Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - The Curious History of Beds

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Sex and beds have a long, interwoven history. Here on Betwixt we often cover sex history, but we haven’t done a deep dive into the history of where it’s often done… in bed.So today we have something a little different for you, here’s an episode all about the history of beds, and it’s a story that will take us from medieval France, to 17th century Hertfordshire and beyond.It’s an episode from our friends over at the Curious History of Your Home podcast, which you can follow here.Betwixt the Sheets will be back with its usual programming on Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. Sex and beds have a long interwoven history, and here on betwixt, we often cover sex history, but we haven't done a deep dive into the history of where it's often done, the bed. So today we have something a little bit different for you. Here is an episode all about the history of beds,

and it's a story that will take us from medieval France to some, 17th century, Hertfordshire and beyond. It's made by our friends over at The Curious History of Your Home Podcast, and it's hosted by domestic historian Ruth Goodman. It's such a good podcast, so if you like this episode, they've got other episodes on everything from wallpaper to toilets. Did you know that in Victorian London, homeless people had to choose between sleeping on a bench or sleeping in a coffin?

Well, you're going to find out all about that and more in this episode. I'll be back with our usual Tuesday offering with an episode all about the real Cleopatra. You don't want to miss that one. But for now, enjoy this episode on the curious history of your home, all about beds. The year is 1000 BC, and we're in the Yucatan Peninsula in Central America, in what is now southeast Mexico. It's a warm evening, and the setting sun casts deep, blood-orange rays across a sprawling settlement. To one side, ultramarine waters glisten.

To the other, lush green field stretch seemingly into eternity, abundant with fruit trees and flowering plants. This tropical paradise is home to the Maya people. As we wander along the edge of the settlement, we see telltale signs of Mayan life. The dying embers of several fires, thatched shelters, as well as discarded seashells and sacks of beans. We even spot a pen of turkeys scratching at the maize seeds scattered in their enclosure.

But we can't see or hear the people who call this village home just yet. That's because it's bedtime and they're sleeping. Careful not to wake anyone. We tread lightly across the guise. sand peering into their homes. But there are no visible beds on the floor like we might expect. Instead, hanging from the ceiling beams are long pieces of cloth,

just longer than a person's body, in which the family are snoozing peacefully. The cloths wrap around at either side, enveloping the sleeper in a snug cocoon. Each one is raised high off the ground, well away from crawling snakes, spiders or insects. As the cloth bags sway in the gentle breeze, they rock the inhabitants into a deep slumber. These floating sleeping bags are made from the fibres of the sysel plant, and you may well recognise them today, because these Mayan beds are, of course, hammocks. Evidence suggests that the Arrawak peoples in the Caribbean and the Maya in Central and South America

slept in hammocks for thousands of years. When Christopher Columbus travelled to America in 1492, he brought a hammock back to Europe where it found popularity among sailors, soldiers and explorers. But the hammock wasn't the only bed in the ancient world. Humans in every corner of the globe needed a place to sleep and they all devised their own unique solutions. Let's take a look at some of them

and see how we came to have the bed we know and love today. I'm Ruth Goodman. I've spent my life exploring the extraordinary history of everyday items, the little things we often take for granted. You see, every object in your home has a full, fascinating hidden history, a story that's just waiting to be told. This week, we're going under the covers to learn all about beds from centuries past. So come with me, and together we'll explore the curious history of your home.

We've already seen that in the Americas, the Arawack and the Maya slept in hammocks from around the year 2000 BC. But what about the rest of the world? For much of prehistory, Our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have dozed off on soft patches of grass or piles of leaves. But these proto-beds were more high-tech than you might imagine. In Kwasulu Natal, South Africa, archaeologists have made an amazing discovery. They found what is believed to be the world's oldest bed, layers of plant material dating back 70,000 years. were found gathered into a 12-inch-thick mat, measuring three-foot by six-foot, they would have

slept an entire family. Astonishingly, the top layers of leaves were from species with insecticidal properties, keeping nasty crawling critters away from sleepers. Fast forward tens of thousands of years to around 3,000 BC, and the inhabitants of Scarabreol, on the Orkney Isles had built beds made of stone. These might not sound that comfy, but they would have been padded with rush mats, animal skins and blankets. At about the same time,

the people who lived near Stonehenge were building similar beds out of wood. Leaf and stone beds aside, the first people to create bedroom furniture that would be recognisable to you or I today, with the ancient Egyptians. Their beds consisted of a wooden frame with a woven base of reeds or string, topped with a wool or linen blanket.

Some featured ornately carved legs, often mimicking animals with paws and claws at the base. When King Tutankarman died in 1323 BC, he was buried with a variety of different beds, including what many believed to be the world's first folding up camping bed. Also in his tomb were six headrests made from ivory, ebony and jade, expensive forerunners to the pillow. But these fine objects were only for the very wealthy.

