Dr Handley added: “The quest to achieve peaceful sleep shaped the rhythms and environments of everyday life, but from 1660-1760 there was also a critical break with ages-old folklore and superstition. Sleep came to be viewed differently which heralded radical shifts in what sleep meant, how it was habitually performed, and the place it occupied in people’s lives.”
In the book, Dr Handley also explains the birth of our material culture in the early 18th century and new forms of sociability and shifting religious beliefs. These changes in culture shaped the material transformation of English households and, in turn, our bedrooms.
Dr Handley said: “In the 18th century we can see how people ordered their sleeping hours, bedtime routines and bedchambers which reveal the unique cultural meanings of sleep during that period. In doing so, we can see just how acutely conscious of the unconscious early modern societies actually were.”
Don’t let the bedbugs bite - how early modern Britain fell asleep
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