Sleep’s importance to early modern life and culture can hardly be overstated and yet the history of this vital and ubiquitous human experience has barely been told.
-Professor Sasha Handley
How has climate impacted historical sleeping patterns? How did early peoples interpret and customise their own sleep environments? These are some of the questions that the Sleeping Well in the Early Modern World project is currently exploring. Launched in 2021 and helmed by University of Manchester Professor Sasha Handley, the four-year initiative, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust, specifically focuses on communities in Britain, Ireland and England’s emerging American colonies. “We’re interested in how people’s physical surroundings shaped their efforts to get a good night’s sleep in the early modern period, c. 1500-1750,” said Dr Holly Fletcher, one of the project’s postdoctoral research associates. We spoke to Dr Fletcher to learn more about the project’s purview and about her own work in early modern material culture.
The Custodian: Could you tell us more about the scope of your work on the Sleeping Well in the Early Modern World project and how it relates to your overall research interests?
Dr Holly Fletcher: I am a postdoctoral researcher on the project Sleeping Well in the Early Modern World at the University of Manchester which examines the history of sleep care from an environmental perspective. We’re interested in how people’s physical surroundings shaped their efforts to get a good night’s sleep in the early modern period, c. 1500-1750. This could include the use of locally grown botanicals in sleep remedies or to deter bedroom pests, for example, as well as changing sleep habits in accordance with seasonal or climatic factors.
My area of research on the project focuses on the material strategies early modern people used to create healthy sleep environments. By sleep environments I mean both the wider space in which a person was sleeping, like the bedchamber or home more generally, as well as the more immediate environment of the bed, bedding and nightwear that were in contact with the body. I’m interested in how people sought to control these material spaces in response to both contemporary medical advice and environmental factors such as temperature and light.
Most recently I have been investigating the kinds of materials that were used to fill mattresses and have discovered that these included a much broader array of animal and plant matter than previously thought. As well as more widely-known stuffing materials like feathers, straw and woollen flocks, early modern beds could be filled with rabbit fur, goat hair, dog hair, and plant materials like thistledown (the fluffy heads of thistles) and fen down (used to refer to the fluffy seeds from bulrushes). Fen down in particular indicates a place-based knowledge of botanicals for use in comfortable bedding, as it was collected by poorer communities in the fenlands around Ely as a cheap alternative to expensive down feathers. The use of particular stuffing materials also intersected with health concerns as some fillings, such as certain kinds of animal hair, were believed to cause illness by overheating the body and creating unsavoury sensory reactions. Beds sold by upholsterers (who were chiefly engaged with making mattresses in this period) were thus regulated through laws which forbade the sale of mattresses filled with anything other than feathers or flocks. We can therefore identify a culture of sleep management which was shaped by place-specific, material knowledge in combination with healthcare practices.
This research connects to my broader interest in early modern material culture, and particularly how engagement with matter was understood to impact on early modern bodies.
C: How common was “biphasic sleep” and to what extent do you think it was influenced by diet, lifestyle, and environmental factors?
HF: That people in the past practiced biphasic sleep, a sleeping pattern in which people split their sleep into two segments, has become common knowledge. According to this view, people followed a two-sleep system right up until the nineteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution, along with artificial lighting and a greater dependence on clock-time, meant that people’s sleeping habits changed. The work of A. Roger Ekirch shows that there is a substantive amount of evidence indicating that biphasic sleep was widely practiced. Nonetheless, there is also plenty of evidence to suggest that a lot of early modern people did not follow this routine. There was widespread variation in sleep timings across society and even within individual households. Domestic servants followed different sleep timings from their employers, for example, while the sleep routines of agricultural workers would have been structured around the changing seasons to a greater extent than members of the upper classes.
Even for those who had the flexibility to follow a two-sleep pattern, it did not always come naturally. As part of my early work for the project I read through the diaries of plantation owner and lawyer William Byrd II from colonial Virginia who kept detailed notes of his sleeping hours. Byrd generally woke up at around five or six o’clock each morning but he also went through phases in which he deliberately got up at around midnight to study Hebrew and Greek before going back to bed until around seven o’clock. This would last for about a week before he returned to his usual pattern. It seems that Byrd thought biphasic sleep was preferable from a scholarly perspective but that he struggled to stick with it as part of his daily routine. His sleeping patterns also changed notably depending on whether he was staying at home (with his wife and young children) or was in town for work.
While it seems that biphasic sleep was frequently followed, too much focus on this one sleep pattern can distract us from the diversity of early modern sleep practices.
C: Did people use herbs, lighting, furniture, or other physical objects to either protect their bedrooms from intruders or to ward away nightmares?
HF: There were several different kinds of intruders that early modern people wanted to keep away from the sleeping place and each required different practices and materials for their deterrence. Bedroom pests were common intruders which disturbed sleep and caused discomfort. There are lots of early modern recipes instructing readers on what methods they could use to remove all sorts of pests from the bed, including bedbugs, fleas, rats, mice and even snakes and scorpions. English clergyman and author Edward Topsell, for instance recommended strewing plants like wild thyme, bay-leaves, marjoram and pennyroyal (a flowering plant in the mint family) to ‘defend and keep us from venomous creatures’ at night. In the fenlands, people would reportedly hang cow dung at the foot of their beds to attract gnats, and thereby divert them away from the bodies of those resting under the covers.
Sleepers were also believed to be particularly vulnerable to attacks from diabolical spirits, as during sleep, they moved through different states of consciousness. As Sasha Handley has shown, sleepers tried to deter such malicious forces through the use of protective amulets made of precious materials like coral, which was believed to be especially effective for protecting young people and children from ghosts, demons and nightmares. Similarly, topaz was believed by some to drive away nocturnal fear. Sleeping chambers could also be marked by candle burns above the bedstead which may have been part of the gamut of protective materials and rituals thought to safeguard both the bodies and souls of sleepers during the night, and to provide reassurance and comfort. These candle marks can be seen in numerous historic houses today, mainly surviving in the principal sleeping chambers of gentry households.
C: In your view, what are the most surprising or peculiar aspects of early modern sleeping habits?
HF: I think one of the most surprising aspects of early modern sleep can be how familiar it is — we are often so conscious of the many ways in which life was different for people in the past, and with concepts like the two-sleep model, or the idea that early modern people slept on beds filled with rabbit fur and thistle-heads, early modern sleep can seem distinctly alien. Yet what is striking is that people describe facing struggles with sleep that are extremely recognisable to a modern reader. As William Byrd’s sleep timings indicate, their sleep would inevitably be disturbed by the arrival of a new baby, or when they were sleeping in an unfamiliar location.
Many of us can relate to the accounts of early modern people who describe the pleasure they felt in returning to their own bed after a long journey. Moreover descriptions of those who struggled to drift off due to an unquiet mind, or instructions to sooth the senses through calming sounds and scents to encourage sleep, can remind us of our own sleep struggles and remedies. Of course, early modern sleep practices need to be understood as culturally and historically specific, yet in many ways the care which people paid to sleep and their efforts to sleep well connects their world to our own.
Follow the Sleeping Well in the Early Modern World project on Twitter for further research updates.