Because throughout the ancient world, there was an enormous disparity in how the rich and the poor slept. It's 2021, and we're in Pompeii. about half a kilometre north of the ancient city. As the sun illuminates the astonishingly preserved buildings below, the excited chatter of tourists and the flash and click of cameras fill the air. With all this hustle and bustle, it's hard to believe that for centuries this place was a ghost town,

buried by the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. But we're not here to marvel at the ruins with the tourists, Instead, we're joining a team of archaeologists. And today, they're excavating one of the city's best-preserved houses. We follow them down the stone steps of the villa Civita Giuliana and into its sprawling underground world. The dark, dusty corridors present us with disturbing fossils of ancient life, including plaster casts of bodies.

They show where animals and humans died, engulfed by the pyroclastic flow of ash that ultimately destroyed the city. As we venture further inside, the light vanishes, and every footstep echoes eerily off the cracked walls. At last, we reach a tiny door, which archaeologists have only recently discovered. They have no idea what might be on the other side. with gloved hands they push it open it creaks ominously it hasn't been used in centuries once we step inside

it becomes clear that this room was once a bedroom albeit a small one measuring just 170 square feet it's stuffy and cramped three wooden beds are crammed close to one another They are strung with thin ropes to form a loose net. No comfy mattress here. While two of them are big enough to fit an adult sleeper, the third must have belonged to a child.

There are remains of blankets flung about haphazardly. Clearly, there was no time to make the bed on Pompey's last day. The archaeologists catch sight of several objects stacked haphazedly beneath the beds, pulling out ceramic jars on a wooden chest. When they prized it open, they discover the rusty remains of a metal harness. The eclectic collection of objects suggests the room was used for sleeping, working and storing. Because this was not the bedroom of a wealthy individual. It was inhabited by a group whose lives are rarely documented.

Slaves. While the enslaved people of ancient Rome slept in, basic wooden beds, or worse, animal skins slung across the floor. The upper echelons of society had a bed for literally every occasion. They'd lounge and eat on one couch-like bed, read or study on another, and settle down to sleep on a simple wood or metal bed. There were even designated beds for married couples, as well as funery ones for the deceased. But, but we're even designated beds. For Well, they do say that death is the last sleep. This short break.

This idea of multiple beds continued well past the fall of Rome and into the European Middle Ages, as did the class divisions associated with the simple act of sleeping. Peasants in medieval Europe tended to stuff hay, straw, wool or feathers, if they were lucky, into sacks, and use them as coarse mattresses. Having myself slept on these kinds of mattresses, I know from personal experience that straw is a bit prickly, hay is rather hard,

wool is liable to become very lumpy, and feather mattresses are best of all super squashy. Each night before going to bed, people in the middle ages would pick up their sacks and hit them to reshape them and shake out any lumps, bumps or insects. Possibly the origin of the phrase, hit the hay? Another type of bed in late medieval Europe was the box bed,

an enclosed bed made to look like a cupboard and filled with mattresses and blankets. These weren't entirely new. They were, in fact, the direct descendants of the built-in stone beds on Scarabray. Not only did boxbeds save space, but they also maintained warmth. I've actually slept in a box bed

and I can tell you that they are warm, although a bit stuffy. Huddling together in an enclosed bed guaranteed a cosy night's sleep for a cold medieval family. In fact, box beds were so practical that they continued to be used in parts of Britain and France well into the 19th century,

though there is a darker side to this item of furniture. In the 13th century, a cautionary tale circulated through France about a woman who hid three men in her boxbed when her husband returned home unexpectedly. When she went to tell them the coast was clear, she found that they had suffocated. I don't know if this story is true, but it's enough to make me think twice about buying one. As the Middle Ages wore on, the wealthy started sleeping in four. poster beds. These were large and wooden, often intricately carved, and draped with heavy velvet curtains. They were raised high off the ground, and some even required a stool to reach them.

Of course, these four poster beds were the very pinnacle of luxury and could only be enjoyed by the fabulously rich. Money may not buy happiness, but it could certainly afford one a good night's sleep. On the other side of the world, raised beds weren't necessarily symbols of status. In Japan, from the Heian period to the start of the Edo, spanning the 8th to 16th centuries, men and women of all classes slept close to the ground, on woven rush and cotton mats called tatami. At night, they'd lay their tatami out on the floor and as soon as dawn brown, they'd roll them up and store them away. Such minimalist furniture was prominent in other parts of the world too.

