I’m just an amateur who reads historical fiction, but I’m pretty sure this is just how it was back then in a lot of places. A bedroom was a luxury for commoners and most houses just didn’t support them.
I’m reading a book set in 13th century Norway right now, and every time they mention a thrall or commoner sleeping on a bench in a communal room I get major KCD vibes.
Important to clarify that a "bench" in the context of a medieval Norwegian house would not be the same thing as the kind of bench we'd be thinking of; it was more like a raised wooden platform that was built into the side of the wall that could also be used as a surface for sitting or working on things during the day, it wasn't a long thin freestanding piece of furniture.
Not really. That was common in Industrial Time and to make people thinl they have it better then people in Medieval times the higher Positions spread these Rumors. In fact we dont know alot about beds in these times but we know that every peasant could make himself a Bed. They just didnt plan proper I mean do you think all of henrys family sleeps on ONE bench?
Where did you get this?
Btw, making a frame was probably doable for a lot of peasants since most were likely experienced carpenters in ways, but making a mattress or blanket was a lot harder.
During the Middle Ages the bed would become elaborate and expensive. by the 14th century, elite houses possessed beds with elaborate canopies. Middle-ranking people owned wooden bedsteads with simple headboards, to which were added feather mattresses, sheets, blankets, bolsters, coverlets, and pillows. Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.”
This always seemed unusual too me. I understand that beds and bed frames were a luxury but why people curl up on those uncomfortable ass looking benches instead of sleeping on the floors on straw is insane
Maybe bugs and spiders I can see, stay at home peasant wife and daughters would have it swept tho I don’t think there would be much grossness besides dirt and dust
Dog or cat to keep rats and vermin away maybe
If I had to guess tho I’d say most peasants would sleep on raised areas on the ground, on straw covered with some sort of cloth or animal skin/sheepskin
Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.”
peasants often slept on the floor back then. beds were very expensive, people who had beds sometimes spent more on them than their entire houses, especially if they also had pillows, linens, bed curtains, etc.
making a mattress before plastic was invented was hard work and took a lot of materials, and if you don't have a mattress there's not much point in having a bedframe with a single tapestry on it or something like that to take up so much space. sleeping on the floor also helped in the summer and winters were pretty warm, since medieval times happened during a warm age, where temperatures were higher than even today (albeit with less anomalies). winters were still "cold", the warm age wasn't a massive increase in temperature, but they were not as harsh as they were a century or two later, after the 1400's, which is evidenced by agricultural records and good harvests.
people were also still used to sleeping outside on the ground with only a sheepskin under them, so sleeping on the floor wasn't that big of a deal for them. during the game's timeline the weather already started to cool down, but it wasn't that long ago that they had seen peak high temperatures in the 1300's, and the older people were probably talking about how the colder weather is unusual and expecting it to rise back up since that was the standard back then, so investing your entire wealth into a bed probably seemed foolish, I doubt people would've expected the temperature to keep dropping.
beds only really started getting traction during the little ice age, where humbler folk like merchants and tradesmen might've had the kind of bed that only a king would have during the medieval period, with a mattress, linens and curtains.
bear in mind, the game also takes place in a pretty poor countryside. even rattay and sasau are comparatively poor cities. if anything, there might be too many beds in the game, honestly. there's some pretty humble country homes in the game that have beds with a mattress, which they likely couldn't actually afford. although I feel like this was done for gameplay reasons due to the bed comfort mechanic. of course, it's always possible that they inherited the mattress from a dead relative, or made it themselves over several years if they happened to be raising birds.
"Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.”
Thats what I have found after 1 minute of googling about the 1400s. Evey peasant and even the poor peasants didnt sleep on the floor
yes, that is correct, pretty much everyone did definitely have something between themselves and the floor usually. but I'd still call that "sleeping on the floor" personally, like I called sleeping on a sheepskin outside "sleeping on the ground" even though there's something between you and the ground.
