[doingtheiroming]

I've been reading, "The Man on the Donkey" over the last few months or so (so much for the 50 books...). It's a historical novel set in C16 England written in the 1950s. It's an immersive experience using language and descriptions of custom and habit to create a strong sense of the time. Many of the aspects of life mentioned in the article (mattresses of straw, shared beds and rush lights) are there but interestingly, not once have I read a mention of the two sleeps.

The author is a historian but either wasn't aware of the practice or didn't feel it worth including. The richness with which she describes other aspects of C16 life is so great though that I find it hard to believe she would not have known if it were a well understood practice. Perhaps sleep is an example of a custom that it is hard to think about doing differently from the way we do and was just missed. But it seems strange that such a big aspect of life isn’t widely understood by historians.