the chest, pulling the other strap close to the body, to increase stability.
A winch was used to access clifftop monasteries at Meteora in Greece, with Varlaam Monastery using a basket or net from as early as 1517. In about 1520-1530, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (whose first name might be written as Henry or Henricus), from the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany), developed a descender. It included an iron bar, which hung below the device using two separate ropes just a few centimetres apart, and was used as a cross bar boatswain's chair. In 1522, miners in Poland were described as simply sitting in a woven loop of rope which was tied to the main rope, while they held onto the rope with their hands and one leg. They would do so in a cluster of 7 miners at once, each sitting in their own loop. This is described much more clearly in the following centuries. In 1535, a diving bell designed by Guglielmo de Lorena used a strap between the legs as a sit harness, an approach that was repeated with more straps by Franz Kessler in 1616. A preacher was lowered in a basket to escape from a walled town in Flanders (now Belgium) in 1545. In 1556, but researched from 1528-1550, the book De re metallica (on the nature of metals) listed how metal mining was carried out in the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany, Czech Republic, Austria and Italy) and Hungary (now Slovakia). It described how miners were sometimes winched down and up mine shafts "mounted on a stick or in/on a [framework]", referring to a cross bar boatswain's chair (which was depicted), though ladders were far more common. The original Latin "in crate" is ambiguous as to what kind of framework it refers to, and could mean "in an iron cage" or "on a wickerwork item" or even "wrapped up in a picket fence", but it has been translated without evidence as "on a wicker basket" in a 1950 English translation (the same translation changes numerous other parts of the text in such a way that the original details are lost).
In 1550 but written during the year before publication, polymath Gerolamo Cardano published a book called De Subtilitate Rerum (On The Subtlety/Intricacy/Finesse Of Things) in the Holy Roman Empire (now Italy). (An English translation of a later edition is available, but it gets some of the details wrong.) As well as describing Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim's descender, it described two other devices. One was a simple pulley with a counterweight, which could be used to lift a person. The person sat on a stick, which was used as a cross bar boatswain's chair. The other device was a descender used by sailors, probably sailing on local rivers in the Holy Roman Empire (now Italy). His book described it as a current technique, and I have not found any earlier or later references to it. It consisted of a simple stick, which was sat on like a cross bar boatswain's chair, with the rope wrapped around it a few times between the legs, without being attached to it. While moving, it actively tried to throw the user off the stick and disconnect itself from the rope, and was extremely dangerous (described in more detail in the section on descenders). As a result, although it looked superficially like a boatswain's chair and is the first time sailors are known to have used something that could be mistaken for a boatswain's chair, it did not function as one, or even as a sit harness. The entire purpose of a sit harness is to remain properly attached to both the person and whatever device they are using, making the person safer, so that they do not have to rely on their hands to keep themselves attached to it. This device tried its hardest to fail at all of these points, and would have caused numerous fatalities if it had continued to be used.
In 1571 in Cyprus, Ottoman (Turkish) attackers displayed captured Venetian prisoner Marcantonio Bragadin in what is usually described as a chair suspended from the mast of a ship. He became a religious icon, and the story has been embelished for centuries, with details greatly modified with each re-telling. The earliest surviving English records from a year later say that it was a "chaire to leane and stay vpon" (chair to lean and stay upon). The earliest surviving records that actually give details, written in Italian by a historian over 100 years after the event, state that a "support chair" was used, which at the time was the Italian term for an armchair, not a boatswain's chair. This would mean that a literal armchair with a back and arms, and presumably legs, was tied to the rope. It was probably a wooden captain's chair. In 1591, Charles de Lorraine, Duke of Guise in France, escaped from the Château de Tours, in France. He did so by being lowered part way to the ground out of a window by servants, using a stick tied to a rope, which he "took between his legs", clearly describing a boatswain's chair. The rope was released by the servants to avoid gunfire, causing him to fall several metres and sustain injuries, but he still managed to escape.
In 1595, François de Chalvet from France reported that the locals were using "very dangerous machines" to descend 103 metres into the Gouffre de Padirac, to mine guano from the cave to make saltpeter. These would have been winches, thought to have had a boatswain's chair consisting of a wooden cross bar tied to a rope, although they may have used a basket or bucket instead. By 1600, a basket was used at St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, Egypt, to enter or exit the monastery. The use of a basket was confirmed in 1658 and again in 1700. The same text was repeated into the 1800s, without any further details, and later visitors did not describe the design in detail. In 1608, two children were lowered in a basket to escape from a fortress in northern France. In 1615-1616, Faust Vrančić from the Republic of Venice, now Croatia, updated Leonardo da Vinci's parachute, to use a pair of ropes between the legs to spread the pressure out (a wise move), but still used the chest loop.
Since the early days of large ships, sailors often used hanging staging, hung over the side of the ship. These were an alternative to working on the outside of a ship from a nearby rowing boat, and allowed them to reach higher up the ship. The third volume of the 1625 book series Purchas His Pilgrimes by Samuel Purchas has a chapter written by Ionas Poole about a ship's voyage to Greenland in 1612. It describes how the ship's "carpenter had hung a stage close by the water, whereon his tooles lay". The exact details of the stage are not given, but it was large enough for the carpenter and his tools, so was not a boatswain's chair. It was mentioned as if it were something common and ordinary, so this approach had obviously existed for a long time already, probably since the early 1500s. However, no earlier mention is known. A basket or net was used at St. Antony's Monastery in Egypt in 1616 (but had not been used in previous centuries). A similar approach may also have been used in many other monasteries, but without any known record of their earliest usage (the winch system at Deir Al Adhra, also known as Convent Of The Pulley, was only recorded in 1838).
