A few years ago, A Roger Ekirch’s book ‘At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past’ popularised the idea that bimodal sleeping was the norm in medieval Europe, and this was repeated across much of the English-language press before becoming a popular ‘Did you know’-style tidbit. The idea is that rather than sleeping for around 8 hours straight, people back then would wake up for a couple of hours in between for various chores, prayer, sex, etc. Several references to ‘first sleep’ and ‘second sleep’ are given from medieval literature, and discussion with sleep scientists and anthropologists.

How normal was this, and was it particular to certain times and places? Or was it a common pattern but a single ‘sleep’ was more usual? I have also come across claims that a lot of these references may have been misinterpreted. I’d be interested to know what that current conclusions in actual research might be.