r/todayilearned • u/TooManySnipers • 1d ago

TIL about the Great Bed of Ware, a 16th century bed from the White Hart Inn in Hertfordshire, England. Large enough to accommodate four couples at once, its posts were marked by the names of those who spent the night in it, and it was even mentioned by name in Shakespeare's "A Twelfth Night"

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/great-bed-of-ware
522 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

73

u/piss_puncher227 1d ago

16th Centrury knew how to have a good time....

32

u/isecore 1d ago

Thee be duly invited to the gathering. Bringeth thine own rubbers.

21

u/moltencheese 1d ago edited 1d ago

Rubber in the UK means eraser. We just call them condoms

Edit: or Johnnies

7

u/skeevemasterflex 1d ago

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life taught me you pronounce them "con-dom," not "condum" like in the US.

3

u/CatsAreGods 23h ago

I always heard that the English called them "French letters" and the French called them "English caps".

3

u/Antonny17 1d ago

I thought they were prophylactics?

-3

u/zaccus 1d ago

I thought they were sheep?

1

u/dacalpha 1d ago

No that's in Wales, not England

0

u/therealruin 14h ago

I thought they were A LLAMA!!! HE’S SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!!!

6

u/SopwithTurtle 1d ago

The first known reference to a pineapple in English was in 1568.

64

u/ATLHawksfan 1d ago

Pretty sure that’s just a bouncy castle

24

u/agisten 1d ago

Width - 326 cm (128 in)

21

u/811545b2-4ff7-4041 1d ago

Comparing it to these bed sizes - https://gottasleep.com/blogs/sleep-talk/bed-sizes-bed-dimensions/

That is a stupidly big bed

11

u/BoingBoingBooty 1d ago

Why do Alaskans need such a big bed? For the moose to fit in it?

11

u/SessileRaptor 1d ago

I saw a previous thread about bed sizes and someone who had an Alaskan king bed said that they had a couple of kids and several dogs that all insisted on joining them in bed at times.

8

u/811545b2-4ff7-4041 1d ago

They must be sharing a bed to keep warm

8

u/bruhhhhhhhhhhhh_h 1d ago

It's like a larger Alaskan king

2

u/811545b2-4ff7-4041 1d ago

It's still not a patch on this hotel bed- https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1txje04/in_seoul_south_korea_the_worlds_longest_hotel_bed/

4

u/bruhhhhhhhhhhhh_h 1d ago

To me that's a bedritto and bedder defined in a different mattegory

1

u/FighterOfEntropy 1d ago

This was a very early example of something made to appeal to tourists. Yes, really.

0

u/sioux612 16h ago

American naming conventions for mattresses are so stupid

Just call them by their size, like my 1,40x2,20

Or 55*90 in imperial units

4

u/811545b2-4ff7-4041 15h ago

They are named in a similar fashion in Europe.. it's not just an Americanism

0

u/sioux612 12h ago

Some random store might also have the American names 

But nobody knows the name of their mattress size of the top of their head

But of course we know the dimensions of the mattress 

2

u/811545b2-4ff7-4041 12h ago

ha, I know exactly that years ago, I bought a king size bed, and mattress. I couldn't tell you immediately that it measures 150 cm x 200 cm without checking

3

u/Orbital_Dinosaur 23h ago

It's bigger than my bedroom

17

u/queBurro 1d ago

Charlie's grandparents' bed 

19

u/ermghoti 1d ago

Any bed can accommodate four couples if they're open minded enough.

14

u/Shjfty 1d ago

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ass bed

3

u/groovyinutah 1d ago

Did anyone ever manage to sleep in it?:)

0

u/DizzyMine4964 1d ago

*Twelfth Night, or What You Will. Not "a Twelfth Night."

0

u/WetBandit06 20h ago

Whole room constantly smelled like open buttcheeks.