In 1620, British traveller Peter Mundy described funfair rides in detail, used in a part of the Ottoman Empire in what is now Bulgaria, and included drawings. One was a very large swing with three ropes, using a triangular board to sit or stand on, where small children might be tied on, but adults were not. Another was a ferris wheel which had little seats hung from it, which children sat in. The last was a merry-go-round, which had little seats fastened along the outside of it. His drawings showed what look like either plank or canvas style seats, hanging from ropes on each side, like a modern swing. A much better painting from 1691-1695 (during the reign of Ahmed II) shows a merry-go-round being used in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey), with plank-style seats. Other drawings from the Turkish parts of the Ottoman Empire during the same century show people sitting on boxes, in the same manner as a boatswain's chair. In 1627, the French novel Le Berger Extravagant by Charles Sorel (part of the L'Astrée series) described the use of a stick tied to the end of a rope as a boatswain's chair for a character in a play, so they could be swung above an audience. In 1628 in France, a boatswain's chair consisting of a stick tied to a rope which was passed through a pulley, was used to descend into a well, to retrieve a child who had fallen in. In 1630, French mathematicians Jean Leurechon and Claude Mydorge described how to use pulleys to allow a person to lift themselves easily, while seated on a cross bar boatswain's chair made from a stick tied to a pulley. This was described as being like playing on a swing, so this type of swing was in use in France. They called the system a rope ladder, and said that it was excellent in love and war! In 1638, grape harveseters in Persia (now Iran) were using a stick tied to a rope as a boatswain's chair sit harness, to hang from a tree. The design was very clearly stated, and was described as being something already used for a swing, which British and German readers were expected to be familiar with.
A descender made by French inventor Nicolas Grollier de Servière had a cross bar boatswain's chair at the bottom, described as "the stick". The exact date of its use is not recorded, but it is likely to have been shortly after obtaining the 1647 French translation of Galileo Galilei's book which described the first version of the descender, and definitely before his death in 1689. In 1648, Balthasar de Monconys visited the island of Chios in the Ottoman Empire (now Greece, despite being in Asia, just off the Turkish coast), and wrote about an Ottoman festival funfair which included a merry-go-round. The seats were described as being "shaped like little horses, hanging from [...] sticks" that stuck out at the top of a large pole, and were rotated around the pole by a person. This is around one century earlier than the hanging horse-shaped seats are commonly said to have been developed in Europe, and they presumably were inspired by the Ottoman cavalry training, rather than its European equivalent. In 1650, British instructions for making fireworks included the suggestion to use a cross bar boatswain's chair to sit on, in order to tension a rope which was wrapped around a firework. In 1851, Colombian priest Romualdo Cuervo was winched 115 metres down into the Hoyo del Aire surface shaft, in a basket.
During the 1650s and 1660s, the Royal Palace of Turin in the Duchy of Savoy (now Italy), had "a pulley and a swing", which were used by the Duchess to get from her bedroom to her bathroom (because walking is for peasants). Since ladies of that era were expected never to sit with a rope or anything else passing between their legs, and would not have been expected to be strong enough to hold on to a single rope swing, the seat will have been the plank type of boatswain's chair (though probably elaborately decorated), and could have had a back support. It was clearly used like an actual boatswain's chair, for lifting a person, since it had a pulley. Unfortunately, it no longer exists at the palace, so its design cannot be examined. The author who described it, British gentry clergyman Richard Lassels, had travelled by sea several times as a travel writer, and had evidently never seen any such device used on a ship by the time of writing (before 1668), as he described it as a "curious invention", rather than something familiar. It had presumably been installed for Christine Marie of France in the early 1650s. In 1656, a British captain stated that getting up into the high-sided English ships was very difficult, compared with a low-sided frigate, which would not have been the case if ropes were being used to lift people on board using some sort of platform. (These comments were, however, made about attacking a ship, rather than getting on board peacefully.) In 1656 and 1658, English dictionaries started suggesting that Roman swings used a single rope, and so would have used a stick as a cross beam. While it is certainly possible, and in fact likely, that it is very old, there is no known evidence of the use of that design from that time. In general, it seems that dictionaries would describe the design best known to their author, and state that it is what had always been used by others.
In 1660, while attempting to rescue a pigeon from a well in France, a basket was used for the pigeon, before a boatswain's chair consisting of a stick tied to a rope was used to lower a boy into the well. Due to gas in the well (almost certainly hydrogen sulphide from the disturbed sediment during recent cleaning), the boy and almost everyone who followed him to try to rescue him died. The others who descended the well (including ones who had previously done so to clean it) did so by using the rope as a handline. In 1662, British sailors were described as tying a rope around the waist in order to hoist a sailor, and did not use a boatswain's chair. In 1667, British Royal Society writer Thomas Sprat published a report that described merchants being lowered into a 9 metre deep lava cave on the flanks of Pico del Teide in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, by servants. They had simply tied the rope around their waists. Some years before 1670, miners in Poland, then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, were described as simply tying a rope around themselves "as to sit in it" (so presumably just a loop of rope under the thighs) instead of using a dedicated harness of any kind. A second person sat on their lap, without any safety, during the descent of the mine shaft!
In 1676, British geologist John Beaumont fastened a rope around himself, in order to be lowered into Lamb Leer Cavern's Great Chamber as part of mining operations, presumably by tying it around his waist. In the same year, fowlers (bird catchers) in the Faroe Islands were described as tying a rope around their waist and between their legs to make a sit harness. In 1678, a French dictionary described the sailing punishments called "la cale", one involving hoisting a person and repeatedly dropping them into the water, known as "ducking" in English, and one where the person was just suspended over the water for a long time. The description clearly described what could easily have inspired the boatswain's chair in sailing, written in French as "he is made to lean on a stick which is placed between his legs; this stick is attached to a rope which goes to a pulley hung [overhead]; the criminal holds the rope to secure himself as much as possible". Later French dictionaries make it clear that the rope was attached to both ends of the stick, like a boatswain's chair. However, the stick was sat on in the wrong direction, from front to back, not side to side like a normal boatswain's chair, because the intention was for it to be uncomfortable. The seat was not given a name in any description. If actual boatswain's chairs had existed in sailing at that stage, there would have been a mention of the similarity, but there was nothing. The same punishment had been described in French in 1661, by tying a person to the rope, or enclosing them in an iron cage, so the stick variation must have been something relatively new in 1678. Some time before 1687, French traveller M. de la Martimire wrote that in order to descend into an active Norwegian mine, he and a mine officer had sat together "in a wooden vessel, compacted with iron and cords" and were lowered 91 metres by a crane. This is a very early mention of what would was probably a large barrel, being used as a bucket or kibble. In 1688, a British dictionary listed ducking as a sailing punishment, using a full body harness made by tying a rope around the waist, between the legs, and around the chest under the arms. This approach continued to be mentioned until 1727, using the exact same wording.
