Dissecting the Medieval Bed (and making one *mostly* from scratch!)
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- The Inventories:
suffolkrecords...
www.bristol.ac...
Great paper on Beds and Bedding: www.academia.e...
I also read a paper on the use and purpose of the bed but of course didn't save it because it didn't have much to do with the making of a bed. It had great info about sleep, birth, death, and romance in beds though, so I'd like to link it here if anyone happens to know what I'm talking about?
All the images I used should be here on this pinterest board: / beds
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After years of really only seeing Mr. Donner from the chest down this full face view and voice is a twist!
Surprise!
and a very nice voice he has
Does he have a woodworking channel? I'd sub in a hot minute!
Me audibly “Oooh Mr Morgan Donner!!”
Such a cutie!
Don’t know if this was the historical context or not, but you talking about multiple mattresses on one bed made the fairytale of The Princess and the Pea make sooooooooo much more sense. My childhood self thanks you.
Exactly what I thought!!
And now wandering how a pea would be identified with all the materials and layers. Only a real princess knows.
There is a musical called « once upon a mattress » and my school is doing it for our show (I’m the prince if you’re curious hehe)
Anyways I immediately messaged our group chat about it because we have always been SO confused. It comes up a lot when we’re working on the bed.
Oh, my great grandpa's fam was from the Swiss Alps where they'd use 2 or more what we'd call a mattress topper these days and when it got really cold they would double as a super thick comforter/duvet, so they would burrow between them. But they just called them mattresses, so just think of them as a bunch of mattress toppers.
MY issue with that story was always about a "pea" which as a kid I only ever had fresh and soft. Took me a while to figure out that dried peas are so hard they feel like gravel (or legos!) if you step on one.
yeah the old ones are more similar to a mattress topper in size and design
with a bed frame that flexes as much as this does though it works
@@SLASHEROWL I love that play! They made a movie of it with Carol Burnett
Morgan really said 'man, there's no way I'll ever use up my cabbage patch... Let's make a bed '
This is epic! I hope you and Mr donner are so proud of yourselves and got some good snuggle time out of this too!
lol....maybe ;p
@@MorganDonner I feel like people back then would be totally cool with you using fabric scraps to make your mats. Reeds and grasses are just what they had on hand, you know?
Edit: about the curtain rolls, that's how we get curtains out of the way when doing stuff in theater. It's really cool to see how old that technique is!
@@saraa3418 hospital theatre or thespian theatre?
@@saritshull3909 Thespian, there's rows upon rows of curtains coming onto the stage
I have my masters in costume history and I work conserving costumes for the V&A. Your use of scraps that are not useful for clothing is actually close to what happened. In fact , some VERY rare examples of textiles were found in stuff like this. In a weird way you proved a point ! I ADORE this kind of “practical” research.
Also, yes … we have that bed. Straw was VERY common. In a lot of furniture the base layer is straw. When you open old chairs , the oldest layer is almost always straw with horse hair straps.
Thank goodness you mentioned the horsehair, straps and straw. They made comfortable chairs especially when covered in leather. My early childhood was spent bouncing up and down on a bed/sofa made of these materials. Also bedding never changed much over the centuries, the bolster pillow, 2 sheets and two blankets with a coverlet was standard for sleeping until winter when an eiderdown was placed over the top. Fireplaces in bedrooms weren't standard so the eiderdown was a godsend. Also it had to be aired to remove the damp from it.
I work in a history museum and we have several braided rag rugs! Great for kitchens and bedrooms, especially for those cold Midwest winters... It was also very common for people to sleep in beds together to stay warm -- not just married couples, but siblings (including same-sex siblings into adulthood), same-sex friends, etc. Abraham Lincoln wrote fondly of sleeping in bed with his friends, and people might interpret that as "gay" nowadays (believe me I'm pretty gay too)-- but it was also just a temperature / affectionate friendship thing.
People nowadays might find that odd, but when your house is 20 degrees and you don't have enough fuel to get it much warmer, you're going to LOVE snuggling up with your sisters!!
You and Mr. Donner make a fantastic creative maker team. What a cool bed!! If all modern tech ever failed, you guys would easily survive and do so in style!!
I've always wanted a canopy bed. And as I've gotten older and more frugal with my heating bills and having finally visited Europe, I understand more and more why people would have splurged for canopy beds. They were essentially little tents to retain heat in the winter. I noticed our friends stone house in the UK was noticeably colder than the ambient air outside, but as soon as my husband and I would settle in for the night in our room, I'd end up sweating because it really doesn't take much to heat a small enclosed space. Just body heat inside a full canopy bed would probably be pretty comfortable on the long freezing nights.
When I was a kid, I often shared a bedroom with one of my sisters, and of course we had bunkbeds. Tucking a blanket underneath the top mattress so it hung down over the bottom bunk made a GREAT faux canopy bed. It also made that bottom bunk warm enough I often didn't bother with an actual blanket. It really does retain the heat way better than you'd think!
Later on they went a step further and the mattress was inside a box, making it a box-bed. Apparently it was very warm and gave the sleeper a bit of privacy.
