I Slept on a Medieval Mattress for a Week

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AD This video was sponsored by June’s Journey. Download June’s Journey for free now: https://cherrypick.gg/VBirchwood2025 I've wondered for a while now how comfortable a Medieval mattress would have been, so I decided to make one and try it out for a week! A big thank you to the research consultant of this video, Sarah Prince, researcher at University of St Andrews. 🕯 Support my art on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/vbirchwood ✨ Leave a donation: https://ko-fi.com/vbirchwood 🪡 Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/vasibirchwood/ 📖 Business inquiries - [email protected] Further Reading: Morgan, H., 2014. Between the sheets: reading beds and chambers in Late-Medieval England (Doctoral dissertation, University of York). https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/7185/1/Hollie%20L.%20S.%20Morgan%20PhD.pdf Morgan, H.L., 2017. Beds and Chambers in Late Medieval England: Readings, Representations and Realities. Boydell & Brewer. https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=17M4DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=medieval+bed&ots=vL4sFNRTeV&sig=p2tbhMdkjLNOH6g5az5-Ax-EKqk&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=medieval%20bed&f=false Probate Inventories of the York Diocese, 1350–1500, ed. and trans. P. M. Stell (York, 2006) https://www.collections.yorkarchaeologicaltrust.co.uk/s/publications/item/74458#lg=1&slide=0 Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. N. Davis, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2004), I, 253). J. P. Toomey 2011. ‘A Household Account of Edward, Duke of York at Hanley Castle, 1409–10’, ed. J. P. Toomey in Noble Household Management and Spiritual Discipline in Fifteenth-Century Worcestershire, ed. R. N. Swanson and D. Guyatt. Worcestershire Historical Society 24. Bristol. Frederick J. Furnivall, ed., Fifty Earliest English Wills in the Court of Probate, London: A. D.1387-1439; with a Priest’s of 1454. Early English Texts Society O.S. 78 (London: Trübner for EETS, 1882), p76. https://hoveloghage.wordpress.com/2021/09/06/rush-matting-from-rags-to-riches/ https://www.medievalists.net/2023/08/medieval-beds/ https://annkingstone.com/knitting-madonnas/ https://www.woolsome.shop/rush-mat-history/ Burger, Glenn. “In the Merchant’s Bedchamber”. In Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces, edited by Elina Gertsman and Jill Stevenson, 239- 59. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012 https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Thresholds_of_Medieval_Visual_Culture/1-Kc5q3uiMwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Thresholds+of+Medieval+Visual+Culture:+Liminal+Spaces%23&printsec=frontcover Houston, J. F. Fetherbedds and Flock Bedds: A History of the Worshipful Company of Upholders of the City of London. Sandy: Three Tents Press, 1999 https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Featherbedds_and_Flock_Bedds/gohGRTsyhp8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Feather+Beds+and+Flock+Beds:+A+History+of+the+Worshipful+Company+of+Upholders+of+the+City+of+London&pg=PA23&printsec=frontcover French, K.L., Smith, K.A. and Stanbury, S., 2016. An Honest Bed: The Scene of Life and Death in Late Medieval England. Fragments: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Ancient and Medieval Pasts, 5. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/honest-bed-the-scene-of-life-and-death-in-late-medieval.pdf?c=frag;idno=9772151.0005.003;format=pdf Knight, C., 2020. The Literature of the Bedchamber in Late Medieval England (Doctoral dissertation, King's College London). https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/131963574/2020_Knight_Charlotte_1243378_ethesis.pdf Wright, Lawrence. Warm & Snug: The History of the Bed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962 https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Warm_Snug/-tpwQgAACAAJ?hl=en Image Sources: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark%3A/12148/btv1b10515896h/f201.item https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6001153g/f45.item https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KnittingMadonna.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christine_de_Pisan_and_Queen_Isabeau_(2).jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pr%C3%A9sage_%C3%A0_la_naissance_de_Philippe_d%27Orl%C3%A9ans_(Fleurs_des_chroniques_-_Besan%C3%A7on_-_BM_-_MS_677_-_fol_83).jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Ammon_of_Egypt_(Menologion_of_Basil_II).jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:53-aspetti_di_vita_quotidiana,_insonnia,_Taccuino_Sanitatis,.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Philip_IV_of_France_lying_in_bed.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_the_Great%27s_will.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Textile_Samples_-_Fustian,_Linen_and_Moleskin.jpg Smabs Sputzer, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medieval_Austrian_bed_with_straw_mattress_(26797624432).jpg Thomas Quine, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NS-02223_-_Upper_Dormitory_(28219738673).jpg Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edmund_Dulac_-_Princess_and_pea.jpg