In 1690, the novel "The Irish Rogue" (written under a derogatory pseudonym by a presumably English author) included a description of a chair winched via a pulley up to the upper floors of a building. The chair was not described in detail, but was big enough for two people, and did not provide enough support to safely keep someone in the chair if they did not hold on. It sounds like it was meant to have legs, and could have been a short bench. In 1692, French traveller Jean Dumont described how at the Basilika Sankt Gereon in Köln (St. Gereon's Basilica in Cologne, which he mis-spelled "Chyrion"), the domed ceiling was cleaned by a man who "posts himself in a kind of box suspended in the middle of the dome by a good rope, and from there as from a swing, he flies from one end of the church to the other by means of some pulleys". In 1701, a British traveller on a French ship described the "la cale" punishments. It described the use of the seat as "putting a staff betwixt his legs, both the ends of it fasten'd to a rope that runs in a pully [...] and holds the rope in his hands, to secure and ease himself". It was described as if, to a British person, this was something new and unusual, even though the author was quite familiar with travelling by sea. The chair itself was not given a name, not even a "seat", even though the book was actually published in 1715 and again in 1720, showing that British seafaring travellers did not know about boatswain's chairs at that stage. By 1702, French sailors used a triangular arrangement of planks, known as a "triangle", which could encircle a mast, and be suspended from it, as a platform to work from. This approach continued to be mentioned until around the 1860s. The earliest known mention of a boatswain's chair in sailing is from 1710, when an injured British captain was hoisted from his ship into a rowing boat, and from that rowing boat onto another ship, in what was described only as "a chair". Since captains had more elaborate chairs in their cabins, it is possible that this was an actual chair rather than a boatswain's chair.
Steeplejacks are sometimes said to have used boatswain's chairs since the 1760s. However, they had already been used for several decades by then, in France. In 1723, they were described in a French dictionary as consisting of a "petite planche" (small plank) suspended from two ropes, which joined into a single rope that could hang from a knotted rope using a hook. They were specifically mentioned as being used by roofers and plumbers, especially when working on tall bell towers, one of the defining jobs of a steeplejack. Knotted ropes were mentioned as a way to climb used by roofers in 1684 without describing the technique, so the use of a boatswain's chair was probably much older too. In fact, roofers had been described as "dancing on ropes" and "holding firm at places they pass" by René Le Pays in 1664, suggesting that boatswain's chairs would have been needed then too. Several subsequent dictionaries referred to them as a "planchette" (board). The exact technique and design was described and clearly depicted for French roofers, steeplejacks and plumbers in two separate publications in 1762, showing that they climbed by standing in footloops which they attached using suspension hooks hooked above the knots of a knotted rope. When they reached the height they needed to work at, they would hang a plank-style boatswain's chair, which they called a "sellette" (saddle), from the rope using a suspension hook. The chair was made from a short plank, with a notch cut out at the front between the legs for the knotted rope to pass through, and had ropes looping from the front to back corners on each side, which passed through the attachment loop of a suspension hook without being tied to it, so the chair could tilt backwards when working on a sloping roof. Steeplejacks would throw a rope around the steeple, and hang the chair or ropes off that instead. The same method was described, using the exact same text, for the next two centuries.
The earliest properly documented record of the use of a boatswain's chair in exploratory caving is from 1723, when an unnamed farmer, monk Lazarus Schopper and butler Johann Zouhard were lowered 58 metres to the floor of Propast Macocha (Macocha Abyss) in the Czech Republic, using a boatswain's chair made from a (presumably wooden) peg that was driven through the rope. In the early 1700s, Spanish sailors also used a triangular arrangement of planks, which they called a guindola (or guindôla), to lift cargo onto ships using ropes. This appeared in sailing dictionaries as early as 1734. These were used as a harness to rescue sailors from the water as early as 1745, and were described as being meant for that purpose in 1794. This use continued until the life ring took over in the mid 1800s, and by 1890, it was something sailors no longer knew about. The name was subsequently used for boatswain's chairs. During the early 1700s, merry-go-rounds started to be made in Europe, and in order to replicate the military cavalry parades from France, they would hang a model horse from chains in the same way as the Ottoman merry-go-rounds had already done, which would be used as a seat. In 1729 in Hungary, Habsburg Monarchy (now Slovenia), traveller and mine explorer John George Keysler described how he was "buckled up in a kind of leather chair" to descend a 274 metre mine shaft, which is the earliest known mention of a canvas boatswain's chair underground. The exact design, and use of the buckles, is not described, but it sounds significantly more safe and comfortable than the Polish rope loops, despite being a very similar idea in essence. He also described how in Carniola, Habsburg Monarchy (now Slovenia), miners could optionally be lowered in a bucket to descend 256 metres into a mine, but it was much safer to use ladders.