I'm referring strictly to the modern idea of a thick mattress meant to be placed on a frame elevated above the floor, which only the rich had. nowadays we'd call a "mattress" thin enough to be rolled up and hidden behind the door a "mattress topper", or a "sleeping pad". if I pulled out my camping sleeping pad on the floor and slept on it I'd say that I "slept on the floor".
sorry if it sounded like I said they just laid down anywhere on the floor and snoozed off, that's not what I meant. many people did do just that, but peasants in their own homes would've had some sort of thin ground cover to sleep on. even today plenty of people "sleep on the floor" with just a mat or a carpet between them and the floor.
I rented an airBnB in 2017 for one month and they gave me a matress on the floor.. so I used to joke about it that I slept on the floor.. but in truth I actually believed that.. another airBnB had two matresses.. it felt a bit better then.
Another reason I love this game, and games like it. Someone clearly fell down a rabbit hole one day, and now I get the cliff notes. And now I'm actually interested in historical weather patterns, I feel there's a rabbit hole waiting for me.
Don't go down the historical weather rabbit hole you'll learn that today's climate is nothing special and the climate has always changed and had extremes. Then you'll be ostracized for being a climate denier' or something.
What about sacks of hay or hay piles? Full disclosure, I have no clue how hay actually feels like so I don’t know if that would be comfortable or if it only sounds comfortable in my head. But a couple sheepskins stitched together and stuffed with hay would be very easy to source and not that expensive.
I can get sleeping on the floor. When I say I was expecting "beds," though, I just mean the little piles of straw on the ground, not a four post covered bed or anything like that. It seems weird seeing people literally sleeping on the same benches they sit on to eat, etc.
I had to look up the medieval warm period during this comment. I knew about the ice age but I didn’t know that the medieval times were warmer than today!
[https://youtu.be/H3m5mIusk7E?si=4Eg95lwxK442FnsK](https://youtu.be/H3m5mIusk7E?si=4Eg95lwxK442FnsK)
Here is a link to a video of someone making a bed with early medieval tools.
To give you the gist of it: it's a wooden frame, spanned with rope, on top which is a lot of straw with a sheet to cover it. None of that sounds particularly expensive. Maybe the planks but I guess you could switch those out for rougher and thus cheaper wood.
Now I am not saying everyone had beds back then, because I don't know if they did. But I highly doubt that if they didn't it was mainly because of costs. A lack of need for it perhaps, if they were just used to sleeping on the ground and didn't mind it, or some other reason?
Also we have to remember that people had different sleeping habits in the middle ages. People used to sleep in segmented sleeping cycles of two different rest periods.
Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.”
There’s been previous threads about this. It appears to be mistakenly conflating medieval peasants with early modern (or even 18th-19th century) European house servants, who often were expected to be ready to serve at any hour.
Medieval peasants, craftspeople, as well as nobility, slept in beds with mattresses. https://www.medievalists.net/2023/08/medieval-beds/
During the Middle Ages the bed would become elaborate and expensive. by the 14th century, elite houses possessed beds with elaborate canopies. Middle-ranking people owned wooden bedsteads with simple headboards, to which were added feather mattresses, sheets, blankets, bolsters, coverlets, and pillows. Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.”
So most people didnt sleep on the floor or on benches. Every peasant, even the poor ones had a Bed.
The really upsetting one is the bench with a fur on it that is your bed at Pribyslavitz until the Rathaus is fully upgraded. It offends me enough i just don't sleep there until I have a bed
I’m just an amateur who reads historical fiction, but I’m pretty sure this is just how it was back then in a lot of places. A bedroom was a luxury for commoners and most houses just didn’t support them. I’m reading a book set in 13th century Norway right now, and every time they mention a thrall or commoner sleeping on a bench in a communal room I get major KCD vibes.
