Surprisingly, the first evidence of bed linen was found only in the manuscripts of ancient Roman historians. The Roman rich loved luxury, valued comfort, sophistication, beauty. So, it is probably natural that they did not deprive their beds. Note, it is the rich. After all, in the 4th century BC, ordinary people did not shine anything like that. For the rest of your life, you would not earn a small pillowcase, let alone a full set. Bed linen was an incredible luxury. Available only to noble aristocratic families.
So, the evidence indicates that the beds of the Roman nobility were covered not with anything, but with silk sheets. But for love games for some reason loved linen options, with flowers embroidered on sheets. Why such a choice, sources do not report, or we did not look well.
In general, there are very few mentions of bed linen in ancient times. Fragments of, say, flax were found. Narrow canvases, sewn together, decorated with ornaments, there were patchwork versions of silk "sheets" and given the size, it was assumed that they found bedding.
And already in the Renaissance there is reliable information that rich families covered their beds with crystal white sheets, which adorned the colorful embroidery with a whole story line. Italy became famous for being one of the first to fall in love with pure white bed linen, towels, tablecloths and napkins. Probably they secretly invented powerful bleaches to keep it all clean, but that's just our guess. Again, there is no reliable information about this.
In the 16th century, it became fashionable to embroider the names of owners on linen. Such bed linen was exclusive and very expensive. It was sewn for significant events or dates and made in one copy only. By the way, today it is much easier to organize such an option, and it does not cost all the money in the world.
The Netherlands in the seventeenth century, Saxony in the eighteenth preferred linen and silk linen. Given that mass production was only gaining momentum, bedding was still an element of luxury and cost a lot of money. Blankets were still not invented at that time. Mattresses were covered with several sheets of different densities, and blankets were also covered with sheets. Well, as we do now at Ukrzaliznytsia. But this is only if we assume that in those days, people really cared about the protection of blankets from pollution.
Bed linen, which became available to the middle class, began to appear only at the end of the eighteenth century. But here, too, everything depended on the country, because in some countries this stage lasted until the twentieth. All "production" still focused on the rich, able to pay a decent amount for white linen decorated with lace. In the monasteries, the masters wove handmade lace, which later adorned the linen. Batiste and haze births, which were exported to different countries of the world, became fashionable.
The nineteenth century is marked by bed linen with smooth patterns. Switzerland is especially proud of such grace. In some countries, it was customary to embroider the coats of arms of noble houses on linen. Moreover, each such family, in order to be considered decent, had to have their own craftswomen, ready to sew the coat of arms on the first order.
While the twentieth century, on the contrary, began to simplify everything. Small bouquets of flowers are moved to the corners of the sheets, and later the embroidery disappears altogether. In fact, this and mass industrialization make linen available to almost every family. It finally ceases to be a luxury. People realize that you can have more than one set of bed linen to make a change. Blankets appear that protect the linen from dirt. It was possible to transfer decorative elements on them, and here already to make linen as simple as possible.
Today, bed linen is available to everyone, but at the same time it has ceased to have only a functional purpose. There are color kits, 3D effects, there are many fabrics from which it is sewn, manufacturers compete with each other, trying to guess trends and preferences.
But the undoubted advantage of today's bed linen is that it has become associated not only with a person's sleep, but also with his mood.
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