Back then having curtains served many uses, most often there were multiple people in one room if you were poor your relatives would share a room with you , or if you were rich servants slept on the floor in your bed room at times.
@@blazefairchild465 Additionally, with thatched roofs and their biome of mice and other critters, the canopy would catch falling detritus keeping your bed free of it.
I have a canopy bed. It is very cozy. I'm a seamstress and have used a beautiful fabric to make the canopy but you can throw a pretty quilt or spread over it.
The plant sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) was also known as sweetscented bedstraw and was often used as a mattress filler due to its pleasant vanilla-like scent that comes from coumarin that becomes apparent upon wilting and drying. Coumarin is also a moth deterrent. A related plant, Gallium verum (Lady's bedstraw) was also used, as well as lavender but this wasn't used for the stuffing, the flowers were used with the actual filler to deter insects.
Great information.
Thank you for the wonderful information!
Apparently coumarin also is an insect repellent, aside from Wafarin being one coumarin = rat pesticide.
That would be nice to snuggle into.
Fun fact, in Scotland we still talk about blankets (in my experience particularly a coarse wool, often with a tartan pattern) as rugs. We put a rug over our knees when sitting down, for example - I didn’t realise it wasn’t used like that universally until many years into my relationship with my English husband. Another excellent video. I love to see your research and enthusiasm and practicality combine!
Have the plaid (often even tartan) in Russia. They used to be a 1840 something trend, then just stayed here, because warm.
PS Brought home two Scottish wool sweaters from England. So warm.
My grandparents and parents call(ed) those lap rugs. I'm in the South (USA) and we have lots of Scottish ancestry here.
.... As an Irish person, I didn't realise that this wasn't universal for English speakers 🤯 I wonder if it's related to Irish and Scots Gaelic, kinda like words like youse (plural for you) and Mam (Mum)
Aye and we still say stead instead of frame where I live.
We call them rugs in N E England too - especially the tartan/checked rugs - I’ve still got a couple of vintage otterburn mill rugs
It was so lovely to finally see Mr Morgan Donner speaking to us on camera! Thank you sir for your woodworking input! I found it most instructive. Your camera presence is very solid and you look relatively at ease. A pleasure to meet you, indeed!
the cocoon of curtain i recognized immediately! that's a technique i've used as a scenic artist in theatre to get curtains off the ground when painting a stage floor, or when scenery in the performance space butts up next to a curtain and you have to go in and do touch up paint. so cool to see how the technique has been used for so many years!!
That reminds me of similar examples of archeology, where special tools or areas in a house could not be identified by the archeologists, but craftsmen or locals could immediately tell, what it was about and tell them how the same tool/techniques are still used today because... it works and it's the best way to do the job 😅
I did theatre, too, and I remember that now that I’ve read your comment. Thank you!
@@Chakrenqueen Yes, I love that!
I have no skills or knowledge of costumes or set designs. So when I those cocoon-like bags, I guessed they the medieval version of deodorizers.
An historic bed build, a full-on Mr. Morgan Donner "New Yankee Workshop" cameo...AND A WILD ANGELA APPEARS?!?!?! What a largesse our Patron Saint of Medieval Coolth has bestowed upon us! 🤩
I thought it sounded just like the episodes of New Yankee Workshop I would watch with my dad as soon as Mr. Donner said 'tenons.'
Team New Donner Workshop!
Who is Angela?
@@DelphiaStrickland Angela Clayton, another youtuber who does amazing historical (and not so historical) costumes and clothing. You may have seen her here before, she's been in a few of Morgan's videos.
I was getting Norm Abrams videos with Mr Donner
I don't mind the beige curtains! You could also embroider some colorful deigns into them if you're ever inspired! Embroidery would be an awesome way to tie in all of the various colors in the cottage, too :D
Yes, or appliqué - lots of possibilities for gradually bringing more colour in.
I was thinking block printing. It's very period.
They are ugly. especially with the white red and blue plaid pillow case. just horrible taste.
@@user-ci4qq1om4o I reject this negativity ✨😊 I think they're cute
@@user-ci4qq1om4o Sit down. They were free and they can be spruced up. Rude.
People sitting in bed in medieval times isn't artistic license, they believed it to be either unhealthy or bad luck or both to sleep laying down completely. Unfortunately I don't have any original sources for you to look at.
I've heard it mentioned by castle guides, and a quick search online yields similar results. Something about only dead people laying down completely, therefore it must be terribly unlucky...💀
I had read that too! I couldn't find any documentation for it, but wanted to at least make sure I mentioned the upright possibility.
Back in time when I visited "castles" in the Netherlands I was told the same thing. The built in bed steads were very short with giant pillows , to short for even my 5'2" length. The guide told us the same thing, sleep sitting up for health reasons, and the devil was also involved. Being an older person, sleeping on an incline does help with acid reflux and a bit with snoring so they were not completely wrong.
Partly it’s to do with the rope supports. More comfortable to be a bit propped up than lie flat on. And they sag quickly.
As already commented here, rope beds sag a LOT and you end up in a depression in the middle. Either you have both your feet and head up in the air or you try to scoot towards the headboard and that puts you in that 'hospital bed' position.
