At Day's Close: Night in Times Past (2 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

“
Y
OU JUST GO
too slow,” my smiling ten-year-old daughter, Sheldon, teased recently about the pace of my writing. If only the words had come more easily! That I have not taken longer is owing to the help of friends and
f
amily coupled with the kindness of institutions on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The inspiration for this book came many years ago from André-Philippe Katz, a close friend in graduate school. Despite our plans to collaborate, other responsibilities prevented his participation. The book would have benefited enormously from his remarkable intellect and imagination.

Financial assistance for research and writing originated from a variety of sources. I am profoundly grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; the American Council of Learned Societies; the American Philosophical Society; the Virginia Center for the Humanities; and the American Historical Association. Virginia Tech generously provided research assistance and leaves from teaching.

Over the past two decades, I relied upon the staffs and resources of many splendid institutions. I am indebted to the Public Record Office (formerly at Chancery Lane as well as Kew); the British Library; the Guildhall Records Office in London; the British Library of Political & Economic Science at the London School of Economics; the Bodleian Library of Oxford University; the Cambridge University Library; St. John’s College, Cambridge; Chetham’s Library in Manchester; the record offices of Dorset and Hertfordshire; the Hereford City Library; the District Central Library in Rawtensall; the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society; the Bristol Central Library; the Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin; the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish Record Office, both in Edinburgh; the University of Wales, Bangor; the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth; and the Archives Geneve. In the United States, I am grateful to the Library of Congress; Alderman Library at the University of Virginia; the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary; the New York Public Library; the Beinecke Library at Yale University; the Lewis Walpole Library; the North Haven (Connecticut) Historical Society; the Bennington (Vermont) Historical Society; the Harvard University Law School Library; Houghton Library at Harvard; and the Suffolk County Court House in Boston. At the Library of Virginia in Richmond, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Sandra G. Treadway and her colleagues. Still other institutions, identified elsewhere, supplied the book’s artwork. They have my deep appreciation.

Closer to home, I benefited from the diligence and generosity of the staff of Newman Library at Virginia Tech, including the late Dorothy F. McCombs, Bruce Pencek, and, most of all, Sharon Gotkiewicz, Lucy Cox, Janet R. Bland, Nancy Weaver, Michele Canterbury, Robert Kelley, and others in the interlibrary loan office headed by Harry M. Kriz. They worked tirelessly on my behalf and always with good cheer. Thanks also to Annette Burr for her expertise in art history. Ruth Lipnik Johnson and Becky Woodhouse at the Roanoke County Public Library were tremendous assets. I am grateful to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for the use of their genealogical facilities in Salem. I wish to thank Rabbi Manes Kogan for letting me consult the fine library at Beth Israel Synagogue in Roanoke.

A small legion of translators enabled me to canvass a broad range of non-English sources, far beyond my own limited command of French and Latin. Of vital help were Cornelia Bade, Trudy Harrington Becker, Maebhe Ní Bhroin, Blanton Brown, Michel Dammron, Doreen Ebert, Christopher J. Eustis, Dinia Fatine, Jennifer Hayek, Christine Huzil, Berwyn Prys Jones, Andy Klatt, Rabbi Manes Kogan, Keun Pal Lee, Francesca Lorusso-Caputi, William L. McKone, Michele McNabb, Annick Mikailoff, Violaine Morand, Luciano Nardone, Sera Oner, Lida Ouwehand, Joseph Pierro, Shannon Prince, Haingonirina Ramaroson, Alexander Shaffer, Carey Smith, Giuliana E. Taylor, and Naomi de Wolf.

Colleagues at Virginia Tech who assisted my research and writing included Linda Arnold, Mark V. Barrow, Jr., Glenn R. Bugh, David Burr, the late Albert E. Moyer, Steven Soper, Robert Stephens, Peter Wallenstein, Joseph L. Wieczynski, and Young-tsu Wong. Most of all, Frederic J. Baumgartner lent a helping hand, answering repeated questions and drawing my attention to useful sources. He and Richard F. Hirsh both took the time, at any early stage, to read the manuscript. Linda Fountaine, Janet Francis, and Rhonda Pennington all made this project easier, as did a number of students, whether in sharing their insights, scanning illustrations, or volunteering references. I thank especially Sarah Taylor, Jamie Rife, Anne Elizabeth Wohlcke, David Ferro, Estare Alston, Bridgett Dehart, Nicole Evans, Doris Johnson, Eric Robertson, Al Harrison, Larry McCall, and Carlton Spinner. Soo Kang logged countless hours helping me to wade through eighteenth-century newspapers on microfilm, and Lindsay Metts chased down loose ends in Charlottesville. Jason Cruff kindly assisted in organizing my sources. Keith Wilder provided expert help in Edinburgh.