Cucking stools (formerly trebuchets, tumbrells, scealding stools), a seat which a person was tied to for public humiliation, typically by having animal excrement ("cukk" or modern "cack") thrown at them, had been used as punishment from as early as Saxon times in Britain, especially for women. By the late 1500s, the most common approach was to dunk them in a filthy pond or river ("ducking"). By 1597, this version was renamed to a ducking stool, and the ponds used for the purpose, conveniently filled with duck excrement but that is not where the name comes from, were called ducking ponds. Most designs were an armchair made of wood or iron, so that the arms or body could be tied to the chair. The most common design fixed the chair to a see-saw, while a seemingly much later design hung the chair from one end of the see-saw by a chain or rope. In 1730, a dictionary written by British authors included the description of a ducking stool (called a cucking stool in the text) which consisted of a chair that hung from a rope. The rope ran through a pulley attached to a tree or post (such as a dockyard crane), and could be used to raise and lower the chair. This had created the same arrangement as a boatswain's chair, though presumably with a more substantial chair, and had presumably become well established as a design by that year, since no others were mentioned. From that year onwards, descriptions of ducking stools started to mention that the chair was "hung" over water, rather than being "set" over it. By 1750, British ships had clamps added to them especially for hanging stages, showing how common their use was, but neither clamps nor stages were mentioned in earlier sailing manuals. In 1758, a sailor was reported as being lifted to shore in "a cradle", due to injuries to both legs. Exact details of the cradle are not given, but his injuries would probably have prevented the use of a chair, and it is likely to have been a hammock or a box. At the time, "cradle" typically referred to a hospital bed, presumably made of wood, with sides to stop its occupant from falling out.
In 1762, boatswain's chairs (described only as a "chair") were used to bring "the most delicate ladies" on board ships, or take them off them. This seems to have been the only purpose they were used for, since ladies (or injured men) were considered unable to climb a ladder out of a small boat onto a large ship. It was described in a British publication as if it were a known practice by that year. At the same time, a sack was suggested as a makeshift harness when escaping a fire using a rope, though this was deemed intimidating for "the most tender and timorous". A wooden board placed in the bottom, and a metal ring in the top, stopped the sack from closing. In 1769, a mathematics book (published under a few different names) by British author William Emerson described the use of both a cross bar boatswain's chair made from a stick, and what was presumably a plank boatswain's chair, described as "a chair to sit in", by steeplejacks or builders working on masonry. It was described in mathematical terms, using a pulley arrangement, but the text stated that the plank version was commonly used for masonry work by that year. It does not mention this arrangement being used for sailors, in spite of discussing the use of pulleys within sailing in great detail in the following paragraph. In 1771 British geologist John Lloyd was lowered 57 metres into Eldon Hole by miners, by "fastening the rope to [his] body", presumably around his waist. In 1773, a boatswain's chair was being used to lower a guest off a ship, which was trading between Jamaica and Moldavia (now Moldova, Romania or Ukraine). The rope snapped and she drowned. The boatswain's chair was referred to in the Stamford Mercury simply as "a chair". The nationality of the sailors is not stated, but they are likely to have been from Moldavia.
In 1778, Johann Georg Krünitz described in Berlin, Prussia, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany) in the Oekonomische Encyklopädie volume 13, how mountaineers might use a boatswain's chair made from a stick tied to a rope to lower themselves, though the use of a boatswain's chair is specifically mentioned in relation to fire escapes. In 1783, an actual armchair, slung from 2 ropes, was used as part of a stair lift, for people who could not walk down stairs. Also in 1783, French inventor Louis-Sébastien Lenormand tested a parachute using a rigid sit harness that was shaped like a giant pair of Y-fronts, large enough to reach out to touch the waist band. By 1784, French sailors also used the word "triangle" for stages that were hung over the sides of ships. In 1785, French abbot Charles Carnus was lowered into Tindoul de la Vayssière, after being tied to the end of a rope. In 1786, well diggers in southern France were reported as using a bucket to sit in when being lowered into a well, though ladders were more common at the time. In 1787, miners in Poland, still the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, were still described as tying a rope around themselves instead of using a dedicated harness (presumably still sitting in a loop of the rope), and sitting a second person on their lap. In the same year, a sensory touch complex swing depicted in a French book showed a basket with the bottom removed, being used as a sit harness. The rope went via a pulley above, exactly like the Roman spintria example, and several later examples used the same approach. A 1795 engraving of fowling in the Orkney Islands showed one person suspended on a boatswain's chair, and a person sitting in a basket on top of a Tyrolean traverse. In 1797, oil wells (literal wells that oil percolates into, like water in a normal well) in Burma (now Myanmar) were manually dug by miners, who were lowered into the well, since ladders were unusable because of the oil. The exact method of holding the miners was not described, but the only method mentioned to lift rubble, oil or anything else from the well was using a bucket, so it is likely they used the same bucket for lowering miners. In 1798, fire brigades in Leipzig, Holy Roman Empire (now Germany) were using load bearing belts as a harness, the earliest known mention of their use by fire brigades. Also in 1798, (presumably French) sailors used a boatswain's chair, described as a "small bench suspended by a rope", to haul a sailor and several French travellers up Pompey's Pillar in Egypt, including French architects Charles Norry, André Dutertre, Jean Constantin Protain and Jean-Baptiste Lepère, and several members of the Commission of Arts. It was not stated whether they also used it on a ship. In 1800, the British ship HMS Foudroyant docked in Sicily, and Queen Maria Carolina and her daughters were brought on board in a boatswain's chair, which was referred to as a "ladies' chair" in a book written in 1843.
