Having had a mouse infestation at my cottage that took over a year to resolve, this would have been a great way to keep the critters out of and off the bedding during that time. I suspect for keeping guests and migrant workers in barns and out-buildings per the article, this would have been a great mechanism to keep rodents away while sleeping.
Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
61–70 of 95 posts
Re: Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
#62When I was young and had a bunk bed it was pretty normal to box the lower bunk in with sheets, cushions from the couch — whatever — just to make it into a cave-like thing. Suddenly I want something like this again.
Re: Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
#63Mom found the medieval orgone accumulator
Re: Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
#64Seems like it was made so you can sleep during the daytime as well, allowing shift work.
Re: Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
#65This seems like the sort of thing one would read about in https://lowtechmagazine.com/ They mentioned hooded chairs and bed canopies: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/02/restoring-the-old-...
It is a decent low tech idea. It would be pretty awesome to have a sleeping nook. Even if you bring some small amount of electric heat or ventilation into the system, like repurposing an old bathroom vent fan, you could perfectly air condition just that one 8x6x5 box and let the rest of the house drop into the low 50s at night and be both comfortable and save money, then use the warmth of the day to warm the house back up for use.
Might be a fun project.
Re: Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is not completely true. The problem is that stone is what survived the centuries while the wood that was used to make the rooms more comely did not hence our modern picture of cold and windy castles. They were not as luxurious as our modern living but people still did their best to make their living spaces comfortable. They didn't just sit in windy castles freezing their butts off every day. Most of the huge sto…
Do you have a cite for this? Not because I don't believe you, I just think this is super interesting and would like to learn more, especially if there are illustrations etc of what it would've been like? Not a history buff, wouldn't know where to start looking...
If you happen to know German, Geschichtsfenster is a excellent source: https://youtu.be/zPkKCBxFLfc?t=2323
If not, you can look at the pictures at the time stamp. It should be self-explanatory. I sadly don't have good English-speaking sources at hand right now. The problem is that most pop science articles are horribly wrong. Here is one about general castle myths that is OK-ish: https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/myths-about-medieval-cas...
I mostly learned that stuff from taking courses in university. The difference how the academic mainstream sees the medieval period vs pop culture is super crass.
Re: Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
#67But why are they up off the floor? I read the article... did I miss that part?
Re: Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's bad because you are isolated. You need to get grounded in order to sleep properly: > https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15650465/ This was published by the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, which has also published articles on how homeopathy is effective. I don't know that I would consider it a high quality source.
I noticed the same thing, but this makes me more concerned: the link has nih.gov in it. Usually when I read articles from that URL, I tend to put a bit more trust in them than say healthline.org or some blogspam or something like that. Does this mean I have to start taking nih.gov articles with a grain of salt too?
Yes. Blindly trusting any source is just another fpavor of ignorance.
Re: Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
#69But why are they up off the floor? I read the article... did I miss that part?
Same reason most beds are, pests.
Re: Reasons medieval people slept in cupboards
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a cite for this? Not because I don't believe you, I just think this is super interesting and would like to learn more, especially if there are illustrations etc of what it would've been like? Not a history buff, wouldn't know where to start looking...
If you happen to know German, Geschichtsfenster is a excellent source: https://youtu.be/zPkKCBxFLfc?t=2323 If not, you can look at the pictures at the time stamp. It should be self-explanatory. I sadly don't have good English-speaking sources at hand right now. The problem is that most pop science articles are horribly wrong. Here is one about general castle myths that is OK-ish: https://www.immortalwordsmith.co.uk/m…
This is great, thanks! Sadly, I'm an uncultured American whose exposure to German is limited to vaguely European foods. But the YouTube auto-translate worked really well and the pictures were awesome. The castle was elegant... almost cozy! I'd live in one :D
Thank you.