Imagine you are a noble in 1580. You've just arrived at a coaching inn after a miserable day riding in the rain.

You're tired, you're muddy, you're sore. The innkeeper shows you to your bed, which is already full of 12 strangers.

You squeeze in next to a traveling tailor, a wet dog, and someone who snores like a dying ox.

Pretty cozy, right?

This wasn't weird, not even a little bit.

For centuries, sharing a bed with friends, relatives, co-workers, even complete strangers was the norm.

Monarchs did it.

Servants did it.

And yes, sometimes monarchs did it with their servants.

Anyway, take Richard the Lionheart and Philip II of France. In 1187, these two very macho medieval kings

weren't just eating from the same dish. They were also sleeping in the same bed. This wasn't a scandal.

There were no raised eyebrows, it was just diplomacy,

you know. Sharing a bed was seen as a symbol of trust and loyalty, a kind of medieval romance ritual.

And for thousands of years, this kind of arrangement was just part of normal life.

So how do we go from sharing our dreams and probably our fleas with everyone around us to

treating solo sleep like a badge of honor? Let's dig into the long, weird, wonderfully crowded

history of communal sleep.

Hey friend, welcome back to the YouTube channel for the Renaissance English History podcast. I am your host, Heather. I've been podcasting on Tudor England since 2009 with my show, which makes it the original OG Tudor History podcast. I'm so glad that you are here with me today talking about how we used to think it was no big deal to sleep with strangers and how that all changed thanks to,

of course, the Victorians, Killjoys. Anyway, first, let's get this out of the way. For most of

history, beds were luxurious. If you were poor, a bed might be a pile of

straw on the floor. If that, in one medieval inventory, a whole household had just one bed listed,

and it actually belonged to the goats. Furniture that we would recognize as a proper bed, a frame, mattress,

...