In 1803, British inventor Knight Spencer developed the Marine Spencer, a slightly flexible life ring. It had a full body harness, consisting of straps over each shoulder, and a single strap between the legs, with the main life ring sitting around the waist. In 1804, British physician Joseph Mason Cox used an armchair with arms, back and legs as a sit harness, attached via ropes from each leg to a series of pulleys, to lift patients in the air and spin them around until they passed out. This was supposed to be a mental health treatment to reduce mania, and variations of the design were used for several decades. In the same year, a British naval ship docked in a Norwegian port, and allowed locals to board the ship for a visit. The visiting ladies were brought on board "in a chair", presumably referring to a boatswain's chair. In 1807, George William Manby developed a method to get a rope to a wrecked ship, so that people could safely get to shore (this idea had appeared before, but using mechanical throwers, without the required accuracy or distance). A mortar was fired from shore, towing a thin cord. This was used to pull over a thick rope which was pulled tight as a Tyrolean traverse. This did not have any form of harness for the person to hang from, so they either had to tie a rope around their waist, or hang a hammock, netting, hoop, smaller basket, or very large basket from the rope. In 1808, British inventor Henry Trengrouse improved the method, but it was not demonstrated on a ship until 1818. A thin cord was propelled from the ship using a rocket launched from a musket barrel. A seat, which was not described in detail, could be hung from pulleys running along it. Henry Trengrouse used the French name "chaise volante", meaning "flying chair". No reference was made to it being a sailor's seat, so it is unlikely that the sailors were used to using a boatswain's chair. At that stage, it was evidently only a simple seat, and a cork jacket was used for floatation if the rope sagged into the water, but this idea later developed into the breeches buoy used for marine rescue.
In 1818, miners from the Austrian Empire, formerly Poland and now Poland again, were once again described as sitting in loops of rope, though without mentioning anyone sitting on their laps. This description was used to create a depiction of the approach, showing them clustered above each other. The bowline on a bight started appearing in naval manuals in 1819, and is likely to have been used by sailors shortly before then to make a sit harness. One loop could be placed around the legs, and one around the body. In 1824, British inventor George Pocock started experimenting with man-lifting kites, after having experimented with load bearing kites previously. He flew his 12 year old daughter in a chair slung below a kite. The description of the event shows that it was a normal household wooden armchair, with a back and legs. By 1827, French exterior decorators ("le badigeonneur") were using plank-style boatswain's chairs while whitewashing buildings using the same methods as roofers had, something that was already known well enough by 1830-1835 to be used in satirical artworks, and appear in numerous depictions.
In 1828, John Cumberland's stage adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's 1827 book The Red Rover, published as part of Cumberland's Minor Theatre, included the instruction that "a slung chair is hoisted" to bring ladies onboard a ship. In 1829, sailors were described (in a novel written by a British Royal Navy officer) as simply tying a rope around the body using a bowline, rather than using a boatswain's chair. This was stated as being the method used to haul "a lady" onto the ship, suggesting that a boatswain's chair was not standard equipment on ships at that stage. In 1931 a fictional story called "Jack The Giant" was published in Britain. It called boatswain's chairs on ships a "lady's chair", and said they were pulled up by a "whip", which is a rope passing through a single pulley overhead. In 1833, boatswain's chairs were being used to allow guest "ladies" to board a convict ship, described in the London Evening Standard in 1833 as to "sling a chair". In 1835, a fictional story published in Britain as if it were from a real diary, described a lady and her servants being hoisted onto a ship, on what was referred to as a "chair". The chair was clearly described as something non-standard, made from an actual wooden armchair, with its back cut shorter than normal, but keeping the armrests and legs, and it was pulled up using a simple pulley arrangement. This suggests that purpose made boatswain's chairs were still not something considered normal on a ship. In 1837, French explorer Stanislas Marie César Famin described Colombian Tyrolean traverses, which were used by the Colombians to cross rivers if a more substantial bridge was not available. They called them tarabite. They would hang from a hook on the rope in what was called (in French) a "mannequin", which at that time was the name of a long, narrow basket used to carry fruit and fish to market, and later depictions showed them to be large enough for several people. Alternatively, they would use what was described as "a net", which was depicted as a very loose sit harness with one strand passing between their legs, and others around their waist and upper body.
In 1841, British sailor Thomas Kisbee had supposedly invented the modern life ring, but Leonardo da Vinci had in fact already depicted a recognisably modern life ring in Codex Atlanticus in 1486, and several other versions had already been used by sailors, on many ships. Some were rigid, some were flexible. Cork was a common material used for them. Like the Marine Spencer before it, the cork was covered in water resistant canvas to make it more durable, while a modern life ring usually uses a plastic foam covered with plastic. Unlike an actual modern life ring, Thomas Kisbee's design had a pair of oversized shorts hanging in the middle of the life ring, which the user stepped into as a sit harness, instead of the Marine Spencer's straps. It was first used during his 1842-1847 voyage on the HMS Driver. It was adopted by the British RNLI rescue service in 1855 (though it is not known whether they kept the shorts). Shortly after that, it was incorporated into the George William Manby and Henry Trengrouse rescue systems to create the breeches buoy harness, including the shorts, which was hung from pulleys. The exact date of this is not known, but it was used to rescue the crew from the Tenterden in Northern England in 1866.
In 1842, two British teenage children were described in a report and depicted in a famous sketch, being winched up a deep mine shaft in Northen England using a "clatch-iron" (a bar with hooks dangling from each end to hold a large bucket) as a cross bar boatswain's chair, at which point it was known as a "clatch-harness". They sat facing each other, with the girl sitting on the boy's lap. (Incidentally, this picture was subsequently adapted many times, including an infamous version with the girl topless, intended to anger the Victorians. The modified image became part of the reason that many MPs voted for Lord Ashley's act of 1842 to ban women and children from working in coal mines, in spite of it not being real.) This method had been in use for some time, with children as young as 5 years old. In the same year, steeplejacks in New Zealand - still a British colony at that stage - were described using a boatswain's chair, showing how far their usage had spread within the industry already. By 1845, St. Catherine's Monastery had switched to a wooden cross bar boatswain's chair, though it is not known when that change was made during the previous 2 centuries. In 1845, miners and well diggers were described sitting in a bucket instead of a harness, while mountaineers were described as tying a rope around their body. In 1845, a Scottish sailor named James Duncan Wright became known as Steeple Jack, after using kites to set up a rope ladder for climbing a church steeple. Between then and 1850, he used several methods of installing ropes on towers and chimneys, typically used kites and pull-up cords, and worked exclusively as a highly regarded steeplejack. These methods included the reintroduction of boatswain's chairs from sailing, as well as doubled rope technique and pulleys. He would often draw crowds, and would perform spectacles (such as descending at high speed) or set off fireworks. As a result, his name became associated with the work of steeplejacks, and British steeplejacks incorrectly assumed that sailors had been first to use boatswain's chairs. By 1847, Prussian fire brigades were using load bearing belts as a harness, and this spread throughout Europe as part of the uniform of organised fire brigades.
