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