@commonsense1907

Great video! Regarding the use of wood for heat, lighting. People started burning peat, and coal to heat their homes as wood supplies were exhausted.

@doughoward6401

A lot of bhting was called rush lights . They were litteraly rushes gatherd from marshy areas , soaked in tallow or what have you , and were put in holders or carried with you as a " night light " . Even as late as the victorian period , charles dickens wrote about them being used .

@patriciayohn6136

After I turned 70 I started sleeping bi phasically it totally works for me. I love my alone awake time in the middle of the night.

@disropted3276

awesome video

@dimik3855

It makes sense. In these feudal times when the winter nights were long and cold, sleeping for 12+ hours wasn't practical. To get up in the middle of the night gave the servants a chance to stoke the fires before they went out. With so much time on their hands and no entertainment (reading by the candle light or lamp had its limits, and books were rare), I'm sure many took advantage to watch the celestial sky and notice the patterns of the constant shifting of the stars.

@MadamoftheCatHouse

I am a biphasic sleeper my whole life. This is just how my body and my sleep cycle work.

@jamesverhoff1899

Oil lamps were far, far older than the Medieval period. Epictetus, a Greek slave turned philosopher, discussed them in his Golden Sayings, for example. By the Medieval period they'd more or less worked out how to work with them. I mean, it's not terribly hard; we had oil lanterns when I grew up in case of power outages, and it didn't take much to refill them. Someone who had practice could do it much easier. Oil lamps were the equivalent of a light bulb today: tried and true technology that was fairly readily available (clay is just mud and villages had kilns).

As for torches, I hate that they're viewed as light sources. They weren't. They may have produced light, but that's a secondary effect--rather like lighting your gas stove to light up your kitchen. The main purpose of a torch is to CARRY fire. They protect the ember and allow you to take fire from one place to another quickly and relatively safely (safer than carrying a burning log, anyway). If you've ever tried to use a torch you'll immediately know why they're a bad lighting option: When burning brightly, they radiate light in all directions. Which means, they ruin your night vision. All those movies where they show the hero holding the torch in front of himself are only showing how the hero gets killed. You can mitigate this somewhat by lifting the torch, but now you have hot, fluid, possibly already-on-fire resin over your flammable hair.

The better option for late-night wandering is a lantern. It's basically a candle in a box, which protects the candle flame and can shield your eyes from the glow.

The images for the firewood are also not exactly accurate. People weren't (generally) burning three-foot-thick logs; that could be turned into buckets or cups or spoons or timber for buildings other tools, and was too valuable for even nobles to burn. Medieval forests were extremely carefully managed affairs with remarkably sophisticated forestry practices applied to them. A lot of fire wood came from trees where they'd cut smaller limbs and allow the limbs to re-grow, which the limbs did in abundance. When you think about it, it had to be that way; a modest-sized castle that was relying on hardwood for fuel would run out within a year! Your rights to harvest wood were carefully managed, ensuring that the woods were not over-harvested. Sure, there were old-growth forests with huge trees (though not nearly as old as people think), but they were wild places and dangerous to go into; most of your routine work was done in maintained food-forests which provided firewood, herbs, water, roots, mushrooms, game, and a variety of other benefits.

@dazzlingdexter5060

The wood, wool and oil agency must have been the most lucrative business to be in.

@NicholasproclaimerofMessiah

Stone walls? What about the plaster? They weren't ruins back then; they were finished.

@bogtrottername7001

I think Townsends has a segment on early lighting.

@edi9892

Biphasic sleep; source: trust me bro

@Sport22j

Good video, however I miss how they had ignated a fire, and how they preserve the fire...

@martinmullender-taeter5163

dude sorry to break it to you, im from europe, and ive seen TONS of castles .... and the numbers you are throwing out is numbers for fantasy castles that are 5 times bigger than even the biggest castles, also, wood does not burn that fast, well... fire wood does not, and you bet your socks the medieval folks knew the difference

second, courtyards were just that .... yards, big open space, usually not paved, it was surrounded by the wall, barracks, servant lodgings, the kitchen, storehouse and the keep. This is the basic layout, there were big castles, but they usually were called castle towns which is something different, truth is, actual castles did not have tons of people in them, many of the servants actually lived outside of the castle and came in for their regular job, also the the castle was not lit up during the night unless there was a feast or someone super important was staying there, and most servants just used the light of the moon and if it wasnt up or went into places that had no slits or windows, then and only then would they use lamps or candles, most of them were used to light a room, and as to the sleeping hours ... im pretty sure you are referring to "midnight hour", which is a thing but that is the time where the people of the castle crept around to see their other one, the rest just took a piss, or went for a walk, as for the servants it was to run around checking the actual state of things, so the lord does not wake up with his whole room smelling like... you know what i mean after he drank too much

the people in a castle... there were very few actually, only the closest men, servants and their family, and this is the vast majority of castles, also they were not that big, people seem to forget that castles are forts, bastions or strongholds .... not your luxury mansion, and the people in it were just that, they did not have them to look pretty, they had them to secure the whole area .... and last but not least .... no one ever built an actual castle with lighting in mind

@francischarlesmoyer5277

verry informative alive and very funny laugh my heart out. love

@visceratrocar

I'm pretty sure my apartment would evict me if I switched from electricity to fire.

@valbain209

Back in medieval times did they use pitch? Or maybe it would have a heavy smoke?

@MadamoftheCatHouse

Provided your sweetheart was one of the lucky few who could read. Or have the means to pay to have it read to her.

@CocoaBeachLiving

Not particularly accurate with the details, but this was entertaining, up to a point. I'd recommend anyone more seriously interested, seek actual historical videos. This video gives you some of the key types of lighting. Use those a starting point.

@xelaocsana

Everything was done by AI for this content. From narration to the actual video.

Content creator probably just inputted the title as a text prompt and the rest was done by AI.

@leighGHTPPXX

These videos aren’t exactly accurate, however, it does irk me to listen to people talk about how “stupid” our ancestors were.
Especially given most of us have zero knowledge of how to survive, some cannot cook, most lack the knowledge of how to farm and thus cannot truly feed themselves at all.

I think we need to reintegrate “simple life skills” back into education.
Most knowledge is lost on us.
This follows the trajectory of how the knowledge of making concrete and roads, from the Holy Roman Empire, was lost to the people of Medieval Era, except we’ve already lost far more necessary life skills.