Cavers and mountaineers had traditionally used ropes tied around the body as a harness, initially just in a loop or several loops around the waist. A British team consisting of John Birkbeck, William Metcalfe, William Howson and 7 others used a fire escape belt as a harness when lowering cavers from the British Long Churn Cave into Alum Pot in 1847. They then used a large bucket with a winch for their successful second attempt to descend directly down Alum Pot in 1848. In 1848, American miners were described as standing with one foot in a loop of rope attached to a hook on the main mine shaft winch rope, when descending short mine shafts, instead of being held in any kind of safe harness. In 1858, British quarrymen at Penrhyn Slate Quarry were depicted working high up on a quarry face while seated in what appears to be a rope loop, exactly as the Polish miners had previously done. In 1860-1865, a barrel was used by James Duncan Wright in Belgium to lift a person who was afraid of heights 64 metres up an industrial chimney that needed repair. In 1861, a depiction of a horse powered mining winch in a British book showed a miner being lifted in a large bucket or kibble. In 1867, Count Murat and Mr. de Salvagnac were lowered in a large bucket or wicker basket into the Gouffre de Padirac, to retrieve the body of a murdered girl. In 1867, La Vie Souterraine documented what approaches miners were using in continental Europe, which was updated and translated to include British methods two years later. Both versions showed a large barrel called a tub being dangled from chains, connected to the main mine shaft rope, which would normally be used to lift rocks and ore from the mine. Miners were shown standing together in the barrel, or standing on the lip of the barrel, or sitting on the edge of the barrel, in order to be winched in and out of the mine. This seems to be the same idea described in 1687 in Norway, and would later develop into the mining cage used for most modern mines. In 1869, American W. F. Quinby created a human powered aeroplane (which did not actually fly) with a full body harness consisting of a metal waist belt, chest strap and shoulder straps. Functional gliders developed by others in subsequent years simply avoided using any kind of harness, and relied on the pilot leaning on a frame with their elbows or armpits, or using an actual seat. In 1873, Gustav Sundblad depicted explorers in the Partnachklamm gorge, and then in 1876, he depicted a hunter, both in the German Empire, published in Die Gartenlaube. In both cases, someone was depicted sitting on a boatswain's chair made from a stick with ropes attached at both ends. For improved safety, a loop of rope was added around the waist, attached to the main rope. In the earlier picture, two extra ropes are clearly visible passing between the legs, to prevent slipping off forwards.
In 1875, British caver Joseph Plumley was lowered into Plumley's Hole, using a full body harness made from the rope looped around his thighs and chest, an approach commonly used by miners. In 1876, French/Austrian explorer Charles Wiener explored an archaeological cave in Peru, using a boatswain's chair made from a narrow pole, suspended from separate ropes at each end. His own 1887 depiction of the event shows that he sat on it incorrectly, with the pole passing from front to back between his legs, which must have been very uncomfortable, and he needed shoulder support ropes to keep his balance. In 1877, American James Jerome van Wie created a sit harness with a belt and leg straps for his fire escape. In the same year, American Warren H. Knowlton created a sit harness with a belt and single strap between the legs (ouch). In the same year, workers building the Brooklyn Bridge in New York were described as using a boatswain's chair for working at height from the cables. By 1878, the fire brigades in the Stuttgart region of Germany were still using belts as a harness to lower men, but would use a sit harness for women or children, which consisted of several straps suspended beneath the belt, creating a seat. They would also use the full body harness made from rope loops, that miners used. In 1879, German inventor Ed. von Mengden invented a full body harness for use with the inchworm system, which included a single strap between the legs (ouch). Also in 1879, German mountaineer Carl Seitz of the German and Austrian Alpine Association climbers/mountaineers, was using fire brigade belts as a harness.
In 1880, the British Lamb Leer Cavern was rediscovered by miners Andrew Lyons and two others, and a winch was installed, presumably that year, so that foreman Joseph Nicholls, Andrew Lyons and other miners could access the Great Chamber. In 1882, Walson Richards (a newspaper corespondent and the only non-miner), S. F. Sopwith, Thomas Wynne, James McMurtrie and his son were lowered in a bucket using the winch, and that is presumably how it had been used in 1880. In the 1880s, fowlers in the Shetland Islands were using a simple loop tied in the end of the main rope, under their buttocks as a seat. To make it safer, they would tie a loop of rope around their waist, and around the seat loop strands, to hold them to it better, though this was certainly not as safe as a proper harness, as they could still slip through it. In 1882, an American architecture journal based in Massachusetts described how exterior decorators in Paris would use a boatswain's chair. This was described as if it were something new, as if American steeplejacks were not using it yet, but it was stated as something that might be seen on ships. It was described as the usual plank design made from wood, with an optional canvas seat on the wood to make it more comfortable. In 1885, the German and Austrian Alpine Association were complaining that the attachment rings could fall out of the belts. In 1887, American captain Thomas Baldwin invented the first parachute harness that used fabric straps wrapped in several places around the body, which was the inspiration for later full body harnesses - these were completely overlooked by cavers and mountaineers. French caver Édouard-Alfred Martel used a boatswains chair made from a stick tied to a rope when being lowered or winched, starting from 1888 in the Grotte de Dargilan. French caver Gaston Vuillier used this approach, as a sit harness when using a winch, and for a lifeline when climbing a ladder, some time around 1889-1892. He also used a firefighter's belt to attach to a lifeline while using a winch. In 1891, American arborists were photographed being hauled up a tree on a plank-style boatswain's chair, and using it to rest in the tree. In 1894, British aviation inventor Baden Fletcher Smyth Baden-Powell used a small wicker basket as a sit harness with a man-lifting kite, which he crammed his buttocks into like a pair of sardines in a tin, in front of a cheering crowd. In the same year, Australian inventor Lawrence Hargrave used a metal bar which was sat on like a bike saddle (from front to back) with a man-lifting kite. Édouard-Alfred Martel then used the firefighter's belt, and was depicted using a full body harness made from the rope tied around his body, when descending Britain's famous Gaping Gill in 1895.
