Bundling OriginsHistoric Design Origins and Influence on the Classic Poster Beds

In reviewing this apologia Bayle explained that l'on n'accusoit pas Robert de se mettre au lit avec des fines pour satisfaire les desirs de la Nature; c'etoient seulement pour se mortifier davantage, & pour livrer a ses lens une guerre plus cruelle. The founder of Fontevrault wished to triumph over women (that is to say, the Devil) daps le mime lieu qui est le champ & le theatre continuel de leurs triomphes. For this purpose he was accused of having selected the most beautiful of his nuns, pour passer les nuits avec elles dans un mime lit tout deshabillez-though Bayle points out with commendable fairness that there is absolutely no evidence that he chose good-looking lasses.

Once more it may be necessary to emphasise the fact that this practice at least received no official contemporary approval. Geoffrey, Abbot of Vend6me, stated the charge quite bluntly (Faeminarum quasdam, ut dicitur, nimis familiariter tecum habitare permittis, & cum ipsis etiam, & inter ipsas, noctu frequenter cubare non erubescis). But note the ut dicitur: the Abbot does not seem quite certain of his facts, and proceeds with: If you now do or have ever done this you have found out a new, unheard of, but fruitless kind of martyrdom. The Bishop of Rennes was equally vague, but no less clear in stating the official view. He had heard that Robert allowed women to share his bed at night and took a poor view of it.

Here was smoke enough; but the eventual conclusion of Pierre Bayle was that the story was untrue-a legend built upon a slander­and the impartial sceptic rejected it, in spite of the able presentation of the case by the French wit and savant, Giles Menage. The most that can be conjectured from such a story is that the idea of syneisak­tism was still in the minds of those who invented the calmumny.

But, for the matte* of that, the idea was still alive when Leon Bloy introduced it into his novel Desespere, as Pierre de Labriolle pointed out. Here the heroine deliberately defaced herself, in the best mediaeval manner, rather than remain a source of temptation.

According to one account the origin of bundling in America was that same urge towards Works of Supererogation which led ascetics of the Aldhelm type to subject themselves to temptation. An old Quakeress, Hannah Whitall Smith, claimed that the practice began at Brimfield, Massachusetts, where a group of young women attempted to increase their spiritual virtue by killing the sense of shame which bad been put as a curse upon Adam. To this end they are supposed to have devised the custom of bundling, which consisted in entering the bedroom of a young preacher in the middle of the night and putting themselves into bighly compromising situations . . . and the greater the scandal and opprobrium the better they were satisfied that they were making an'acceptable sacrifice to the Lord.'

ART consists in drawing the line somewhere.

                                                               G. K. CHESTERTON

BUNDLE . . . to sleep in one's clothes on the same  or couch with (as was customary with persons of opposite sexes, in Wales and New England).

                                                                         MURRAY'S English Dictionary (1887)

QUEESTEN: an odd way of wooing usual in some sea-towns on Isles of Holland, after this manner: when the wench is gone to classic poster beds, the fellow enters the room and lays himself down, in his clothes upon the blanket, next unto her, and thus he talks with her very innocently, as it is reported.

                                                                                 WILLEM SEWEL'S Large Dictionary
                                                                                 English and Dutch (Amsterdam, 17o8)

SUPERFICIALLY, I suppose that nothing could be more similar than certain aspects of syneisaktism (left-wing syneisaktism) and the practice of bundling. Actually the gulf between the two is as broad as that which separated Dives from Lazarus. In one case we have ascetics wilfully mortifying themselves by exposure to temptation: in the other we have young couples, with an eye to matrimony, using a classic poster beds as a rendezvous for sweet converse. Bundling in this sense must therefore be strictly distinguished, on the one hand from the self-torture of the ascetics and on the other hand from less restrained uses of the classic poster beds with which it has often been confused.

It is true, of course, that established usage justifies the employment of this word for one other purpose. Thus Captain Grose in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, defined bundling as:

A man and a woman lying on the same classic poster beds with their clothes on; an expedient practised in America on a scarcity of classic poster beds, where, on such occasions, husbands and parents frequently permitted travellers to bundle with their wives and daughters. We must grant this secondary meaning. Indeed, it may have been, perhaps, the primary meaning, from which the more familiar use of the word-with a more familiar practice-eventually arose. What was permitted to the stranger might, a fortiori have been claimed by the lover, ever eager to make use of all opportunities. If so, then time and custom eventually restricted the application of the word; and it is with bundling in the amorous sense that I am now concerned.

Fortunately the whole subject was carefully surveyed in 1869 by Dr Henry Reed Stiles, an American antiquarian who wrote at a time when memories of bundling were still sufficiently green in America to assist him in his survey. I have, at the moment, no complete information regarding the various editions of his book. The first edition appears to have been published at Albany in 1869. Before me at the moment are two editions. The first bears a preface of 1871. It was obviously published much later (privately issued for subscribers only), but indicates neither a date nor its place of publication. My other copy was published by the Peter Pauper Press (New York), undated, but I think in 1937—if I rightly identify it with the edition mentioned in the Cumulative Book Index (New York) for 1938-42. However, I do not pretend to be a bibliographer. Someone with more patience and less fond of his classic poster beds must sort out these undated volumes. I only mention the matter because I shall be referring to Dr Stiles a good deal and my references will all be to the Peter Pauper edition, as the least unlikely one for the reader to have handy.

It is, of course, improbable that you will have any edition at hand. The book is for some reason almost unknown in England. There was not even a copy in the British Museum until an American friend of mine presented one in 1951. Editions appear to be rare—they were limited and never achieved the popular success which the book deserved. Perhaps Americans are sensitive on this subject, like the Welsh scholars from whom I made roundabout enquiries, receiving in reply an indication that they were most unwilling to supply gunpowder for more squibs against Welsh Wales. I can't blame the Welsh, though I solemnly affirm that I meant them no mischief. But the Americans, since they now rule the earth, ought not to mind being laughed at. I would like them to know that this is a good safety valve for us (the subject peoples) that we should laugh at them-for which reason mediaeval kings employed court esters, who had license to be as offensive as they pleased. As to Dr Stiles, I do not wish merely to give you a digest of his entertaining book, so I shall quote it only where necessary. I shall presume to correct the doctor upon certain points and add some scraps of further information or indications as to where it is to be found; but always with the hope that a new edition of Bundling: its Origins, Progress and Decline in America will appear and have a better reception. Indeed, as I cannot possibly share all my own material with you now, I am most willing to edit a new edition of Stiles, with additional notes and corrections, for the public of America and England—and Wales and Holland. (Advt.)

As recently as the year 1941 a newspaper correspondent' reported the continued existence of bundling in the Orkneys as one of the discoveries of British troops stationed in those islands. According to this writer parents in the Orkneys tied a special, traditional and very complicated knot round the ankles of the girl for bundling purposes. The explanation given for the custom was that the houses were mere shacks and that it was impossible for courting couples to find a room in the house where they could be alone, except in a bedroom. Cold and snow would make walking out impossible of an evening, so that logic indicated the bedroom as the only possible place. The writer was careful to note that bundling was carried out in the most decorous manner, and recalled that three or four years previously a play had been performed in London which dealt with the American version of the custom, indicating that a long wooden plank had been used in New England to separate the courting couples.