I also heard that back then they thought if you lay down, the blood will flow to your head, and therefore you'll die. Heard it in a caste guide too.
I love experimental archaeology like this. I wish I could do this, but I'm currently not well enough. But I'm living vicariously through your videos!
Same here! I have such a homesteader's heart but I'm disabled, allergic to wool, animals, plants, LIFE (it would seem), and only alive because of modern medicine I would die without if I stopped for even 6-12 hours. Don't know what I'd do without living vicariously through others.
The saying “night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bugs bite” references the importance of tight ropes to prevent sagging. There is a common plant here called Ladies Bedstraw which was dried and added to mattresses. It has a lovely floraly hay meadow odour.
So that's were 'sleep tight' comes from? I always imagined someone wrapping themselves tightly into their blankets!
I DO wonder if there is some plant that would help keep pests out ?!
Quite possibly, and I believe it is an old medicinal herb for women in labour.
@@m.maclellan7147
Maybe lavender?
@@m.maclellan7147 several, like melilotus alba or galium oderata
I love seeing you and Rachel Maksy embrace the full cottagecore and build your dream barns ♥️♥️
I need to check out what they have been up to lately.
When I toured Markham Castle in Germany we were told that people slept sitting up, and the beds were shorter because of that. Apparently they were superstitious about appearing to be a corpse when lying flat on their backs. Love the fact that you and Mr. Morgan Donner work so well together. The bed is fabulous.
It also kept you alive if you had fluid in your lungs
Some Germans still sleep like that lol, that’s why our pillows are so large, to sit in the bed and when folded, to lie down
I've heard it was to keep the humours (unsure of spelling), the four fluids from mixing.
Ok so now Mr. Donned needs his own channel on woodworking projects! He’s a natural talent behind the camera!
Seconded!!
Yeah, that sounds like a great idea for building history themed furniture.
If you wish to make a wool mattress, try the Havelock Wool company. I used it to insulate my van and it's very easy to work with. The batts are roughly 2"-3" thick, but can easily be pulled apart to be thinner if desired. I would imagine a single bale would work for what you're trying to do.
Edited to add the headboard cloth is amazing! Adds the perfect point of interest to the entire project 😄
The blue plaid pillowcases look exactly like what I'd expect on a southern bed to this day. Like if you showed me that fabric and asked what it was for, I'd say pillows or pjs. Sort of amazing that that little stylistic thing goes so far back. Also I grew up calling the bedspread a coverlet, and haven't heard it anywhere since childhood
I also call it a coverlet!
Very interesting to hear the top blanket being called a rug! My Gran has a plaid wool blanket with fringe that she keeps on the couch and has always called it a rug, rather than a throw or blanket. It's kind of corse but very warm and thick, but definitely not something you'd use on the floor!
Ps. This whole project is so cool
Also in kids books from the 40s and 50s - Enid Blyton for example - they often talk of putting a rug on the bed for extra warmth or, when camping, putting them over a ''mattress'' of bracken to sleep on one with another over them for warmth
Some dialects in German call a blanket a "bed rug" (Bettteppich), or just a rug, leading to lots of confusion for people from other areas unfamiliar with this use of the word.
Funnily enough tibetans do put actual rugs on sofas and benches to sit on. Don't think it's related in any way but still a funny coincidence
In Russia, people used to put rugs on the walls next to the bed. Looks nice and insulates;
My family is English and we always had travelling rugs to tale in the car before heaters were good.
I loved my recycled fabric rug/mat that I aquired in my boho phase. I had it as my "welcome" mat inside of a hallway of my apartment building. One pizza delivery guy thought it was too pretty to step on. It moved with me to 3 more apartments as patio entry mats until it was worn, and not really my style anymore. There are so many beautiful pictures of my cats sitting in sunbeams on it, clawing it up with a variety of fabric types.
I also installed bed curtains. One heavy curtain for noise and light reduction and isulation (great for the winter. You can lower the room temperatur to safe energy costs) and for the summer I have a second row of moskito net because I live in an area with marshland. So lots of mosquitos in the summer although some bats are nest in the barn of my neigbour. Maybe some nesting boxes for bats would be a nice wood project for Mister Donner. Btw Donner is the german word for thunder.
Please let us know what you think of the bed after you've used it for awhile! I've had a bed with slats & rope. Slats are far more comfortable imo. The rope really pulled on the bed, tends to bow to the center and overall just wasn't as comfortable. Slats offer better support but still have airflow for the mattress. It was an interesting experiment for years but I've given it up to go back to my hammock! I use a needle like that for nalbinding. ^_^
gotta say, I love that you are branching into showing how you make and furnish the cottage. It's really interesting to learn about.
You have a greyhound!!! They really do make the most affectionate, wonderful pets. My greyhound, Goldie, loves coming to SCA events with me in Lochac!
For the bed in our medieval tent for Living History displays, we went with four separate wooden rods held together at the corners by the support ropes, which are threaded through huge eyelets worked into the corners of the canopy (a knot in the rope keeping the canopy that little bit off the rod so as not to impede the curtain rings).
