Ordinary Life From Supper to Sunrise in an Anglo-Saxon Home | History for Sleep

Hey guys! We're now on Spotify 🎧 Join us here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1iLKLmP... Fall asleep to one Anglo-Saxon farmhouse in the English Midlands on a night in Lent around the year 1000, from supper to sunrise. In Lent every grown person kept to 1 meal a day, and not before evening, while in the law of the Mercians a free farmer's life was worth 200 shillings and a thegn's 6 times as much. An unfree woman on an estate was owed 1 sester of beans for her Lent fare, and the poorer tenants took turns sleeping out at the lord's sheepfold from Martinmas to Easter. Far above them, King Ethelred's council paid the Danes 24,000 pounds of silver in 1002. And beside the covered fire, all night long, the dough was rising. Subscribe to the channel: @oldhistorynights In this video, we talk about one ordinary Anglo-Saxon night, including the oxen coming home from the spring plowing, the one-room hall-house, the Lenten fast and the single meal at dusk, the pottage of beans and leeks, the quern and the loaf, why lord and lady both come from bread, ale and the trestle board, the dues owed at Michaelmas, Martinmas and Easter, the dough set to rise with a kept piece of yesterday's leaven, the riddles of the Exeter Book, Bald's Leechbook and its nine-day eyesalve, the spindle and the warp-weighted loom, the barred door and the banked fire, beds of straw and wool, the first and second sleep, the watchers of the dark, a lamb born in the night, the bondwoman's Easter feast, uht and the first cockcrow, and the first loaf baked at sunrise. 🔔 Subscribe for more long, slow nights inside the homes of the English past. 💬 Tell us where you're listening from tonight, and which hour of this Anglo-Saxon night you would most like to have sat through. 📢 Share it with anyone who loves history at bedtime, on Facebook, Reddit or in the family group chat. You're the reason the fire stays lit here. Chapters: 00:00 Opening 15:04 The beasts brought under the roof 34:42 The pot on the fire 54:26 The price of a loaf and a life 1:15:06 The spindle by the fire 1:34:52 The small one goes down first 1:53:57 The door and its bar 2:13:19 The first sleep 2:34:49 The watchers of the dark 2:55:42 Uht, the hour before dawn Sources: Exeter Cathedral, The Exeter Book: https://www.exeter-cathedral.org.uk/?... The Riddle Ages, Exeter Riddle 45 (dough): https://theriddleages.com/riddles/pos... University of Glasgow, Old English: Food and Drink: https://oldenglishteaching.arts.gla.a... Textus Roffensis, Concerning Laws of the Mercians (Kent Archaeological Society): https://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/re... University of Nottingham, a medieval remedy for modern superbugs: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/life-sci... Rectitudines Singularum Personarum, in English Economic History: Select Documents (1914): https://readingroo.ms/4/3/2/1/43211/4... The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1001 onward, Avalon Project, Yale Law School: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/... DISCLAIMER: This video is based on real historical events and figures, drawn from the sources listed above alongside primary archives, biographies, court records, period press, and leading historical scholarship. While every video is heavily researched, occasional minor inaccuracies in dates, quotes, or specific details may occur — historical sources sometimes disagree, and interpretation is sometimes required where the historical record is silent. Any errors are unintentional. #OldHistoryNights #HistoryForSleep #SleepStory #AngloSaxon #AngloSaxons #AngloSaxonEngland #DarkAges #EarlyMedieval #Mercia #Lent #ExeterBook #EthelredTheUnready #Bread #Sourdough #MedievalLife #SocialHistory #EnglishHistory #BritishHistory #History #BedtimeStory