Dedicated to the cultural and social history of the night, this two-day conference explored the positive representations and activities associated with nocturnal time; it aimed to shift the focus away from its traditional negative connotations linked to dangers, fear, even death, that has mainly received scholarly attention so far.
VITUS HUBER (Geneva) introduced the subject building on the Genevan motto “Post Tenebras Lux” (“after darkness, light”) stemming from Job:12 (“Post tenebras spero lucem”/“After darkness, I hope for light”). It stressed the metaphorical dimension of darkness as opposed to light: after the lies of the Catholic Church the Reformation brought light to believers shone by the “true gospel”. However, as Huber stated, one should not disregard the ambivalence that affected night. Despite its characterization as evil and dangerous, night-time offered nevertheless “protection”: the invisibility granted by darkness allowed specific activities to take place (practices of devotion, meditation, confessional minority gatherings, sexual encounters). In his introduction Huber highlighted the different dimensions through which it could be conceived positively: night is not only a time but a place as well (half of the planet is shrouded in darkness at any given time); and it implies a distinctive materiality, for instance bedding or street lighting. Thus, it is really the night as an “enabler” that the twelve papers of the conference discussed.
Dedicated to the link between temporality and creativity, the first session was opened by the medievalist JEAN-CLAUDE SCHMITT (Paris). His talk explored the rhythms of medieval nights and their social meaning in a monastic context. He started with the question as to how to determine the middle of the night. This calculation assumed a prime importance, since it marked the beginning of the canonical cycle on which depended all following services of the day. Schmitt showed how much the monks busied themselves with this task, at night, since it was measured according to the movements of the stars. In fine the Church’s need to measure and divide the time of day fostered the development of astronomical knowledge and instruments.
AGNES RUGEL (Munich) dedicated her talk to the figure of the watchman, drawing on the Tagelieder which are secular and spiritual German songs dating from the end of the Middle Ages. “Vigilant through the night”, the watchman did not sleep, so that others could rest. He marked the passing of time and embodied a Christian ideal of virtue. Nevertheless, the main narrative of these texts goes about two lovers who separate at dawn after a night together. Called back by the watchman in the early hours, they are enabled to sin without getting caught, even though they are invited by the poet to emulate his virtuous behaviour. Rugel identified praises to the moon in these texts that shed a positive light on the night.
Closing the first session, CHIARA FRANCESCHINI (Munich) gave a talk about the nocturnal work of artists in the Renaissance. Many of them pursued their art making during the night, like Johan Liss, who, according to Joachim von Sandrart made night out of day and day out of night, or Leonardo da Vinci, who lay awake in bed in the darkness to train his imagination. More than a mere question of timing, nocturnal art making was considered the time of creativity as it enhanced and proved a crucial virtue of the artists: their “vigilance”.
The second session moved on to the subject of “materiality and lightning”. MARIA WEBER (Munich) discussed the implementation of street lighting in 17th- and 18th-century Cologne, focusing on the questions of methods and materiality. She adopted a spatial, social, and material approach to study this tremendous endeavour which represented a massive practical challenge. It was seen as mandatory to maintain social order, but Weber’s microhistorical demonstration showed that there was much more at stake than the history of security, for instance pertaining to the difficulty of enforcing the obligation made to city dwellers to fill up the lamps with oil.
SOPHIE RECULIN’s (Lille) talk pursued on the subject of street lighting, but with regard to its diffusion across France and the activities that the “lit night” made possible during the 18th century. Imposed by the monarchy, street lighting was at first rejected by the municipalities and encountered strong opposition by the inhabitants. However, it spread and developed along the offer of leisure, despite the original aims of social order. It did enhance the sense of security, experienced especially by women, who felt more at ease to walk at night in the most central and biggest streets. The process of illuminating the city reveals strategies as to which area was to be lit or on the contrary to remain in the dark, which, therefore, denoted political representation and produced social distinction.
In the third session, dedicated to the question of "Freedom and Order," ADRIAN VAN DER VELDE (Illinois) provided a new perspective, as he studied the transatlantic and specific rural context of plantations in Grenada (Caribbean). There, enslaved people had their free time mainly at night, unless they were forced to work night shifts in the sugar production. Van der Velde presented their nocturnal practices, such as the spiritual rituals known as Obeah or Voodoo, as bright sides of night, in as much as they were means not only to celebrate their customs but also to strengthen their community feeling and to organize resistance.
MARCO CICCHINI (Geneva) presented a paper on the interplay between nocturnal activities and the efforts to regulate the night. Taking Geneva as a case study, he showed that the city's nightlife intensified and became more socially accepted, even expected along the 18th century. Going out at night turned into a joyful and social way of distinction. The economic success of the city laid the ground for the creation of circles, clubs, and societies, where the elite enjoyed the night by playing cards and by discussing political, confessional, or intellectual issues.
CRAIG KOSLOFSKY’S (Illinois) keynote concluded the first day. In a dense and interesting lecture, Koslofsky argued that the nocturnal urban space was foremost a challenged space, using the major research concept of “colonization” as well as the notion of “visibility”. The introduction of street lighting in 17th- and 18th-century European cities, Koslofsky emphasized, was only one element in the process of nocturnalization during the Early Modern period: city gates closed later; salons and cafés became a point of exchange par excellence; activities increasingly took place during the night; theatre and festivities characterized the nocturnal period, which offered a zone of contact and interconnectedness especially for 18th-century courtly society and the rising bourgeoisie. Koslofsky contrasted these bright sides of the night with the theoretical question of visibility in the second part of his lecture. The research concept of visibility focuses on delineating the process of colonization and nocturnalization that produced and required new ways of seeing and being seen. Newspaper advertisements on escaped black plantation workers provided a good example of the techniques to conceal one's actual personal identity. Thus, Koslofsky demonstrated that visibility and invisibility are central concepts that offer new insights into early modern social logics, cultural conditional structures, and power relations.