It workes well for something we need to take down and pack away in the car for transporting to-and-from events, along with a take-down bedstead that is held together at the corners by removable pegs. We went for slats, as ropes tended to sag under body weight no matter how much they were tightened, and caused roll-together in the middle for a couple sharing the bed.
The friend who made the bed for us had already made one for himself, and also switched to slats, but faked the look of ropes around the outside edge by threading rope through the holes in the manner of a running stitch along each side of the bed frame.
Great info
That's smart! My current bed is a atform and uses slats
My youngest daughter sleeps on a true featherbed! It was slept on by two of my aunts when they were girls, and brought over from the Netherlands by my paternal grandparents. It comes in three mattress sections that you lay end to end, not on top of each other, and the fabric is a marvellously high quality original ticking fabric. It IS a high maintenance mattress, needing regular fluffing, and the sections are quite heavy. But it’s sooooooo comfy to sleep on!
As an aside, Ash is a great wood to work with. Lovely bed frame!
I'm making challah, so of course, all I could think when you were braiding the mat was "it's bed challah!"
Also, you guys are a gorgeous and talented couple!
Having watched frum it up’s challah-making video yesterday, I was thinking the same thing! Sarah even did a 7-strand braid!
Not Jewish, but I do love making challah. It’s definitely the same braid style!
Re sitting up in bed, I did a castle tour in Germany that showed us a very short bed and they explained people slept sitting up bc laying down was “too close to being dead” per the tour guide. It was Marksburg Castle is that helps.
@@nataliavanhelsing640 I think you might have clicked reply on the wrong comment! Just want it to get to the right one.
I would sleep on a Challah bed... until I ate it all 🤣
We still use many of those words in the UK. I would use bedstead, bolster (I own bolstercovers, but not a bolster currently), valance, coverlet, rug etc. A "featherbed" has been modernised as a feather mattress-topper 😉 It's often a selling point of country house hotels / castle hotels here that one can sleep in a half tester or 4 poster bed
I sleep in a modern bed, between a pair of sheets, 2 blankets (lambswool) & a quilted coverlet. As you say, my coverlet is mink silk on one side & similarly coloured cotton on the other side, not pieced. We don't really have that tradition here.
On another point - hay was used to stuff mattresses, they were probably just too inexpensive to turn up in a will. Strewing herbs were often added to the hay stuffed mattresses, this is where Lady's bedstraw (galium verum) gets its name. There's some suggestion that these herbs acted as a repellant to bed bugs, fleas etc which would otherwise lurk because of their coumarin content. Added bonus of releasing a nice smell when you roll over! (Ruth Goodman has written on this)
As someone who still uses blankets rather than having one duvet (I inherited them and well, they are nice), a pair of blankets is necessary for in-between seasons. You can pull one back and forth to mediate temperature fluctuations over the night. So great. :)
Or for when you live in a dorm with an unpredictable heating system so you never know if a winter night will have you shivering or overheating.
@@dbseamz An excellent point!
@@dbseamz this exactly. I have no thermostat or thermometer in my room so I measure temperature in blankets.
@@NemoTheDreamO oof, that is cold! In winter (Australia) I add an extra blanket and pull out my small goose down duvet to put over the top. Never want to get out of bed!
So nice to see Mr Donner. I 'seen' him helping out on previous projects but really nice to see a full picture now. And see his awesome woodworking skills. You go guys, great team to see and keep this up
Loved this video - making a bed from scratch based on images of historical beds. The mat made me want to dig through my mountain of fabric scraps and make one too. Anyway, I did research a couple of years ago about how people lived in this area of France in the 18th and 19th centuries. I came across something that explained that people (I expect farmers and 'normal' people as opposed to nobility and royalty) lived in one room that was the kitchen, living room, everything room and the bed was in one corner of the room. The bed was described as enclosed on two sides and above by heavy draperies. On the side of the bed that was against the wall (not the head) there was what was called the gutter where important things were kept such as papers, money and precious items. Basically, any robber would have to break into the house and then climb over the sleeping people in the bed to get to the valuables in this gutter. In more elaborate such beds there were shelves and little drawers. The parents slept in this bed, likely with the babies and very young children and the older children slept in the loft above. To get to the loft, they would have to use an outdoor staircase. If you think of it, such a well-enclosed bed was basically a very small bedroom in a bigger room.
Anyway, just thought it was interesting to tell about different kinds of basically the same kind of bed. In the images shown in the video, many beds seem to be against the wall. I wonder if they had gutters.
Reading this made me think this could be a possible precursor to the idea of stowing away money/valuables under the mattress.
@@Anopano3000 That would make sense but it never occurred to me, hahahaha!
In German medival beds this shelf 💍💎👑💰💰was called "Hohe Kante". It is still a figure of speech for savings today, but few people know why.
omg i wonder if that's where the expression "mind in the gutter" comes from?
@@benutzername1875 No, I think that expression refers to the gutters in the streets where people emptied their chamber pots every morning.... One can only imagine the stench of cities back then.... yikes!
i love how carefully and joyfully made all morgan's projects are. so cool that her husband is a maker too!