Many friends and professional acquaintances shared references or research of one sort or another. I am grateful to James Axtell, Jonathan Barry, Sharon Block, Mark J. Bouman, Amy Turner Bushnell, Cary Carson, John E. Crowley, David Dauer, Cornelia Dayton, Carl B. Estabrook, Paul Finkelman, Jan Garnert, Karla Girona, David D. Hall, Barbara Hanawalt, Ruth Wallis Herndon, William Lee Holladay, Marja Holmila, Steven C. Hughes, Craig Koslofsky, Allan Kugel, Michael Meranze, Kathryn Mary Olesko, David Smolen, John M. Staudenmaier, SJ, Keith Thomas, and Marc Weissbluth. Robert Gifford and Jennifer Veitch addressed my questions about interior lighting. The clinical insights of Thomas A. Wehr were immensely helpful as I tried to unravel the complexities of preindustrial sleep.

As always, Jack P. Greene was a welcome voice of encouragement, as was George Steiner. Timothy H. Breen, Richard S. Dunn, and Joanna Innes lent their aid early on. Bernard Bailyn, from the book’s inception, helped mightily. I greatly appreciate the references he shared but, even more, his expressions of support and enthusiasm, which were instrumental to the completion of my research. Numerous friends in the profession devoted their time to reading the manuscript, either the full text or selected chapters. For their advice and criticism, I owe much to Thomas Brennan, Robert J. Brugger, Peter Clark, Thomas V. Cohen, Rudolph Dekker, Paul Griffiths, Gilbert Kelly, A. Lynn Martin, Philip D. Morgan, Sara Tilghman Nalle, Paul F. Paskoff, Bruce R. Smith, and Daniel J. Wilson. They helped me tremendously. Joyce and Richard Wolkomir provided intellectual stimulus with their probing questions. In addition, I am grateful for the comments I received when presenting portions of my research at Johns Hopkins University, Louisiana State University, Ohio State University, the State University of New York at Albany, and the University of Sydney. I also gave a talk at the (now) Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture during the year that I served as visiting editor of publications. I am indebted to the staff of the Institute and, most particularly, to Thad W. Tate for the many kindnesses I received during my stay. A small portion of my research previously appeared as an article, “Sleep We Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British Isles,” in the April 2001 issue of the
American Historical Review
. I am grateful to members of the AHR staff, especially Allyn Roberts and Michael Grossberg.

For their valuable aid, I express my warm appreciation to my exceptional editor, Alane Salierno Mason, along with Alessandra Bastagli, Mary Helen Willett, Janet Byrne, Eleen Cheung, Neil Hoos, Evan Carver, and so many others at Norton. I am indebted to Ede Rothaus for her knowledgeable help with the artwork. Georges and Valerie Borchardt were critical to the book’s progress. I am deeply appreciative to Georges for his wisdom and good will. I would also like to pay tribute to several old friends: Clyde and Vickie Perdue, John and Mary Carlin, Mary Jane Elkins and her late husband, Bill, and Carolyn and Eddie Hornick. Tobie Cruff was a bulwark for both my wife, Alice, and me.

In 1697, the French expatriate Thomas D’Urfey wrote that “night, love and fate rule the world’s grand affairs.” Certainly, for the better part of two decades, “night” and family have ruled mine. My late parents, Arthur and Dorothy Ekirch, were enormously supportive, as were my sisters, Cheryl and Caryl, and their husbands, Frank and George. My parents-in-law, Keun Pal and Soon Lee, opened their home—and their hearts—during my frequent forays to the Library of Congress. I should also like to thank Anna, Don, Annette, David, and their families. I relied shamelessly upon Don and David for their medical insights. Alice, who does so much good in her own work, repeatedly came to my rescue in the course of this book. For that and so much more, I am profoundly blessed.

