The not so very private world of the Medieval bed(room).
As I sit staring blankly at the words I hope will form the start of my second book, it hits me that my characters are once again in their bed chamber. As my work has romance, this might not strike the average person as odd. But what if I told you, dear reader, that out of all the scenes placed in said chamber, baby making, death, and birth was but a small fraction of it?
Let’s take a peek into history to discover why.
Christine de Pisan keeping company with Queen Isabeau in a bed chamber (Source: British Library, Public domain).
Basic dwellings were typically constructed out of wattle and daub, though in the Highlands of Scotland, turf, stone, and heather were commonly used. Furnishings were little beyond a fire pit and grain store. The bed being the rushes that covered and insulated the bare dirt floor. If you were lucky, you might get a warm spot close to the fire but better keep your wool garments on in case of sparks. Wool being somewhat slow to start burning. As for sleeping alone, or laying in, forget it! Everyone, related or not, friend or stranger, would lay close together. It was, simply put, a functional dry area to rest your head and unwind after a long day. Strangers and families thrown together, likely tired and irritable after a long day, oh the scenarios a writer could create! The BBC’s documentary Secrets of the Castle shows what it would be like to live in such places.
Yet most of my characters are lucky to live better than that. They have, at the very least, sturdy, crook framed manor houses, or ‘squat’ Scottish stone hall houses. Most crook frame manors were originally large open halls and like the hovel, had earth floors covered by rushes. The hall house had a ground storage level with everyone living in a hall on the floor above.
If the Lord was poor, he may find himself sleeping in the hall with his people sleeping on rushes. If he had a bit more wealth, he may partition off a part of it for himself, tile the hall floor, and perhaps provide pallets (mats of straw and linen) for the other inhabitants. In Scottish hall houses, this partitioned space would be on the same level of the hall, behind the dais. In crook houses, it was often above the hall. The relocated Harome Hall at Ryedale Folk Museum is an excellent example of this. Sadly, there are few surviving examples of hall houses, most that remain form the foundations of keeps built during the first Scottish War of Independence. And both Edward I and Robert the Bruce had a fondness for razing castles, albeit in vastly different styles.
Known as the solar, the Lord’s (Laird’s) chamber, or great chamber, it was still a multi-functional room. In essence, a seperate living quarters for both the Lord, his family, and their personal staff. This chamber would also be richly adorned with easy to transport furnishings but the pièce de resistance was always the bed. This quasi-throne would be his most valuable piece of furniture!
Should you be a lord who is able to buy yourself a new bed, and dress it in new curtains, regularly cleaned linen sheets, multiple mattresses. . . perhaps a trundle bed tucked underneath for the children. . . Well, you’re going to rub Sir Hugh de Willoughby’s face in it when he next visits, aren’t you? And the best way to do that? Sit in its comfortable glory while you entertain or do business.
Alas, even those fancy curtains do not grant you much privacy. It is a family bed, so your children may be in it too. And as it is the best bed in the house, good hospitality dictates that you and your wife will share that bed with Sir Hugh!
Not that it ever stopped any friskiness. In November 1385, at a court in York, a certain Joan Rolleston bore witness that her bedfellow, Alice de Rouclif, had legally consummated her marriage after she “heard a noise from them like they were making love together”.
Again, imagine the possibilities this grants a writer! Contemporary writers certainly did. A favorite of mine is the comedic bed hopping shenanigans going on around an oblivious host found in the ninth day, sixth story of Boccaccio’s Decameron!
Of course, the wealthier the Lord, the more chambers and beds they could afford. In such houses, castles, and estates, the Solar morphed into the precursor of our modern living rooms, and might not necessarily contain a bed. So did having dedicated bed chambers for your family, your guests, and now extended household grant you privacy?
No, not really.
A lord’s closest staff would still sleep in his chamber, should he need them to tend to him during the night. If he were of high enough rank, those attendants sleeping on pallets about him could very well be nobles themselves. And the expectation of sharing the bed with a person’s equal (or higher) was still there.
King Edward I’s bed chamber at the Tower of London (Source: Tristan Surtel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
So too, was the continued use of the bed chamber as a meeting room for conducting business, or in the case of Kings, matters of state. What secrets were disclosed; what plots devised?
Furthermore, should there be space in the bed, the bed’s owner may invite a friend to share the bed in a display of medieval philia (brotherly) love. Or perhaps squires could be made to share a bed in the hopes of creating bonds vital for the battlefield? And a kind bed owner may favor a lower status member of the household by ‘charitably’ letting them share their bed.
So as I look at my latest bed chamber scene, I can’t help but smile. What else could I find there?
Outwardly, these behaviors were accepted as the done thing and there must have been a strong implication of privacy through discretion. But what do my characters feel? Who are they and how does this one room change them? Are they a naturally shy person aware that there’s nowhere to find real privacy? Or a servant disgusted at being a human hot water bottle? Or an insulted host because their king insists on fitting his own door locks during his visit!? Not one of them involve the traditional notion of birth, death, and baby making, but all of them perfectly fit the not so very private world of the medieval bed chamber.
Sources
An Unforseen Find: The Treasure of Harome Hall by Ryedale Folk Museum, Online
How did people sleep in the Middle Ages? medievalists.net, Online
Medieval Legends of Love & Lust by Rosalind Kerven, 2021
Secrets of the Castle: Medieval Daily Life, BBC, Online
The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women by Rosalie Gilbert, 2020
Whatever happened to the Scottish Hall House? by Brian McGarrigle, 2018, Online