This is just so amazing! I'm going to need to make one of my own! The bed curtain, though, sadly not the cabin. YET. Everything looks great and I love that Mr. Donner is willing to share his knowledge and talents with us, too :D
Joining the strips of the matt below the mattress, you might like to experiment with a carpet needle. They are a half circle in shape with a big eye. Intended for patching wall to wall carpet. Basically you don't have to lift anything up - just position the strips and poke the needle through one strip then the next one with both lying side by side on the floor or a table. Or take the big bag needle you were using and get Mr Morgan Donner to bend it into a semicircle. Recommend the use of a sailor's palm if sewing rushes (personal experience here). Which is a kind of minimal baseball glove with no fingers, a built in hole for the base of the thumb, and a hard surface an inch or two in diameter let into the palm section to use when pushing a big needle through sailcloth with the full weight of your arm. Sewing tough or thick fabric then becomes both fast and easy. Try antique shops for one of these, or sailmaker's suppliers.
I knew I recognized that voice at the end!
Hope you two are plotting some fun cottage-related adventures together for a future video! (Hair-dyeing optional, of course!)
My great grandfather's (who I actually knew quite well since he didn't pass away until I was in HS) family was German and Swiss and his mother came from the Swiss Alps. The "down mattress" might have been a thing that was common there he described to me where they would have special thin mattresses (as compared to modern day I presume) that would layer, and then if it was really cold, you would get between the layers, so the mattress could become a comforter/quilt/duvet but extra thick and warm. From what he'd said most beds would have 2 "down mattresses" which you'd sleep on top of when it was warm/chilly and between if it got really cold.
When weighted blankets first became a thing I recall thinking about what he'd described as serving the same purpose. So warm and cosy!
I was surprised about the different blankets used because... it's how I was taught to make a bed by my grandma when I was a child. I don't think it's a local thing because I've seen this in hotels and at other people's houses here in Europe. I grew up with a duvet (in a cover, none of that comforter business !) in my house. At my grand parents, it was always a double sheet, and I had to fold the corners "au carré" (squared) with one or two blankets in winter, and then a bed cover (I've seen it topped by another smaller "plaid" but not at my grandparents).
From what I was told, the last cover is used because, when you wake up, you need to "open" the bed (pull the sheets open) and air out the room. Then, when you make your bed, you cover it, so the sheets can stay nice and clean. Seems weird in this day and age, but when you think of it, back in the day, you could have a fireplace in the room, some people bathed in their rooms, changed, etc. So maybe it was to avoid things like soot going onto the sheets ?
Anyway, my grandma still makes her bed that way. She still uses a cover (it's yellow with blue flowers).
Europe was colder back then.
As a Russian, I grew up with matress covers (really required for the older spring or wood shavings matresses), bedsheets - slowly taken out with the rubber bottom bedsheets. A woolen blanket (think thick winter coat felted fabric) in a blanket cover with a diamond-shaped hole on top. A plaid and a decorative rug. Stuff books (ideally - books and a board) below matress when sick.
It gets cold at night. We have central heating, but still better open your window a bit - it's good against lung disease.
Poor people still have bed curtains, it's how you have privacy in a tiny home. Not recommended though, because of lung disease.
My grandmother also made her beds (guest room too) in a similar fashion. She had me take the top sheet, making sure it was larger than the bed size, and bring it up so it hangs over the top of the bed. Then add a thin wool or similar fabric blanket trimmed with satin of a similar size over it. Once laid, then tuck in the bottom, sides, and corners of the blanket/sheet (she said it was how she was trained to make beds in the hospital when she was younger). Then pull the blanket/sheet back just enough so that the pillow would be covered with a crease underneath the pillow, about maybe 1/4 or so of the pillow size? Then top with the bed cover. While she would stop there in her room, in the guest room she would fold the bed cover down to the pillow fold and add additional pillows in that matching fabric.
It’s wild to me y’all treating this like ancient history
In the US a typical bed set goes
Matress
Matress pad (optional)
Bottom fitted sheet
((You))
Top loose sheet
Blanket (optional)
Comforter/quilt
Any rug or throw (optional)
Deeply surprised by the
Matress
Bottom sheet
(You)
Duvet
(Any additional covers)
Setup of some Euro countries
@@namedrop721 there are also curtains below the bed that hide the storage below it.
Felt unfashionable in XX century due to lung disease threat and lack of free time.
Sometimes still in use by people around 100 y.o.
As soon as I read the title my brain immediately went to the Great Bed of Ware. It's a fascinating object and cool as the inn where it is originally from is near to where I live. So cool that you referenced it!
Also my grandmother has strong memories of making her mattresses as a child in rural Scandinavia. She remembers how she would get lots of bug bites from them.
This is where the phrase sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite came from. Because you would have to tighten their ropes and then the bugs would live in the mattress
I work at a history museum -- what you've done with your fabric mat is VERY similar to rag rugs, which were often used in kitchens / bedrooms / places where you need a durable and warm rug but wouldn't like to put your nice wool carpet! It's a great way to use scraps. Rag rugs, quilts, etc. were great scrap busters and longtime occupations of women in the Midwest haha
the ones we have in the museum were made for floors, not to fit a square bedframe, so they're made of one very very long 3-strand scrap fabric braid that spirals out from the middle into a circular/ovular rug.