Shortly after my arrival in Blacksburg nearly thirty years ago, a wise senior colleague reflected that most academics, as they advance in age, think not of their books but of their children. This book is dedicated with love to Alexandra, Sheldon, and Christian, ever in my thoughts, past, present, and for all tomorrows to come.

PREFACE

Let the night teach us what we are, and the day what we should be.

THOMAS TRYON,
1691
1

T
HIS BOOK
sets out to explore the history of nighttime in Western society before the advent of the Industrial Revolution. My chief interest lies in the way of life people fashioned after dark in the face of both real and supernatural perils. Notwithstanding major studies on crime and witchcraft, night, in its own right, has received scant attention, principally due to the longstanding presumption that little else of consequence transpired. “No occupation but sleepe, feed, and fart,” to quote the Jacobean poet Thomas Middleton, might best express this traditional mindset. With the exception of enterprising scholars in Europe, historians have neglected the primeval passage from daylight to darkness, especially before the modern era. Nighttime has remained a
terra incognita
of peripheral concern, the forgotten half of the human experience, even though families spent long hours in obscurity. “We are blind half of our lives,” observed Jean-Jacques Rousseau in
Emile
(1762).
2

Rather than a backdrop to daily existence, or a natural hiatus, nighttime in the early modern age instead embodied a distinct culture, with many of its own customs and rituals. As a mark of its special nature, darkness in Britain and America was frequently known as the “night season.” Night and day, of course, shared qualities in common, and many differences were a matter of degree and intensity. But along with alterations in diet and health, dress, travel and communication, significant changes arose in social encounters, work rhythms, and popular mores, including attitudes toward magic, sexuality, law, and hierarchical authority. Not only, then, does this book challenge longstanding assumptions about the past scale of nocturnal activity, but it also seeks to resurrect a rich and vibrant culture very different from daily reality, an “alternate reign,” as an English poet put it. More than that, darkness, for the greater part of humankind, afforded a sanctuary from ordinary existence, the chance, as shadows lengthened, for men and women to express inner impulses and realize repressed desires both in their waking hours and in their dreams, however innocent or sinister in nature. A time, fundamentally, of liberation and renewal, night gave free rein to the goodhearted as well as the wicked, forces both salutary and malignant in ordinary existence. “Night knows no shame,” affirmed a proverb. Despite widespread dangers, multitudes drew fresh strength from the setting sun.
3

At Day’s Close
consists of twelve chapters, divided into four parts. Part One, “In the Shadow of Death,” focuses on night’s perils. Threats to body and soul expanded and intensified after dark. Probably never before in Western history had evening appeared more menacing. Part Two, “Laws of Nature,” is devoted to both official and popular responses to nighttime. I begin by examining a variety of repressive measures, from curfews to watchmen, designed by church and state to curb nocturnal activity. Only toward the eighteenth century did cities and towns take half-steps to render public spaces accessible at night. By necessity, ordinary folk, at home and abroad, relied upon magic, Christianity, and natural lore to counter the darkness in urban and rural areas. This complex matrix of popular conventions and beliefs sets the stage for the remarkable undercurrent of activity in communities after sunset. Part Three, “Benighted Realms,” probes the haunts of men and women at work and play. Shrouded interiors weakened social constraints, creating spheres of intimacy among family, friends, and lovers. If evening, for most, was a time of personal freedom, it exerted special appeal for classes at opposite ends of the social spectrum. Successive chapters examine night’s multi-faceted importance for both patricians and plebeians. After dark, power shifted from the mighty to the meek. Sleep, the farthest refuge from the throes of daily life, forms the basis of Part Four. “Private Worlds” analyzes bedtime rituals and sleep disturbances, as well as a pattern of slumber, dominant since time immemorial, whereby preindustrial households awakened in the dead of night. Families rose to urinate, smoke tobacco, and even visit close neighbors. Many others made love, prayed, and, most important historically, reflected on their dreams, a significant source of solace and self-awareness. Finally, the book’s epilogue, “Cock-Crow,” analyzes the demystification of darkness under way in cities and large towns by the mid-eighteenth century. The foundation, even then, was laid for our modern “twenty-four/seven” society, with profound consequences for personal security and freedom.

