At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past

Description

In the centuries before electric lighting, nighttime spawned a remarkably rich and vibrant culture. In this strikingly original work, A. Roger Ekirch resurrects a vivid world with its own rules and rituals, scents, sights, and sounds—a universe of torchlight travels and moonlit travails, of satanic spirits, night kings, and bandogs, of sewing circles and blanket fairs. When the sun set, the ordinary rituals and regulations of daytime underwent dramatic change, as did attitudes toward magic, sexuality, authority, and the environment. Not only was nighttime thought a separate “season,” but for the greater part of humankind darkness afforded a sanctuary from daily experience, an “alternate reign” that shunned established habits and values. Crime, fire, and witches; navigating fields by starlight; work parties to spin wool and tales; masked balls and night-cellars; midnight liaisons and bundling; the rhythms of sleep and dreams—all these and more are interwoven in this enthralling study. Panoramic in scope, At Day's Close is fashioned on an intimate scale, enriched by personal stories and twenty years of research. At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Shutting-In Part One: In The Shadow Of Death Prelude 1 Terrors of the Night: Heavens and Earth 2 Mortal Perils: Plunder, Violence, and Fire Part Two: Laws Of Nature Prelude 3 The Fragility of Authority: Church and State 4 A Man’s House Is His Castle: Domestic Fortifications 5 Darkness Visible: Navigating the Nightscape Part Three: Benighted Realms Prelude 6 Works of Darkness: Labor 7 The Common Benefactress: Sociability, Sex, and Solitude 8 Knightwalkers: Princes and Peers 9 Masters by Night: Plebeians Part Four: Private Worlds Prelude 10 Ordinances of the Bedchamber: Rituals 11 Unraveling the Knitted Sleeve: Disturbances 12 Sleep We Have Lost: Rhythms and Revelations Cock-Crow Notes Index ILLUSTRATIONS Peter Paul Rubens, Return from the Fields, seventeenth century Georg Mack the Elder, Comet Seen at Nuremberg during November, 1577, seventeenth century Anon., The Influence of the Moon on the Heads of Women, seventeenth century Matthias Grunewald, The Devil Attacking the Window (detail from St. Anthony the Hermit from the Isenheim Altarpiece), ca. 1512-1516 Claude Gillot, The Witches’ Sabbath, eighteenth century William Hogarth, Night (pl. 4 of The Four Times of the Day), 1738 William Hogarth, A Night Encounter, ca. 1740 Fssaias van de Velde, A Village Looted at Night, 1620 Jan Beerstraten, The Great Fire in the Old Town Hall, Amsterdam, 1652 Gerard Vlack, Sleeping Servant, n.d. Jean Le Pautre, The 1674 Festival at Versailles Organized by Louis XIV to Celebrate the Re-conquest of the Franche-Comté, seventeenth century Gabriel Bella, The Good Friday Procession in Illuminated Saint Mark’s Square, eighteenth century Anon., The Midnight Magistrate, eighteenth century Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime, 1808 Thomas Rowlandson, Housebreakers, 1788 Anon., Clipping the Church, nineteenth century Thomas Frye, Young Man Holding a Candle, eighteenth century Trophime Bigot, A Boy Pouring Oil into a Lamp, 1620 Gerrit van Honthorst, Dentist, 1622 Vincent van der Vinne, The Safe Refuge, 1714 Thomas Rowlandson, A Linkboy, 1786 Adriaen Brouwer, Dune Landscape by Moonlight, seventeenth century Thomas Bewick, Benighted Traveler, n.d. Anon., The Labourer’s Clock, or a Very Easy Method of Telling the Time at Night by the Stars, eighteenth century Pehr Hilleström, The Testing of an Egg, 1785 Joseph Wright of Derby, The Blacksmith’s Shop, eighteenth century Anon., John Hunt, Nightman and Rubbish Carter, near the Wagon and Horses in Goswell Street, near Mount Mill, London, eighteenth century Francesco Bassano the Younger, Autumn Harvest (Grape-picking), 1585-1590 Jan Asselijn, Crab Catching in the Night, seventeenth century Jean Jacques de Boisseau, Evening in the Village, 1800 Jan Steen, The Ace of Hearts, seventeenth century Hans Sebald Beham, A Spinnstube, 1524 Gerrit Dou, Scholar with a Globe, seventeenth century Joseph Wright of Derby, Girl Reading a Letter by Candlelight, with a Young Man Peering over Her Shoulder, ca. 1760-1762 Wolfgang Heimbach, Nocturnal Banquet, 1640 Giuseppe Grisoni, Masquerade at King’s Opera House, 1724 William Hogarth, A Rake’s Progress (pl. 3), 1735 William Hogarth, The Bagnio (pl. 5 of Marriage a la Mode), 1745 Anon., Drunken Rakes and Watchmen in Covent Garden, 1735 Francois Morellon la Cave, Night Meeting of the Adamites, eighteenth century Johann Konrad Seekatz, Gypsies Before a Campfire, eighteenth century John Quidor, The Money Diggers, 1832 William Hogarth, The Idle ‘Prentice Betrayed by a Prostitute (pl. 9 of Industry and Idleness), 1747 Georg Merckel, The Curious Death of the Hegen Family, Christmas Eve, 1558, sixteenth century Matthias Stom, Old Woman Praying, seventeenth century Anon., Tobias and Sara, ca. 1530 William Hogarth, The Idle Prentice Returned from Sea and in a Garret with a Prostitute (pl. 7 of Industry and Idleness), 1747 Anon., A Boulster Lecture, seventeenth century William Hogarth, Francis Matthew Schutz in His Bed, late 1750s Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781 Gerrit van Honthorst, The Flea Hunt, 1621 Thomas Rowlandson, Haymakers at Rest, 1798 Jan Saenredam, Night, seventeenth century Jacob Jordaens, The Dream, or The Apparition by Night, seventeenth century Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Beggar’s Dream, ca. 1769 Henry Fuseli, Midnight, 1765 Philip James de Loutherbourg, Coalbrookdale by Night, 1801 Thomas Rowlandson, A Peep at the Gas Lights in Pall-Mall, 1809 Anon., Lantern Smashing in Vienna, 1848, from Genaue Darstellung der Denkwürdigen Wiener Ereignisse des Jahres 1848 in ihren Uraschen und Folgen (Vienna, 1849) Europe at Night, W. Sullivan, nd. COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS (appear between pages 182 and 193) Paul Bril, Fantastic Landscape, n.d. Hieronymous Francken, Witches’ Kitchen, 1610 Philip James de Loutherbourg, Attack by Robbers at Night, ca. 1770 Egbert van der Poel, Fire in a Village at Night, 1655 Jacopo Bassano, Workshop of Weavers, sixteenth century Anon., Ferry by Moonlight, n.d. Gerrit van Honthorst, The Matchmaker, 1625 Cornelis Troost, Those Who Could Walk Did: the Others Fell, 1739 Leandro Bassano, Camp at Night, n.d. Thomas Luny, Teignmouth by Moonlight, eighteenth century David Teniers the Younger, The Invocation, seventeenth century Giulio Carponi, The Kingdom of Hypnos, seventeenth century