From my previous post about our visits to Netherlands Open Air Museum with Mom & Dad and American Colleague's Wife, I got an interesting comment
For that reason, I like to come back on the Dutch Bedstee again.
This is the photo that shows the Parlor from Hindeloopen in Friesland.
Notice the steps to the 'Bedstee' (cabinet bed)?
Also called Box-Bed or Closet Bed and in French Lit-Clos
Katie Isabella wrote: A cupboard bed. That is unusual I think outside of your Country?
No it actually was quite common all over Western Europe as late medieval furniture, also in Scandinavia, England, Austria, France and of course The Netherlands as pictured here above.
Rembrandthuis - Main Living and Bedroom with Fireplace and Curtained Box Bed (Photo P. Hunt 2012). This is the actual desk and bedroom from Rembrandt as captured at the Rembrandthuis Museum in Amsterdam!
When Pieter and I did visit the Netherlands Open Air Museum on our own, we were told some rather shocking facts.
Those Box-beds are rather short. One could argue that people some 600 years ago were shorter. True but the main reason was that people in those days slept almost 'seated' because of kidney problems mainly!
They all used wooden barrels for keeping their meat or bacon through the winter period, in layers of salt. So the sodium intake on average was extremely high during that time.
No wonder that seldom a high age was reached...
As a child I too remember Mom keeping the bacon in the cellar salted inside a wooden barrel.
So even post WWII that was still going on. Till in the 60s and 70s we had access to freezers, locally, where you could rent a compartment for storing the fresh meat and such and from the 70s every household had meanwhile a fridge and a freezer.
But back in late medieval times, there was nothing else to keep meats fresh or to store other things.
Still remember as a girl that also ceramic pots, inside and outside glazed, used for making Sauerkraut. The salted Sauerkraut got weighted and pressed down inside those crocks.
Here you also see dried meats hanging from the ceiling, just to let them cure.
We also kept a Curing Cabinet for hams and other meats.
That's how we used to survive... and of course eating eggs as they were available year long!
Please click for some interesting photos from: French Lit-Clos/Dutch Bedstee/Box-bed or Closet-Bed late medieval Western European Furniture on my Pinterest board.
It is quite interesting to go back in time for getting an idea of how our ancestors survived!
Thanks for your vist and comment.
Netherlands Open Air Museum with Mom & Dad and American Colleague's Wife | previous post by me