Ticking is traditionally used for feather mattresses, and is thus very tightly woven (to keep the feathers inside, and to keep the feather ends from poking you). If the pillowcase fabric is related to ticking, I'd think it would be a tight weave, which makes sense because pillows were also filled with feathers, and you don't want to get poked in the face by feather ends.
As someone who was gifted a feather pillow when I was a child I can attest that getting gouged by pillow feathers when you're trying to sleep can really hurt! I found the thicker the fabrics involved the better, or just double pillowcase it. Ironically it's my preferred pillow type today as they last and last.
the sheer scale and volume of work that goes into Morgan Donner videos is mind-blowing!
I really love that Mr Donner was using more historical methods with making the bed. There's something about seeing him being into handtools etc and your history bounding that's just a delightful bit of connection.
Oh this was fantastic, interesting, educational and wonderful to see the talents and knowledge from Mr. Donner. So cute to see Angela at the end.
Down are the feathers that the bird uses for insulation. On a chicken or duck it's generally the feathers on the body more than the wings, though you will get a layer of heavier feathers even there. Depends on how picky you want to be about separating when plucking. The wing feathers and heavier body feathers are for flying and weather proofing, the down keeps them warm. On a mammal it would be the undercoat vs the top coat.
Literally perfect timing. We are moving soon and I have been wanting to decorate our new house with little bits of medieval flare and the bedroom was one of the toughest to make plans for. So thankful for this video and I'm definitely taking some notes!
Psyched for Mr Donner's debut as a presenter! I particularly appreciate his input as a hybrid sewing/woodworking enthusiast.
I also love your bed mat/braided rug take. Maybe someday I'll have enough long scraps to replicate it.
You know what?! I have a closet full of old sheets, clothes and other pieces of fabric. And there is a plank broken in my husband's bed frame. And now I know what to do! :-) I will braid the mat just like you did! ;)) Pretty smart our our ancestors were! And thank you for explaining the process so nicely!
PS: great channel! Thank you!
Woman! What did you do to me! And now I also need some mats for our cats to rest on... :-D Just need to pick right colors... OK, now I have enough "projects" for upcomming weeks.. ;)) So much fun!
Oooooh real old fashioned peg and dowel mortise and tenon woodwork! Thanks for joining in Mr. Donner! You are an amazing craftsman! Power Craftycouple goals. It's always such a delight to join your family for Experimental Archaeology style crafting! (And if you decide you don't like beige curtains,. you could paint some very cool diapering and flowers and other patterns on it in the Spring when you can spread it out flat on some grass to paint and dry. My house has beige valances I painted with a motif from illuminated manuscripts. I used a stencil to guide my patterning and keep it consistent.)
That's what I was going to recommend for the curtains! I think stenciling and painting something on them would spice them up right nice but without the mess of dying.
Funny enough, the "cocooning" of the curtains I learned in College Theater. ALSO, look up Rya (Rye) rugs. They might be the "rugs" you were seeing that were fuzzy. They were mainly used as a form of bed insulation, as a topper(like a duvet). The technique used to make them was also well used for making clothing/cloaks for keeping the wet and snow off your body.
I'm writing an historical novel about Julian of Norwich, and this video counts as both pleasure and research. Thank you.
Oh how interesting! Looking forward to reading it.
@@pirkitta407 Thank you! My previous historical novels are set in much earlier times than the middle ages.
That mat reminded me of the rugs that were popular in the 80s, those that were made from woven leather strips. They were quite fascinating, as they had all kinds of leather scraps in them, from plain brown to shiny blue. And they were really cheap, as they were literally made from waste.
After all these years I was not prepared to see Mr Morgan Donner lol
Loving this series, can’t wait to see more!
(Yay!! Greyhound appearance!!)
Oh my god the painting at 27:27 with the baby just ZOOMING at the sleeping couple, at SPEED! :D This might be the funniest ye olde panting I've ever seen. Thank you for sharing your sources as always, and what an amazing project!
Yeah I stopped each of those to study them, because I have to paint in a medieval style. Yeah that one was a gem!
I had to look really hard to find this 😂 thanks for the laugh!
Great Job! terms - Whole Cloth Quilt verses patchwork, also Ticking often used for feather beds because weave tight enough to hold in the quill ends. would not be surprised if also used for pillows, especially if they are feather pillows.
Mr. is great - love y'all's system thinking, logic, clear explanations, creative enjoyable approach, skills, experience & willingness to experiment!
When I was a kid, I used to do that cocoon thing with the curtains to put them away while cleaning the floor. And to make a "hammoc bed" for the cat! 🐈 Your bed is awesome, by the way!!
Love seeing Angela in your videos! And wow what a cool project, your passion for history is so inspiring!
This was fascinating! What is your thought process around installing furniture and fabric before painting the walls etc? Especially pieces like this that can’t easily be moved. I’m just curious as I’m so messy with painting I know I’d get it all over that bed canopy 😂
It really 100% has to do with temperature. A lot of the finishes and paints recommend a temperature for curing that we just do not hit for several months during winter, so we focused on projects that we could work on that were not temperature based.