In Northern Europe, Viking warriors were always on the go. They needed beds that were light, compact and durable to withstand arduous voyages. So they designed simple wooden beds that could be taken apart and slotted back together within moments. This was flat-pack furniture, Viking style. Back in England, as the medieval period drew to a close, beds were more and more becoming items of luxury

for those who could afford them. It's May, 1616, and we're in Stratford upon Avon in the West Midlands. On the top floor of an impressive half-timber Tudor house, a woman stands at the foot of a grand four-posting. a bed. With its solid wooden frame and heavy curtains, it's undeniably a status symbol. The woman's name is Anne, and she's recently widowed. The bed has actually been left to her by her recently deceased husband, William Shakespeare. This morning, Anne's decided to get on with some chores. To start with, she's going to make the bed. Anne begins by peeling

back the heavy satin bed curtains and tying them around the wooden posts. Then she reaches forward and pulls off the thick woolen blankets and fine linen sheets. After placing them to one side, Anne's left with three sacks or mattresses piled on top of each other. The top is the most comfortable as it's filled with feathers. The second is stuffed with wool, while the third at the bottom contains hair. Anne heaves each of these off the bed and carries them over to the window. One by one, she shakes them out, watching flakes of dust or loose feathers float down into the street below. Leaving the sacks hanging out of the window to air, Anne makes her way back to the bed.

All that's left now is the wooden frame, a mat of woven rushes, a top, a top, a way, an intricate network of knotted ropes, threaded through holes in the woodwork. These ropes are the bed's primary source of support, providing a firm net-like structure on which to sleep. But when Anne presses her hand against them, she feels them slacken under her weight. Not ideal.

Picking up a wooden spike from the shelf, known as a bedrope spike. She gives the ropes a quick tighten, smiling as she remembers, how her husband used to tell her to sleep tight, then sets about building the bed's layers back up again, dreaming of drifting off into a comfortable sleep. Shakespeare famously left his wife, his second best bed in his will. But throughout the medieval and early modern periods, it wasn't only husbands and wives who she was. shared beds. In fact, most people did. And that's because bed sharing in this period didn't have the automatic sexual connotations it often does today. Families would have huddled together in their

box beds or on straw mattresses for warmth. Wealthy merchants slept alongside servants and masters cozied up to apprentices. It was a sign of intimacy as well as safety and it was practical too. Some royals even shared beds. Richard the Lionheart famously slept with Philip the second of France, allegedly to solidify their political alliance, although some historians believe the two men were also lovers. And research suggests that English Queen Elizabeth I never slept alone during her 44-year reign. She perhaps relied on the secrecy of nightfall to unburden her troubles with her ladies. But it was among travellers that bedsharing was most common and most dangerous. Guests at inns had no control over who they slept with. Their allocated

bedfellers could turn up drunk, snore loudly, or have a preference for sleeping nude. They might even attempt robbery. Not all travellers dreaded the bedtime routine, though. 17th century diarist Samuel Pepys wrote about sleeping alongside a doctor in Portsmouth whose company he greatly enjoyed the doctor also had the added bonus of being particularly tasty to fleas leaving Peep's unbitten

the ultimate example of bedsharing came in 1590 in the small Hertfordshire town of Ware perhaps in an attempt to attract more guests the owners of the White Heart Inn created a frankly ridiculous bed. Made of solid oak, it stretched over more than two modern double beds, measuring 2.7 metres high over 3 metres wide and 3.4 metres deep. It was publicised, as big enough to sleep a dozen people.

Although one night in 1689, 26 butchers and their wives apparently slept the night in it together. That's a total of 52 people. And if you want to see it for yourself, it's on display in the Victorian Album Museum. Unsurprisingly, the Great Bed of Ware caused quite a stir throughout Britain and beyond, even ending up in the diaries of a German prince. It is immortalised in Shakespeare's play, 12th Night, where a character describes a letter full of untruths,

as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of wear in England, but beds weren't only places for sleeping. They were also used for business. The first type of business was that of the state. In the late 17th century, King Charles II of England often conducted important meetings from the comfort of his bed, barking orders to courtiers as he propped himself up on a mountain of feathered pillows. Over in France, Louis XIV, took things further and introduced the getting-up ceremony. Up to a hundred male courtiers and royal servants would enter his bedroom from 8.30 each morning, and watch as he was washed, shaved, dressed, and ate breakfast. It might sound

strange to us today, but watching the king in such moments was considered a huge privilege. and a sign of royal favour, the second business of beds was sex. For high-status couples, especially royals, the consummation of a marriage was as important as the wedding ceremony itself. This was the act that cemented the marriage and allowed for the production of airs. Naturally, it had to be witnessed. Following the wedding, the bride,

was escorted to the bedroom, where she'd wait for her groom to waltz in, often serenaded by musicians. The newlyweds would be led to a four-post to bed, where they were expected to consummate the marriage, often in full view of an audience, or at least in hearing after the curtains were drawn. For the 15-year-old Louis XVIth of France and his new bride, 14-year-old Marianne Winette, this ceremony, unsurprisingly, ended in humiliation. After their wedding in 1770, most of the royal family crowded into the bedchamber at Versailles as the young couple were put to bed. Louis was even given friendly advice on what to do by none other than his grandfather.

