Were beds shorter in the past?
Historically, beds were a luxury and over a lot of human history people slept where they could. It was in the medieval era when there was a rise in beds however, they weren’t just a place to go to sleep at night but they were also a place that you socialise because they wanted to show off this luxury that was hard to come by.
Beds were also custom made and there were no standard sizes so they were often made with the idea that you need to conserve materials so smaller beds were made to preserve wood. However, a lot of our conception that these beds were smaller is because, particularly in cold places, beds often had curtains around them and canopies to keep in the heat and these canopies adds height which creates a visual illusion making them seem shorter.
What about the fact that beds were short because people slept sitting up in the past? They slept in lots of ways just like people do now however, in certain periods of history, there were thinkers who thought it was healthier to sleep sitting up and so people often slept with bolsters. But, its not unlike now where people who might have sinus problems are told to sleep with their head elevated
Weird Medieval sleeping habits:
Have you ever had one of those nights where you go to bed but wake up after a few hours and can’t get back to sleep? Well, this was actually the normal sleeping pattern in the medieval period and before. Instead of sleeping through the night like we do now, people in the medieval era and other preindustrial societies slept in 2 phrases (also called biphasic or segmented sleep).
People would go to bed really early because nighttime was generally unsafe, so they would sleep for a few hours and then wake up, usually between 11pm – 1 or 2am for what they called watch or visual. They used the time for activities like reading, praying and even socialising and then go back to bed for what was called second sleep.
So what changed? Well, the Industrial Revolution shifted daily schedules, for example, you’d have
factory workers who worked all night. Also, artificial lighting transformed our relationship with the night giving us more time for activities after nightfall.