@@MorganDonner Did you guys take advantage of the warm spell in early February, or did that stop in Northern MA and not make its way to you? (Not that it matters now that winter has decided to finally visit us for the next week...)
23:40 a while back I was searching and searching for a specific type of curtains which I later discovered were called "valance curtains" and I was so flustered because it's one of those words where never in a million years would you have ever guessed that off the top of your head! It's so interesting to finally put some logic and history to that word!
This is so cool!! I love how varied your projects are!
I agree that dyeing that much curtain evenly would be horribly difficult, but it looks like it could be a good background for painting on. I think if I had them I would paint big swirly vines and dragons and things.
I think the word you were looking for for that stained mattress is futon. They come in two styles that I know of. One, a set of foam mats that are connected together by the fabric they are covered with. I have commonly seen them with three mats and folded accordion style. Two, a mat filled with fiber that has tie quilting done into it so that it is flexible and the filling stays in place. The second option is the one I see more commonly here in the states. They usually are made into couch's that you can pull out to make a guest bed.
I'm glad you went with the more luxurious bedhead-cloth. I think it complemented and set the whole bed apart nicely. It might have been nice with either white, blue or gold as a secondary color on the trimmings, in addition to the red, but it works well as it is :)
This was very interesting. My Grandma used to use fabric to make braided rugs. It’s very similar to how you made your mat. She’d make both round and square ones.
My god, this is such a wonderful project, with a SPECTACULAR result! Your braided fabric mat inspired me to make a rug out of fabric strips left over from my wedding. 😇 Thank you for all the effort you put in for videos like this! It’s so inspiring!
Impressive work from both of you! And it's awesome you found an use for those fabric scraps
Woah seeing Mr. Donner more than just in the background or from the back or chest down was a surprise 😂. I really liked his wood working! It was really beautiful and informative!
👍👍👍👍👍 - I always wondered about the Medieval Bed set-up but never would have taken on the challenge of actually doing it. Like you, it seemed to me to be a bit confusing, as in "how did they do that". Now I know. Thanks to your adventurous quest to take on the challenge. Thanks.
I inherited from my mother the feather & down mattress she and her sisters used on the farm they grew up on. As the chickens were slaughtered for dinner, the feathers were plucked & saved to make mattresses & pillows. Mom had the feathers & down professionally cleaned & placed in a new stripped “tick” in the 1970’s. I will attest to the fact that it is the most comfortable sleep I have ever had. We don’t know how old it really is, however we suspect it is from the mid 1800’s when the family moved from Lancaster, PA to Buffalo, then to Michigan all by covered wagon. Thank you for such an interesting presentation!
That is the most remarkable project I have ever witnessed
I wonder if there are two blankets so that the occupants don't have to share? My spouse and I use separate blankets for the promotion of domestic harmony. 😂 But it sounds like they would be sharing a sheet, so maybe not? Maybe it's just for warmth and layering options.
Many thrift stores sell bags of “rags” sometimes all jeans or tshirts, seems a good source for ppl braiding their own mat. 😊 seems a good idea as a floor mat. I’m considering this for my antique sofa that sags. Placing it under the cushions to keep from sinking in.
I know it wouldn't be more like the original grass mat, but it would have been cool to see it coiled up like a massive braided rug. XD
Edit: Futon! That's how I grew up knowing those folding couch beds.
This is brilliant! I've been researching late medieval culture, and this is one of those mysteries that would've taken me ages to figure out if ever. You've opened my eyes! It all makes sense now! Thank you!
Please make your whole house late medieval. I will follow you every step of the way!!!
Morgan this is SO freaking cool! As someone who has some of the parts to make a overhead in the medieval style (by converting the overhead of the dais of a production of The Lion in Winter I was in where I played my own 27th great-grandfather Prince John of England), seeing the step-by-step of this was actually a HUGE help in helping me to convert that piece! And I love how much I learn about small historical nuggets of info when watching your videos.
Crafty historical stuff feeds my soul
In this colder climate of my country ( Sweden) the beds was boxbeds by the wall to keep the heat in. It comes from Viking times and kept people warm and it was more then one person per bed. I remember boxbeds in old farmhouses up north, a wall of beds and often 3 beds high, sadly most are gone now. Farmers had hay and then sheep skinn on top, at least here and most of them didnt have wills.
Those look so nice! Similar to the Dutch "bedstee", which is like the box bed but built more or less into the wall. I used them once and it was so comfy. Really liked how safe it felt to be so cosy in there. The small area warms up easily, so that is why they were popular too. And the privacy, neatness of it all.
We had these in France too, and they were used till the early 20th century in Brittany. You can still find those on second hand markets, even if many have been transformed into cupboards.
They were mostly used in one room country dwellings, were they also allowed a bit of intimacy.
The breton one are very ornate, with spindles forming the rays of a circle on the sliding doors, dark wood offset by a bright red curtain.
actually, the thing about people almost sitting in bed
the guides at basically all the castles i've been in have always told me that it's because the people were afraid of "their soul escaping from their body" or something
again, could be just guide humor, but it's what i remembered as soon as you mentioned it
Loving watching this, it's very cool to see. But the pair of blankets - I do know why this is! One blanket does not go over the sheets, but instead goes under the bottom sheet. It adds insulation to the mattresses, helping to give more comfort in terms of warmth in the winter and cool in the summer. And to be a little indelicate for a moment, mattresses full of organic materials can get insect invasions. The blanket helps to provide a barrier to the insects that a woven flax sheet doesn't give...