This narrative of nocturnal life covers Western Europe from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. The British Isles form the heart of my inquiry, but extensive material is included from across the Continent. In addition, I have incorporated relevant information from early America and Eastern Europe. The book’s time period is equally broad, stretching from the late Middle Ages to the early nineteenth century, though the principal focus is the early modern era (ca. 1500–1750). That said, I make occasional reference to both the medieval and ancient worlds, drawing comparisons as well as contrasts to earlier practices and beliefs. Although many developments explored in this book were unique to the early modern era, some clearly were not. Seen from that perspective, this study represents a more extended exploration of nocturnal life in preindustrial times than ever I anticipated.

By the same token, my research has occasionally benefited from the ground-level insights of Humphrey O’Sullivan, Émile Guillaumin, and other close observers of rural life in the nineteenth century. I strongly subscribe to the historical viewpoint that the values and traditions of many agrarian regions in Europe and America did not significantly change until the late 1800s, with the expansion of transportation and commerce. As Thomas Hardy wrote in
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
(1891), “a gap of two hundred years” separated the worldviews of Tess and her mother—“when they were together the Jacobean and the Victorian ages were juxtaposed.”
4

Uniformities in nocturnal life, across time and space, often outweighed variations during the early modern period. Nocturnal culture was by no means monolithic, but people were more alike in their attitudes and conventions than they were different. Just as preindustrial folk, after dark, shared common fears, so did many act in similar ways. Besides persuading me to structure the book thematically, this realization reinforced my view of night’s fundamental importance. Such was the impact of this natural cycle that it frequently transcended differences in culture and time. When significant deviations did arise, such as in forms of courtship or artificial lighting, I have explored these in the text. But not until the eighteenth century would nocturnal life anywhere be markedly transformed, and then only in cities and towns. In fact, often more influential in preceding years than temporal or regional differences were differences rooted in social position and gender, in addition to divisions between town and country.

My research draws from a broad range of sources, as one might suspect for such a ubiquitous subject. Most valuable have been personal documents—letters, memoirs, travel accounts, and diaries. Despite its breadth, the book, in large measure, is constructed around the lives of individual men and women. Diaries, especially, have permitted this for members of the middle and upper classes. For information regarding the lower orders, I have mined rich veins of legal depositions along with a small number of diaries and autobiographies. An unparalleled source for urban street life has been the Old Bailey Session Papers, eighteenth-century pamphlets that chronicled trials at London’s chief criminal court. For traditional beliefs and values, wide use has been made of glossaries, dictionaries, and, most of all, collections of proverbs. “There’s the peasant’s creed,” observed a French priest of proverbs—“the learning he has ripened and assimilated to the innermost recesses of his soul.”
5
To help explore different strata of thought, I have examined a wealth of both “high” literature and “low,” not just poetry, plays, and novels but also ballads, fables, and chapbooks. All of these I have tried to employ with caution, pointing out instances when imaginative works diverged from social reality. Didactic writings have been useful, primarily sermons, religious tracts, and handbooks of advice. Revealing, too, are eighteenth-century newspapers and magazines, medical, legal, and philosophical treatises, and agricultural tracts. And, for illustrative and explanatory purposes, I have drawn upon studies from medicine, psychology, and anthropology. Other recent works, on topics ranging from popular culture to blindness, have been instructive, as have monographs focusing on selected aspects of nocturnal life (for thematic unity, I have not examined sources relating to warfare at night).

A last point deserves special emphasis. While I take up, on several occasions, the question of night’s impact upon daily life, including whether darkness in the main was a source of social stability or disorder, that issue has not been my foremost concern. Hopefully, the material contained in these pages will afford justification enough for studying nighttime on its own terms.

R
OGER
E
KIRCH
Sugarloaf Mountain
Roanoke, Virginia
November 2004

All dates are rendered in new style, with the new year beginning on January 1. Quotations, for the most part, are in the original spelling, though capitalization has been modernized and punctuation added when necessary.