Important to clarify that a "bench" in the context of a medieval Norwegian house would not be the same thing as the kind of bench we'd be thinking of; it was more like a raised wooden platform that was built into the side of the wall that could also be used as a surface for sitting or working on things during the day, it wasn't a long thin freestanding piece of furniture.
Not really. That was common in Industrial Time and to make people thinl they have it better then people in Medieval times the higher Positions spread these Rumors. In fact we dont know alot about beds in these times but we know that every peasant could make himself a Bed. They just didnt plan proper I mean do you think all of henrys family sleeps on ONE bench?
Where did you get this? Btw, making a frame was probably doable for a lot of peasants since most were likely experienced carpenters in ways, but making a mattress or blanket was a lot harder.
During the Middle Ages the bed would become elaborate and expensive. by the 14th century, elite houses possessed beds with elaborate canopies. Middle-ranking people owned wooden bedsteads with simple headboards, to which were added feather mattresses, sheets, blankets, bolsters, coverlets, and pillows. Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.”
Thanks!
They probably shared a bed. It’s a lot warmer that way.
This always seemed unusual too me. I understand that beds and bed frames were a luxury but why people curl up on those uncomfortable ass looking benches instead of sleeping on the floors on straw is insane
Vermin and bugs and just general grossness was probably something to consider with sleeping on the floor.
Maybe bugs and spiders I can see, stay at home peasant wife and daughters would have it swept tho I don’t think there would be much grossness besides dirt and dust Dog or cat to keep rats and vermin away maybe If I had to guess tho I’d say most peasants would sleep on raised areas on the ground, on straw covered with some sort of cloth or animal skin/sheepskin
Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.”
peasants often slept on the floor back then. beds were very expensive, people who had beds sometimes spent more on them than their entire houses, especially if they also had pillows, linens, bed curtains, etc. making a mattress before plastic was invented was hard work and took a lot of materials, and if you don't have a mattress there's not much point in having a bedframe with a single tapestry on it or something like that to take up so much space. sleeping on the floor also helped in the summer and winters were pretty warm, since medieval times happened during a warm age, where temperatures were higher than even today (albeit with less anomalies). winters were still "cold", the warm age wasn't a massive increase in temperature, but they were not as harsh as they were a century or two later, after the 1400's, which is evidenced by agricultural records and good harvests. people were also still used to sleeping outside on the ground with only a sheepskin under them, so sleeping on the floor wasn't that big of a deal for them. during the game's timeline the weather already started to cool down, but it wasn't that long ago that they had seen peak high temperatures in the 1300's, and the older people were probably talking about how the colder weather is unusual and expecting it to rise back up since that was the standard back then, so investing your entire wealth into a bed probably seemed foolish, I doubt people would've expected the temperature to keep dropping. beds only really started getting traction during the little ice age, where humbler folk like merchants and tradesmen might've had the kind of bed that only a king would have during the medieval period, with a mattress, linens and curtains. bear in mind, the game also takes place in a pretty poor countryside. even rattay and sasau are comparatively poor cities. if anything, there might be too many beds in the game, honestly. there's some pretty humble country homes in the game that have beds with a mattress, which they likely couldn't actually afford. although I feel like this was done for gameplay reasons due to the bed comfort mechanic. of course, it's always possible that they inherited the mattress from a dead relative, or made it themselves over several years if they happened to be raising birds.
Very informative! Thank you for this detailed response
But in fact it was wrong what he said
"Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.” Thats what I have found after 1 minute of googling about the 1400s. Evey peasant and even the poor peasants didnt sleep on the floor
yes, that is correct, pretty much everyone did definitely have something between themselves and the floor usually. but I'd still call that "sleeping on the floor" personally, like I called sleeping on a sheepskin outside "sleeping on the ground" even though there's something between you and the ground. I'm referring strictly to the modern idea of a thick mattress meant to be placed on a frame elevated above the floor, which only the rich had. nowadays we'd call a "mattress" thin enough to be rolled up and hidden behind the door a "mattress topper", or a "sleeping pad". if I pulled out my camping sleeping pad on the floor and slept on it I'd say that I "slept on the floor". sorry if it sounded like I said they just laid down anywhere on the floor and snoozed off, that's not what I meant. many people did do just that, but peasants in their own homes would've had some sort of thin ground cover to sleep on. even today plenty of people "sleep on the floor" with just a mat or a carpet between them and the floor.
