View source for Cuttie-stool

{{Short description|Short stool}}
A '''cuttie-stool''', or '''cutty-stool''' (also '''-{{not a typo|stuil}}'''), was a type of three-legged chair used in [[Scotland]]. It was a short [[stool (chair)|stool]], often having a round seat on the top, but the word also designates a larger piece of furniture associated with [[public penance]] in church.

Such stools were often used for [[milking]] and domestic purposes, and afforded little comfort other than to provide balance to the worker concerned. They were cheap to buy and easy to make, and their three legs made them stable on uneven floors. "Cutty" or "cuttie" means "short" in [[Scots language|Lowland Scots]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/cutty|title=Cutty|publisher=Dictionaries of the Scots Language|access-date=16 August 2021}}</ref> and can be found in such phrases as "[[Cutty-sark (witch)|cutty sark]]" (the nickname of the witch in "[[Tam o' Shanter (Burns poem)|Tam o' Shanter]]", derived from her only garment, a short shift).

==Penance stool==
[[Edward Ramsay|Dean Ramsay]] (1793–1872) says:
: "A circumstance connected with Scottish church discipline has undergone a great change in my time - I mean the public censure from the pulpit of persons convicted of a breach of the [[Thou shalt not commit adultery|seventh commandment]] ... this was performed by the guilty person standing on a raised platform called the cutty-stool"

He adds:
: "The culprits did not always take the admonition patiently. It is recorded of one of them in [[Ayrshire]], that when accused of [[adultery]] by the minister, he interrupted and corrected his reverend monitor by denying the imputation, and calling out, 'Na! Na! Minister; it was simple ''fornie'' ([[fornication]]) and no ''adultery'' ava.'"

"The Cutty Stool.—In a church in the Black Isle district, [[Ross-shire]], on a recent Sunday, a woman who had been guilty of transgressing the Seventh Commandment was condemned to the cutty stool, and sat during the whole service with a black shawl thrown over her head."<ref>Thos. Ratcliffe; The cutty stool, Notes and Queries, Volume s5-VI, Issue 156, 23 December 1876, Pages 510, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/s5-VI.156.510f</ref>

==Jenny Geddes' Cutty-stool Riot==
[[File:Janet Geddes from A History of Protestantism volume 3.png|thumb|left|Historic engraving of Jenny Geddes throwing a cuttie-stool]]

"In 1637, [[Charles I of England]] insisted on introducing a new prayer book. The Book of Common Prayer followed the content of the Anglican prayer book very closely even though it was written by Scottish bishops."<ref>Kallus, Veronika. 2010. "St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh." Norfolk: Heritage House Group. Page 10.</ref> [[Jenny Geddes]] reportedly threw a cutty stool<ref>Housman, Laurence. [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/26967078 The Cutty Stool].</ref> when the [[Church of Scotland]] introduced the [[Book of Common Prayer]] at [[St Giles' Cathedral]] in [[Edinburgh, Scotland|Edinburgh]], Scotland, on 23 July 1637. The resulting actions and reactions caused a riot that resulted in the Church of Scotland refusing to adopt the English Book of Common Prayer. This and other actions widened the split between the Presbyterian Scots and the [[Church of England]].<ref>"Jenny Geddes' wee cutty stool" MacCartney, Thomas J. [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57414269 The Scottish Covenanters: A Fifty Years' Struggle for Religious Liberty]. London: Charles H. Kelly, 1891.</ref> Although the name of the woman who actually threw the stool is disputed, the story and the name came from some of the writings of the period.<ref>Lothian, Murdoch. [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36640079 The Cutty Stool.] Glasgow: Hughson Gallery, 1995. Pages 23-27.</ref>

In 1992 a bronze statue of the cutty stool thrown by Jenny Geddes was dedicated in St Giles' Cathedral. Designed and sculpted by [[Merilyn Smith]], the stool was paid for by a subscription of forty women in the cathedral. Entitled, "Dux Femina Facti" ("A woman was the leader of the deed"), it was placed on the Moray Aisle of  the cathedral, near a plaque dedicated to Jenny Geddes in 1886.<ref>Lothian, Murdoch. [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36640079 The Cutty Stool.] Glasgow: Hughson Gallery, 1995. Page 35.</ref>

"In 1992 a group of Scotswomen presented a bronze sculpture of a stool 'in Memory of Jenny Geddes'. For some reason it has wrongly been called 'The Cutty Stool', but that, of course, was actually the name given to the stool of repentance in the seventeenth century."<ref>Marshall, Rosalind Kay. [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/423581200 St Giles': The Dramatic Story of a Great Church and Its People]. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2009. Page 180.</ref>

==See also==
* [[Penance]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* Coleman, Everard Home. 1884. "Recent Use of the Cutty Stool". Notes and Queries. 6-IX, no. 219: 186.
* Housman, Laurence. [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/26967078 The Cutty Stool]. n.d. Abstract: Typescript signed. Play, corrected by Housman. Published in Cornered poets, 1929.
* Lothian, Murdoch. [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36640079 The Cutty Stool.] Glasgow: Hughson Gallery, 1995.
* MacKay, Charles – ''A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch'' (1888)

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[[Category:Religion in Scotland]]
[[Category:Chairs]]