The following day, the conference moved on to the question of sleep and the places dedicated to this central nocturnal activity. The session started with SASHA HANDLEY (Manchester) who explored the question: how to sleep well in the early modern world. Linking medical history, health care practices, material studies, and environmental history, she took a global perspective to highlight the wide-ranging practices to ensure healthy sleep in various regions (Ireland, Scotland, America). In order to overcome the prevailing master narrative of a pre-modern sleep crisis, Handley demonstrated that early modern writers reflected on a wide range of factors that influenced the quality of sleep.
Sleep was not a private matter! Building on this statement, ILARIA HOPPE (Linz) showed that beds played a decisive role especially in the context of socialization process, but particularly as an instrument of politicization. Beds, Hoppe illustrated neatly, were shaped by different cultural practices, materials, and architecture. Drawing on inventories, layout plans, wall paintings, and pre-modern iconography, Hoppe established that beds possessed a certain agency and operated within an intertwined structure of materiality, space, bodies, practices, and culturally shaped conditions. Analysing examples from the 13th to the 17th century – albeit it in political, social, or private contexts – Hoppe depicted beds as a mirror of power and representations.
Returning to the Middle Ages, the last session of the conference focused on the night as a conducive time for spirituality. Through a close reading of a passage from the Vita of St Ulrich of Augsburg, ROMEDIO SCHMITZ-ESSER (Heidelberg) argued that the night constituted an ambivalent space of possibilities for reconfiguring social relationships. For instance, practices such as elevatio and translatio of holy relics or burial preparations were activities that occurred specifically at night. Hagiographic texts likewise offer a glimpse of the arrangements made for the future veneration of a holy person. As most of the talks emphasized, the night proved to be a time that is not fundamentally negative; in fact, the “making” of saints and interactions with them, decidedly positive tasks, had to be undertaken precisely at night.
Concluding this very stimulating conference, ANNE-LYDIE DUBOIS (Geneva) studied prophetic dreams and mystics’ sleep deprivation in the 13th and 14th century. She argued that night was a time and place that wielded particular power in the establishment of sanctity: through nocturnal vigils saints proved their extraordinary capacities for deprivation in an ascetic way. The virtuousness and willpower of holy men and women like Catherine of Siena first became apparent at all through their night-time fasting and praying. In this way, holiness was established when one was able to resist falling asleep and, thus, to fight against bodily needs and the devil’s temptations.
Studying a broad period running from the Middle Ages to the ends of the 18th century, the conference demonstrated the value of an approach that crosses the traditional boundaries of periodization. Foremost, the closing discussion highlighted the new perspectives on the “night” brought by the different talks: focusing on its positive aspects, the conference was able to question older negative narratives in Medieval Studies and proved that specific challenges and opportunities arose for medieval contemporaries during the night, ones which appear in hagiographic sources clearly. Regarding the early modern period, the main narrative underlined the notion of progress which placed a focus on the process of illuminating the night. And yet, the conference showed that one can also address the topic from a different angle by considering the benefit of a dark night, rather than considering lighting exclusively as progress. The interdisciplinary approach of the conference proved thereby to be particularly fruitful as it suggested new reflections and emphasized the challenges for future research. Shedding light on the history of darkness cannot be reduced to the march of progress during the Enlightenment: pre-modern people were also fascinated by the night, even though our modern mindset has largely ignored this aspect. Significantly, the inspiring papers have reminded us of this.
Conference Overview:
Vitus Huber (University of Geneva): Toward a Positive Perspective on Nocturnal Activities. An Introduction
Session 1: Temporality and Creativity
Chair: Loraine Chappuis (University of Geneva)
Jean-Claude Schmitt (EHESS Paris): The Rhythms of the Medieval Night
Agnes Rugel (University of Munich): Vigilant Throughout the Night. The Watchman in Medieval Spiritual Poetry
Chiara Franceschini (University of Munich): Artists in the Night
Session 2: Materiality and Lighting
Chair: Vitus Huber (University of Geneva)
Maria Weber (University of Munich): Before the Bright Night. Methods and Materialities of Urban Lighting in Premodern Europe
Sophie Reculin (University of Lille): The Lit Night. The Development of Street Lighting and Nighttime Activities in the 18th Century
Session 3: Freedom and Order
Chair: Karine Crousaz (University of Lausanne)
Adrian van der Velde (University of Illinois): Freedom, Religion, and Sugar. Nocturnality's Promise in the Early Modern Caribbean
Marco Cicchini (University of Geneva): The Regulated Night. The Construction of a Nocturnal Public Order in the 18th Century
Keynote
Chair: Andreas Würgler (University of Geneva)
Craig Koslofsky (University of Illinois): Whose Night? Contested Nocturnal Activities in Medieval and Early Modern Times
Session 4: Sleeping Spaces
Chair: Constance Carta (University of Geneva)
Sasha Handley (University of Manchester): Soporific Tonics and Early Modern Recipes
Ilaria Hoppe (Private Catholic University Linz): The Agency of Beds
Session 5: Spirituality
Chair: Mathieu Caesar (University of Geneva)
Romedio Schmitz-Esser (Heidelberg University): “Ea vero nocte hiltegart...” Nocturnal Activities and the Dead
Anne-Lydie Dubois (University of Geneva): The Lights of the Night. Sleep, Dreams, and Spiritual Activities in the 13th Century
Final Discussion