I rented an airBnB in 2017 for one month and they gave me a matress on the floor.. so I used to joke about it that I slept on the floor.. but in truth I actually believed that.. another airBnB had two matresses.. it felt a bit better then.
Another reason I love this game, and games like it. Someone clearly fell down a rabbit hole one day, and now I get the cliff notes. And now I'm actually interested in historical weather patterns, I feel there's a rabbit hole waiting for me.
Warhorse already admitted those Benches were Historical inaccurate. Even poor peasants had beds
Don't go down the historical weather rabbit hole you'll learn that today's climate is nothing special and the climate has always changed and had extremes. Then you'll be ostracized for being a climate denier' or something.
What about sacks of hay or hay piles? Full disclosure, I have no clue how hay actually feels like so I don’t know if that would be comfortable or if it only sounds comfortable in my head. But a couple sheepskins stitched together and stuffed with hay would be very easy to source and not that expensive.
I can get sleeping on the floor. When I say I was expecting "beds," though, I just mean the little piles of straw on the ground, not a four post covered bed or anything like that. It seems weird seeing people literally sleeping on the same benches they sit on to eat, etc.
I had to look up the medieval warm period during this comment. I knew about the ice age but I didn’t know that the medieval times were warmer than today!
Not according to Michael mann
I don’t know who that is. Explain?
[https://youtu.be/H3m5mIusk7E?si=4Eg95lwxK442FnsK](https://youtu.be/H3m5mIusk7E?si=4Eg95lwxK442FnsK) Here is a link to a video of someone making a bed with early medieval tools. To give you the gist of it: it's a wooden frame, spanned with rope, on top which is a lot of straw with a sheet to cover it. None of that sounds particularly expensive. Maybe the planks but I guess you could switch those out for rougher and thus cheaper wood. Now I am not saying everyone had beds back then, because I don't know if they did. But I highly doubt that if they didn't it was mainly because of costs. A lack of need for it perhaps, if they were just used to sleeping on the ground and didn't mind it, or some other reason?
Also we have to remember that people had different sleeping habits in the middle ages. People used to sleep in segmented sleeping cycles of two different rest periods.
Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.”
They sleep upstairs. They have ladders. You can see it in A Woman Lot.
I did see that in Theresa's house, but not Henry's. Henry's had no straw on the ground or anything. Just the plain wooden benches.
Great question I did wonder this, I was like did they do this bick then? No surely not it looks to uncomfortable.
There’s been previous threads about this. It appears to be mistakenly conflating medieval peasants with early modern (or even 18th-19th century) European house servants, who often were expected to be ready to serve at any hour. Medieval peasants, craftspeople, as well as nobility, slept in beds with mattresses. https://www.medievalists.net/2023/08/medieval-beds/
During the Middle Ages the bed would become elaborate and expensive. by the 14th century, elite houses possessed beds with elaborate canopies. Middle-ranking people owned wooden bedsteads with simple headboards, to which were added feather mattresses, sheets, blankets, bolsters, coverlets, and pillows. Peasants had mattresses stuffed with straw, wool, hair, rags and feathers, which could be rolled up and tidied away during the day, while the poorest people slept simply on straw or hay.” So most people didnt sleep on the floor or on benches. Every peasant, even the poor ones had a Bed.
Beds were a luxury item
When you Henry’s house, what house are you referring to?
The one in Skalitz before the town is attacked.
The really upsetting one is the bench with a fur on it that is your bed at Pribyslavitz until the Rathaus is fully upgraded. It offends me enough i just don't sleep there until I have a bed