Members of the Yorkshire Rambler's Club, including British cavers Edward Calvert, Tom Gray, Thomas Singleton Booth, Sam Cuttriss and J. A. Green, descended Gaping Gill by being lowered using a winch on a boatswain's chair down Jib Tunnel's Lateral Shaft, in 1896. The design was not specified, but when it was later set up as a formal winch, it would be a plank-style boatswain's chair, with a framework around it. A lifeline was simply tied around their waist. In 1896, some French arborists were using a safety belt. C. Wissemann recommended the use of fire service belts as a safety belt for mountaineering in 1898 in Germany/Austria. New Zealand inventor Robert Cockerell suggested a loop of rope that could be used as a seat in 1902. In 1905, steeplejacks in New York used a loop of canvas around one thigh as a sit harness. In 1910, the mountaineering booklet Anwendung des Seiles published by the Bavarian section of the German Alpine Club described how belts were useful when crossing glaciers, but a ring of rope tied around the waist was the more common method. Also in 1910, Samuel F. Perkins used a plank type of boatswain's chair as a sit harness with a man-lifting kite. This quickly became the most common approach, due to their light weight, and by 1914-1918, the American military were experimenting with man-lifting kites using that approach. In 1913, Austrian inventor Johann Machek used a boatswain's chair as a sit harness for prusiking. By 1917, American arborists would use a sit harness made from a bowline on a bight, with one loop around the waist, and the other under the thighs, tied in the hemp rope that they were hanging on, part of what became known as a safety sling. French caver Léon Pérot used a leather belt to prusik in 1920, but this was not used underground. Antoine Joseph Marius "Paul Cans" Barthelemy used a boatswain's chair with leg loops to prusik up to the first platform of the Eiffel Tower in France at the start of 1921, which was created in 1920 as part of his system to paint buildings. It was almost certainly inspired by Johann Machek's design, but the leg loops were a significant advance. Arborists in France were still using safety belts during the 1920s, which were used by some British arborists since 1929, after being introduced by British arborist Denis Le Sueur. In 1926, Anwendung des Seiles stated that belts were no longer available in good enough quality, and that mountaineers should not use them.
Caving rapidly gained harnesses as SRT was developed in the Grenoble region of France, with Henri "Kiki" Brenot's team developing a full body harness somewhere between 1929 and 1944, created from existing strong belts such as those used by the local fire service. Cavers that did not have a harness would use a belt, but might also add leg loops using rope. During the 1930s (most likely), the first version of the Swiss seat emerged, which was just a figure of 8 shaped loop of rope, with one leg in either hole, and a descender which is clipped into the crossover point of the two strands. This progressed over time to become the more complex Swiss seat rope harness that is sometimes used by the military today. The first sit harness for American arborists was Karl Kuemmerling's 1932 climbing saddle design, which used leg loops and a waist belt made from rope covered with leather pads, and also had two gear loops. In 1936, Denis Le Sueur brought the American safety sling approach to British arboriculture. However, it was not until after 1945 that the idea was used widely across Britain, as most British arborists preferred not to use ropes at all, not even as a lifeline. At the same time, American arborists had proper sit harnesses, sometimes made with a single strap under both thighs, sometimes with individual leg loops. In 1942, Anwendung des Seiles depicted a basic sit harness made from a loop of rope around the thighs, the back of which is pulled through between the legs, and used to clip things to (nothing is clipped to the front strand). A more complete full body harness made by mountaineer Ludwig Gramminger is described, with shoulder straps like a back pack, a belt, and a leg strap running from the hips, under the buttocks, passing between the thighs to the front to create an attachment point. A second attachment point is connected as a tether to the shoulder straps. The entire harness was made from webbing material. Its main purpose was for rescue (particularly of wartime flight crews whose aircraft had crashed in the mountains), where it would have a second sit harness attached to the shoulder straps, for carrying a casualty like a backpack. That harness had a fabric seat, and a webbing belt. An approach was described to create this design, without the belt, from an actual backpack, and some rope.
By 1944, French cavers were using elaborate sit harnesses for winching. The first was a wooden board version of the boatswain's chair, with ropes at each corner connected to the ends of a bar suspended from the rope, and a belt encircling them for safety. A board above protected the caver from falling debris. Another design simply connected the rope to the shoulder straps of Henri "Kiki" Brenot's harness, with a metal cone above to provide protection. These were both depicted by French caver Henry P. Guérin in 1944. Variations of these designs were still being used in the 1960s. He also depicted firefighter's belts as being commonly used for most purposes, and described how woven silk parachute belts might be used instead, and stated that leather was unsuitable, as it becomes brittle. By 1944, steeplejacks were using either a load bearing belt or a plank-style boatswain's chair as sit harnesses, or both at once, depicted by American steeplejack Laurie Young in The Ashley Book of Knots. In the same book, American sailor Clifford Warren Ashley stated that plank-style boatswain's chairs were also used by house painters, and showed their use with American arborists. A few different designs were depicted. In the construction industry, full body harnesses appeared around 1945, inspired by the parachute harnesses used by paratroopers during World War II. It is not known which type of harness French mountaineer Pierre Allain used in 1947, but a picture from that era looks like the modern Swiss seat arrangement (the version made from rope). The American military were using that approach in the 1950s. The Edil knot was used as a harness by Spanish climber Alberto Rabadá in the 1950s. Meanwhile, American sit harnesses for arborists were already being well made from cotton, leather and later nylon webbing, but for some reason, American cavers did not notice. In 1953, American caver William Franklin "Vertical Bill" Cuddington probably used a single leg loop around just one thigh, without any waist belt, with a carabiner clipped to it as a descender. The other leg was left completely unsupported, which would have been very uncomfortable. This was described by American cavers Dan Bloxsom and Cord H. Link in 1955 in The Troglodyte volume 1 number 9.
