What’s in a Name? the use of Tusk Tenons and Face-Pegged Through Tenons in England

Abstract

From the seventeenth century to the nineteenth, carpenters’ and builders’ manuals have defined tusks as shoulders above or below tenons. In recent decades, especially in English archaeological literature, the term ‘tusk tenon’ has come to be applied in a variety of ways to what are more generally known on the Continent as ‘through tenons with face pegs’. To meet the demands imposed by a growing typology, it is suggested below that ‘tusk tenon’ should be applied only in the sense defined in early manuals and that ‘through tenons’ with or without ‘face pegs’ would, as a result, be better understood as a discrete and separate group of carpentered joints. The latter have been found in Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon contexts, as well as on the medieval waterfront in London. In contrast with the Continental evidence, there was a decline in their use in English medieval buildings, followed by a resurgence in the seventeenth century.