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The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

bbc.com

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Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#221

Post by williamdclt »

nottorp wrote: post #186
flatiron wrote: post #11

I blame it on alcohol. If I drink I’m always up for a few hours in the middle of the night. And I’m quite sure they were doing a lot of that back in that time.

> And I’m quite sure they were doing a lot of that back in that time. Technically, they were all drinking alcohol because water was unsafe. However, beer at least had half the alcohol content that it has today and the wine was strongly watered. For women and children they even added water to the beer. Googled it once. The information should still be available.

Funnily, there was a HN thread a day or two ago that was calling _that_ a myth

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#222

Post by 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.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#223

Post by spywaregorilla »

cdot2 wrote: post #167
spywaregorilla wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you unethically test ancient combat tactics? Unless you mean have people try it until it seems to work, in which case, I'm sure you would find many willing LARPers

The conjecture is that people will not willingly throw themselves on a line of spears and so the phalanxes would stop short of actually hitting each other. I don't think larpers would be able to test that well. I'm not sure how you would test that unethically

I feel like a great deal of melee warfare involved group A smashing itself upon group B. Phalanxes, as I understand it, were effective because they were particularly good at this part. So given that we already had lots of other varieties of troops throwing themselves at the spears, why do we doubt that other phalanxes would specifically be unwilling to do the same?

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#224

Post by theodric »

I have a modern habit of waking up for no reason at between 03:30-04:30, being unable to get to sleep until around 06:00, and then having to drag my ass out of bed for off-farm remote work no later than 07:45. It sucks. We don't live in the medieval world, and it would be nice if people who have to deal with modern shit would stop fetishizing and trying to convince people to half-implement stuff that worked in the past but can't work now.

edit: Also, I feel like ass ALL THE TIME so the BBC can shove it

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#225

Post by meepmorp »

gmadsen wrote: post #207
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had lice before, both head and body types, and they were so benign and not bothersome that I allowed them to stay voluntarily out of kindness and generosity. They are really amazing little creatures.

what, my six year old memories seem to strongly disagree with this. like an itchy rash all over your head

That might be you having a (more intense) immune response to the insect bite than OP. Or that OP is joking.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#226

Post by pdimitar »

tremon wrote: post #191
square_usual wrote: post #98

I tried this for a few weeks in college and it was a pretty neat experience. I slept first from 9-12 and then 3-7/8. Those three hours between 12 and 3 ended up being super productive - I was very energized and had creative ideas about whatever I was doing. I had to stop because going to bed at 9 in college was like kissing your social life goodbye, but even these days if I naturally wake up in the middle of the nigh…

I sometimes do sleep from 20h-23h, but I always have problems going back to sleep at 3. Lying awake until 6am really isn't helpful if you want to have productive days as well as productive nights.

Same. Taking naps anywhere from 19:00-20:30 all the way to 22:30-00:30 has been amazingly healing experience both for my body and mind but there's no way in hell I fall asleep at 3:00. I feel at my peak then. When I take these naps I can't fall asleep earlier than 7:30-8:00...

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#227

Post by forgotmypw17 »

tartoran wrote: post #199
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had lice before, both head and body types, and they were so benign and not bothersome that I allowed them to stay voluntarily out of kindness and generosity. They are really amazing little creatures.

If you loved them so much what made you rid of them?

I didn't purposely get rid of them, though I stopped nurturing them as much due to human partnership. They just disappeared over time.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#228

Post by huetius »

xhrpost wrote: post #65
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #5

I believe this theory is largely thought false nowadays, or phrased too strongly at least. I myself have weird sleep cycles. I prefer to stay up into the night and wake up around 12:00, but I vary my sleeping hours by up to 4 hours or so. I go to sleep when I feel like it, and don't feel much discomfort by falling asleep at different times. It leads to weird situations - especially in winter - where I might not see t…

I've heard that this theory is true, I've also heard that it is a myth that it is true, and I've even heard that it is a myth that it is a myth.

An interesting data point: even today, the Liturgy of the Hours, which is the regiment of prayer for Christian monks and nuns, contains prayers for the middle of the night.

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#229

Post by nickkell »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #227
tartoran wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you loved them so much what made you rid of them?

I didn't purposely get rid of them, though I stopped nurturing them as much due to human partnership. They just disappeared over time.

Could it be that you passed the lice on to your new human companions? Fickle friends indeed!

Re: The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

#230

Post by madcaptenor »

lopis wrote: post #138
m_eiman wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a nice graphic showing a baby's sleep pattern during the first 15 weeks: http://www.eiman.tv/misc/somnrytm.jpg Since the text is in Swedish, here's roughly what it says: Every row is a day, black is sleep, white is awake.

Oh wow. Babies sleep a lot.

They do, but never when you want them to.
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