Boring History For Bedtime

A slow, calm medieval history for sleep episode about poisoners, dangerous remedies, royal fear, and suspicious deaths in the Middle Ages. Tonight, we examine the ordinary objects that made poisoning so frightening: a...

A slow, calm medieval history for sleep episode about castle spies, intercepted letters, court gossip, and the servants who overheard royal secrets. Tonight, we wander through crowded medieval castles and royal courts...

A slow, calm medieval history for sleep episode about midwives, dangerous births, and women’s hidden knowledge in the Middle Ages. Tonight, we enter the dim birth chamber, where women warmed water, folded cloth, steeped...

A slow, calm medieval history for sleep episode about prisons, captivity, escape attempts, and ransom in the Middle Ages. Tonight, we enter gatehouse cells, castle rooms, town jails, and other improvised places of...

A slow, calm medieval history for sleep episode about the servants whose exhausting labor kept a castle running from before dawn until long after dark. Tonight, we move through kitchens, stables, laundries, storerooms...

Settle in for a slow, sleepy medieval history for sleep episode about garbage and sanitation in the Middle Ages—household trash, animal waste, cesspits, street cleaning, and the surprisingly organized rules towns used...

Settle in for a slow, sleepy medieval history for sleep episode about marriage-bed rules, church teaching, abstinence, marital duty, consent, fertility, and private life in the Middle Ages. In this episode of Boring...

Settle in for a slow, sleepy medieval history for sleep episode about wedding nights, bedding ceremonies, consummation, virginity, fertility, and marriage customs in the Middle Ages. In this episode of Boring History...

Settle in for a slow, sleepy medieval history for sleep episode about brothels, bathhouses, prostitution, nightlife, city rules, women’s lives, and private life in the Middle Ages. In this episode of Boring History for...

Settle in for a slow, sleepy medieval history for sleep episode about sex, sin, confession, church rules, marriage, desire, and private life in the Middle Ages. In this episode of Boring History for Sleep, we explore...

Settle in for a slow, sleepy medieval history for sleep episode about prostitutes, courtesans, brothels, civic regulation, women’s lives, and survival in the Middle Ages. In this episode of Boring History for Sleep, we...

Settle in for a slow, sleepy medieval history for sleep episode about forbidden love affairs, royal scandals, arranged marriages, disputed heirs, and court politics in the Middle Ages. In this episode of Boring History...

A slow, calm history episode for sleep about why ancient Romans used urine for laundry, teeth whitening, cloth cleaning, and other surprisingly practical parts of daily life. Tonight, we wander through the streets...

A slow, calm history episode for sleep about aristocrats in the Middle Ages who hired hermits to live quietly in their gardens, grottos, and secluded estate corners. Tonight, we wander through private gardens, mossy...

A slow, calm history episode for sleep about segmented sleep in the Middle Ages, when many people rested in two separate stretches known as first sleep and second sleep. Tonight, we wander through the quiet hours of...