Have we lost sleep? A reconsideration of segmented sleep in early modern England

The theory that the people of the early modern period slept in well-defined segments of ‘first’ and ‘second’ sleeps has been highly influential in both scholarly literature and mainstream media over the past twenty years. Based on a combination of scientific, anthropological and textual evidence, the segmented sleep theory has been used to illuminate discussions regarding important aspects of early modern nocturnal culture; mainstream media reports, meanwhile, have proposed segmented sleep as a potentially ‘natural’ and healthier alternative to consolidated blocks of sleep. In this article, I re-examine the scientific, anthropological and early modern literary sources behind the segmented sleep theory and ask if the evidence might support other models of early modern sleep that are not characterised by segmentation, while acknowledging that construction of such models is by nature limited and uncertain. I propose a more diverse range of interpretations of early modern texts related to sleep, with important implications for medical and social history and literary scholarship.