1/3 of Your Life is Spent Sleeping

Since you spend an average of 25 years of your life sleeping, beds are definitely necessary. At least if you have a good night's sleep, you don't spend most of the day walking around zombie-like. Over the last couple of centuries things have radically changed. The beds we have nowadays are comfortable and come in all various shapes, sizes and fabrics. Additionally, we are not forced to sleep in the same room as cattle and don't have to share a single mattress with the entire family. Well that was clearly not the case when Jesus was born (in an itchy straw filled crib) or during the medieval times where beds were of such high importance and represented wealth, that they were passed on for generations.

Back then, it they were seen as heirlooms and highly valuable. Families could consider themselves lucky to inherit a wool filled one. Most people then could not afford a feather filled mattress but had to make do with straw or even boards. It was only over a long period of time that people actually began to adopt the idea of the actual bed, and eventually decided there were more comfortable ways to sleep than on the floor.

"If in seven years after marriage a man could buy a mattress and a sack of chaff to rest his head on, he thought himself as well lodged as a lord. Pillows were thought meet only for sick women. As for servants, they were lucky if they had a sheet over them, for there was nothing under them to keep the straw from pricking their hardened hides."

That was said in 1580 by the clergyman William Harrison who couldn't accept that people had acquired different sleeping habits and valued comfort.

mattress
bed store glasgow