But no consummation occurred, and it took seven years of marriage for an heir to materialise. To us, this behaviour seems absurd. We regard beds as the pinnacles of privacy, safe spaces to be alone. But it was only in the Victorian age that beds started to be thought of in this way. New Christian ideas about public and private spheres challenged the age-old concept of bed sharing,

as did advances in hygiene. In 1861, a man. American physician William Witty Hall declared in his book, Sleep, that sharing beds was unwise, unnatural and degenerative. There was also a rumour that adults, with their worldly troubles, drained all the good energy from children while sleeping, although I'm sure many parents would argue it's the other way round. As well as separate beds, separate bedrooms also became the norm.

People from across the social spectrum came to enjoy spaces that were dedicated to sleep. But it wasn't only in Victorian homes, the beds were changing. The year is 1832 and we're inside a hospital on the outskirts of London. Right now, it's the last place anyone would want to be. Thanks to a deadly outbreak of cholera sweeping through the city, the hospital is heat. The foul smell of human excrement pollutes the stuffy air and doctors and relatives are rushing around looking grim

as they try and tend to the growing number of patients. Let's try to get out of here. But as we make our way out of the ward, we stop for a minute to watch a servant remake a newly vacated bed. Although the sheets she's putting on are gleaming white, clearly freshly laundered, the wooden bed frame is spattered with a number of disturbing stains. Peering further into the ward, we see that the other beds are like this too.

It's clear that contagious fluids have seeped into the woodwork, which is impossible to fully sterilise. Unbeknown to the doctors or patients, these hospital beds are silently infecting everyone with the deadly disease. As successive waves of such illness swept through Victorian England, doctors, scientists and health workers came to realise that hospital beds were part of the problem. Made of wood and often full of cracks, they were the perfect surface for fluids to penetrate, not to mention bedbugs.

Towards the middle of the 19th century, wooden beds were replaced with metal fratel a material that was becoming widespread thanks to the Industrial Revolution. Unlike wood, metal could be completely cleaned. And these beds could even be disassembled for more thorough cleaning. The Victorian Age also saw the advent of the metal sprung mattress. German engineer Heinrich Westphal's novel invention was a boon to all, housewives and chambermaids, allowing for a much easier bed-making routine

than the one that Anne Shakespeare had to contend with. But though they had clean metal frames and comfortable mattresses, there was still one problem. Victorian Britain was hugely unequal and poverty rates were sky-high. In London alone, there were 30,000 homeless children. during the 19th century, and the same was true of other large cities, such as Manchester and Birmingham. Aware of this harsh reality, charities such as the Salvation Army devised an array of well-intentioned,

but questionable solutions to help the homeless get a good night's sleep. For a penny a night, you could visit the penny sit-up, rows of narrow wooden benches, usually in town halls, where individuals were crammed in next to each other. You weren't allowed to sleep on the sit-ups, but they at least provided an escape from the cold, dangerous streets at night. For two-penny, you could get the two-penny hangover. Again, these were wooden benches, but with ropes in front to rest your arms and head-on.

Theoretically, this enabled you to sleep without falling off. but at 5 a.m. sharp, the warden would cut the ropes and kick you out onto the street. For the steeper price of four pennies, you could spend a night in what the Victorians termed the four penny coffin. Literally, lines of narrow, cramped boxes, where people slept on their backs, covered with just a tarpaulin. I haven't undergone many significant changes since the 19th century, although we have done away with four penny coffins. but there have been some changes in the years since. To name just a few developments. The 20th century saw American soldiers

who had fought in Japan bring the futon back with them. The waterbed became a bestseller in the States and an aeronautical engineer created memory foam. There are now over 70 different kinds of beds available, harking back to Roman times, where each style served a different function. Beds have come a long way from the basic grass mats or sysel hammocks enjoyed by our ancestors.

Over the course of their history, they have been symbols of wealth, sites of business, and oasis of privacy. And we just keep finding new uses for them. Nowadays, there are also places for reading, watching films, and eating dinner. And with the proliferate, of technology since the new millennium.

They've even become semi-public spaces once more. A 2022 survey found that 74% of Brits take their phones into the bedroom where they enjoy late-night conversations and online socialising. So next time you snuggle up under the duvet, why not have a think about the historical events, big and small, that this simple piece of furniture

has been party to. As American comedian Groucho Marx famously said, anything that can't be done in bed isn't worth doing at all. Thanks for listening to this episode. Betwixt the Sheets will return on Tuesday. We've got episodes on life during the War of the Roses and the real Sylvia Plath, all coming your way.

Join me again Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit.