You might have a look at Laura Gowing's _Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth-Century England_ (Yale, 2003), which discusses early modern meanings for "nakedness". Gowing quotes a conduct book's observation that "apparel may be called the body of the body" and notes that nakedness didn't necessarily preclude clothing -- so, for instance, the common phrase "naked in her smock" (p. 34). See the whole section "Unbuttoning to Entice," 34 ff.

Amelia Zurcher
Marquette University

Margaret Christian wrote:

[log in to unmask]" type="cite">Good friends,

Please indulge me and share your learned insights on an off-topic query. I was discussing Coleridge's Christabel with a class today, and they were much taken by the detail of the two ladies disrobing before sharing the bed. "Wasn't it usual to wear dressing gowns and caps and everything? Why are they undressing in front of each other?"

The psychosexual reading appealed to them a lot, but I reminded them of Sir Gawain, trapped naked under the covers by his hostess (and Chaucer's characters, who don't seem unduly hampered by layers of fabric), and suggested that maybe Coleridge assumed that it wasn't usual to wear gowns, etc.

Anyway, in the real pre-modern world (as opposed to bawdy, medieval romance, and gothic revival fantasy), what did people wear to bed?

Many thanks,

Margaret R. Christian, Ph.D.                                        [log in to unmask]
Associate Professor of English                             Office: (610) 285-5106
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