Medieval People Woke Up at 2 AM | Here's Why

For hundreds of years, people in Europe went to bed soon after dark, slept for a few hours, and then woke up in the middle of the night. On purpose? No. Naturally. They called it the "first sleep" and the "second sleep", and in between they prayed, thought about their dreams, did chores, talked, visited the neighbors and made babies. Then, in just a couple of centuries, the habit vanished so completely that we forgot it ever existed. So what woke them up, how do we know, and what erased it? (Hint: you probably have it switched on right now.) Chapters 0:00 The 2 AM Bell 0:54 A 16-Hour Night 2:13 One Bed, Two Sleeps 3:36 What People Did at 2 AM 5:15 A Death in 1697: How We Know 6:11 The Darkness Experiment 7:21 What Killed the Second Sleep 8:45 Waking at 2 AM Today 9:20 So Why Did They Wake Up? A note on evidence: historian Roger Ekirch has collected around 2,000 references to "first" and "second" sleep. Some historians (Niall Boyce, 2023) think the evidence is thinner and that two sleeps were not the only pattern, and studies of today's tropical hunter-gatherers find mostly one block of sleep. We show both sides. Sources Ekirch, A. R. 2001, "Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British Isles", American Historical Review 106(2) Ekirch, A. R. 2005, At Day's Close: Night in Times Past Ekirch, A. R. 2024, "Reflections on 'Have we lost sleep?'", Medical History Boyce, N. 2023, "Have we lost sleep? A reconsideration of segmented sleep in early modern England", Medical History 67(2) Wehr, T. A. 1992, "In short photoperiods, human sleep is biphasic", Journal of Sleep Research 1(2) Yetish, G. et al. 2015, "Natural sleep and its seasonal variations in three pre-industrial societies", Current Biology 25 The Rule of Saint Benedict, chapter 8 (the night office) Geoffrey Chaucer, The Squire's Tale (Canterbury Tales) Le Roy Ladurie, E., Montaillou (the 14th-century village and "the hour of first sleep") William Langland, Piers Plowman (C-text, poor women working at night) Laurent Joubert, 16th century, on conception after the first sleep Andrew Boorde, A Compendyous Regyment of Helthe (16th century) Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II, chapter 68 Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne, Letter XXVI (rushlights) Koslofsky, C. 2011, Evening's Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe (street lighting 1667–1700) BBC News Magazine 2012, "The myth of the eight-hour sleep" (Ekirch, Jacobs, Foster) #history #medieval #sleep