In the early 1960s, British climber Tony Howard had been working on the Mark 1 then Mark 2 harnesses, which were used on the first ascent of Norway's Trollveggen (Troll Wall) in 1965. They most likely were a waist belt and buttock strap, with a central strap connecting the buttock strap and front, much like a G-string with upper and lower waist bands (ouch!). American cavers used a parachute harness to explore Mexican caves using a winch in 1960. In the same year, cavers from Austin, Texas, USA, used a plank-style boatswain's chair as a sit harness, for use with the Texas system of prusiking. In 1962, American caver Tom Perera described a boatswain's chair with leg loops, confusingly called the prusik sling, confusing it with prusik loops. American climbers were using the swami belt in the early 1960s. Initially, this was webbing tied in several loops around the waist (originally called a "bowline on a coil" when tied using a bowline), but Tom Perera wrote in 1962 that it had progressed to having loops tied around the legs as well, creating a sit harness called a swami seat. The Dülfer seat (a sit harness made from a sling looped behind your back with a carabiner clipped into the ends at the front, with one strand pulled through between the legs, and clipped into the carabiner) seems to have become popular at the same time, but may have been an earlier invention. It sometimes also got called the Swiss seat and swami seat, just to add confusion. In 1962, American Barry Palmer advanced his hang glider design, adding a seat described as a "ski lift type of seat" hanging beneath it. In 1963, American John Dickenson then adapted the swing again to make a fabric seat version of the boatswain's chair, which was used on his hang glider, and several others copied this approach. Over the next few years, wooden plank boatswain's chairs would be used instead. Variations, which added a waist belt or fabric back support to a boatswain's chair were being developed well into the 1970s, and some remain in use.
During the 1960s, load bearing webbing belts emerged for climbing, which became particularly popular with climbers in Britain. Leg loops could be added for comfort, creating a home made sit harness. Some time in the late 1960s, companies started making simplistic full body harnesses which could have been used for climbing, but these were ignored by most climbers, and never caught on with caving, since they do not normally allow the independent adjustment that most prusiking systems require. American caver Bill Barnedou suggested using military surplus parachute harnesses as a full body harness in 1965, which was used the same year for the Wisconsin system. American caver Dave Brison created the bi-sling sit harness with leg loops made from a separate sling in 1965. Commercial belts and leg loops (sold separately!) were available by 1968 from American Bill Forrest. In 1968, the Davek Harness was being sold by Derek Walford in Britain, which looked very much like a modern harness. British climbers Alan Waterhouse and Tony Howard, who had set up the company Troll, designed the Whillans Harness in the late 1960s, with Paul Seddon joining in later. This was specifically created for SRT, for use on an ascent of Annapurna South in 1970. It featured an uncomfortable single strap between the legs. In 1969, British Royal Air Force Mountain Rescue Team member Mike Stanton used a sling to make a sit harness for Cambridge University Caving Club member Steve Smith, presumably as a Dülfer seat. In 1970, Scottish born Brian Robertson started selling the Clan Robertson climbing harness in the USA. Several harnesses were still made in two pieces (separate belt and sit harness), or remained as just a waist belt until the 1980s.
In 1971, British cavers had used either the Whillans Harness or home made sit harnesses during the expedition to Ghar Parau in Iran, and stated that the home made ones coped with abrasion better. In the same year, British Descent magazine issue 19 showed how to make a sit harness from a sling. At the start of the 1970s, French cavers were using sit harnesses tied from webbing straps. Hang gliders developed the forwards leaning harness in 1971, beginning with a simple strap around the waist or thighs, with the earliest known use by American Dick Eipper. These quickly progressed to more complex arrangements by 1974, including the knee hanger harness made in Britain by Miles Handley, which is a full body harness with separate knee loops instead of leg loops. Around 1972, some American hang glider pilots were using individual leg loops instead of a single seat. In 1972, Nick Reckert wrote about methods and equipment for potholing, in the Cambridge University Caving Club journal. He stated that a sit harness made from a sling is better than a belt or "leg loop" (without clarifying if that was a loop for one or two legs). In 1974, French cavers were using a sit harness made from two straps with attachment points at the ends. One would be wrapped around the waist, and the other would be wrapped behind both legs, with the middle pulled through to the front. The middle and all four strap ends would be connected to the D-ring. Cavers in America were using a wide variety of home made harnesses made from webbing during the 1970s, which were surprisingly high quality. The Davison System was a full body harness with leg loops, waist belt and shoulder strap created by American Don Davison in 1974. The seat sling was created by American Will Howie in 1975, which used the Dülfer seat arrangement. American Bruce W. Smith described a Gibbs harness with leg loops and waist belt in 1976. The butt strap full body harness was created by Americans Mike Fishesser and Roger Stephens in 1977, which had leg loops, a waist belt and shoulder strap. This approach continued well into the 1980s, with many further designs. Caving and mountaineering harnesses became commercially available from Petzl in 1977, followed by the Avanti which was dedicated to just caving in 1982, both of which are modern designs of harness. European cavers almost exclusively used commercially manufactured harnesses once these became available. The full body climbing harness appeared again in 1977, from Petzl.
This history section only covers sit harnesses. This article also has a detailed history of many of the other devices and techniques that are used for vertical caving.
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