I have a memory foam mattress without the proper box spring and it gets really hot in summer due to lack of ventilation. I might actually try this and see what happens.
I came to learn about the hanging cocoon. Thank you!
I absolutely LOVE the different directions these videos have been going! It’s very fresh and different yet still feels like classic Morgan content
I really enjoyed your video!!! Excellently done!!! (I had wondered about those cocoons too!) 😅 .....Looking forward to the next ones!!! 😊 ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
So glad to see Mr. Donner joining you!! You guys made a great team and it was great content.
Bed ruggs were similar to hooked rugs with uncut pile.
Yes, they had quilts, almost always whole cloth. There was a fashion for paned quilts, which were of long strips of rich cloth sewn together, in aristocratic households, toward the end of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, but there are some hints of simple piecing as far back as the 12th century.
As for the Impruneta Cushion, that is too small to have been a bed pillow. Italian scholars believe that it was probably used to support the spine of a book. It was owned by Bishop Antonio degli Agli and *might* have been made by his niece, Deianara, but at this point there's no way to sure.
For more information on medieval patchwork, see my article in Medieval Clothing & Textiles 8, "Anomaly or Sole Survivor? The Impruneta Cushion and Early Italian 'Patchwork.'"
Lisa Evans
That bed looks SO comfortable and has so much more attitude and mood than the typical bed. Looking forward to future transformations!
that technique for installing hooks is ingenious, I've always used a pair of pliers.
My mind is blown. Mr. Morgan Donner is amazing at tutorial voice description. Mr. Morgan Donner the, previously, untapped hidden resource of this channel. Bravo! Love the video.
Got my mom to watch this video, she would like to point out that bolster pillows are still in use to this day and the mats/mattresses that don't get passed down are probably the ones that were made to last maybe a year before needing to be replaced--which would be done during winter, because that was when you were forced to have downtime.
Its SOOO cute and if you do paint the walls that blue color, its gonna pop so much with the red and then you have the blue from the plaid pillow case. Beautiful!
In love with your scrap plait mat!!!!
I love how much content everyone of your videos has. Some people would have made a 10 parts series for this!
THANK YOU!!! I am getting ready to build my own canopy bed and was procrastinating on the hours of research that I would need to do to make an authentic one so I thought I would take a chance and see what YT had to offer. You just saved me what was sure to be tons of trial and error and aggravation!
the head board cloth is a nice touch. I am loving the fabric. it's amazing watching the process of these projects from what it was before and all the way up to it's completion.
aaaah I understand what this cabin is for now... good for you morgan
😆
Here I sit answering "futon" like you can hear me 🤣 I need some sleep.
Love the bed 💕
Hi! Great project!! About the manuscript images, and the average length of beds, we thought for a long time people were smaller then, and whilst it's partly true, people were actualy supposed to sleep in a position in between sitting and lying down in bed, but never flat down because that was the position held when someone was laid to rest, aka, the grave position
Actually, the reason why the sitting up in bed situation is a thing is that beds went through a process of experimentation to what they became and the bed would naturally droop as the supports, in your case rope, was not always very strong and the mattress themselves are basically stuffed pillows and when you think of a mattress nowadays you think of metal spring kind of configuration. There is an internal support to them that originals just did not have. Lucy Worsley, a British historian has a wonderful series on medieval beds and the bedroom
So cool to see you share stuff I'd dreamed about doing. I used to do SCA and dreamed of making my own little 'Medjeeval' cottage, especially the period style bed with suspended canopy, but it never made it beyond pinterest. More recently I got interested in the idea of making braided rugs as a recycling activity to do with my students but so far haven't managed to find a way to squeeze it into the curriculum.
We own a house built ca. 1720s with some of the original furniture, including the beds. The mattresses are indeed stuffed with straw. It is lumpy, hard and uncomfortable! The most notable difference though from modern beds is that the old ones are VERY SHORT. Like, crazy short. Too short for even an average height modern person.
I love how this channel is so varied! It really makes every episode special.
I thought I read somewhere that they dumped the old straw every year & replaced with fresh? That would help. Also, it would discourage nesting!
I've slept on a straw stuffed mattress before and it can be very comfortable once you are used to the firmness. Also it smelled amazing when freshly stuffed.
@@m.maclellan7147 That would make sense! It is compacted and hard now and if they did that back in the day, it hasn't been done in 100 years. People don't sleep in those beds very often and haven't in a long time, the house is mostly just a seasonal retreat type place.
The reason the beds were short during that period is because there was a phase people went through at that time where they thought that sleeping sitting up was more healthy. Some modern people have seen these beds and concluded that people were much shorter back then, and while height on average has gone up, it hasn't been that drastic.
I have straw stuffed bobbin lace making pillows and they’re hard as rocks heh, I can’t imagine sleeping on something stuffed with straw. That being said they smell nice! 😅