In the summer of 1775, the examining magistrates of the Hoge Vierschaar called Michiel Van Doren to testify. In his testimony, the cotton spinner gave a detailed account of his activities on Monday 14 August. On that particular day, he had spent the afternoon watching an execution at the citadel. Around ten o’ clock in the evening he accompanied his sister-in-law home. He then went with his brother Michiel for one last round of drinks at a local gin bar, before stumbling home around a quarter to twelve.¹¹ Testimonies such as these are a ten a penny; the Antwerp magistrates questioned hundreds of eyewitnesses, victims, and suspects every year. Together these files contain thousands of clues about the timing, duration, and sequence of everyday activities that were, for the purpose of this project, collected in a database.¹² Two sorts of data can be extracted. First and foremost, the examinatieën en informatieën provide some accurate data concerning the beginning and end of work, leisure, sleep, and other activities, as eyewitness were sometimes very specific about when they had hopped out of bed in the morning, arrived at work, took their lunch break, finished working, ordered their first beer in their favourite inn, or finally went to sleep. Using these points of time as a benchmark, the duration of activities can be calculated with what sociologists refer to as a start-stop methodology.¹³

Eyewitnesses also frequently referred to specific points in time, even when they were already fully engaged in a certain activity. It echoes the random recall methodology that is also widely used in sociological time-use research, although it renders the calculation of the relative duration of various activities much more difficult. All references to activities within a short space of time (say an hour) are tallied and then the proportion (in percentages) between work, leisure, sleep, and other activities can be calculated. Evidently, the random recall methodology is less precise than the start-stop methodology, but both can shed new light on the changing rhythms of daily life in the past. Were work, leisure, and other activities indeed ‘colonizing’ the night as Koslofsky and others have suggested, while sleep was gradually postponed until the early hours of the morning (fig. 1)? Was Michiel Van Domen, who went to bed around midnight, a rare bird? Although a quantitative analysis of the data from the interrogations may provide some answers to these questions, we will also look at the more qualitative evidence in the statements. Eyewitnesses frequently mentioned when an activity lasted until late (tot laete) in the evening. In doing so, they provided indirect information about time-related norms and values. This approach chimes with the recent historiographical trend to look more closely at time-related ideals, principles, and emotions, including feelings of time pressure, tedium, and haste.¹⁴

Apart from the abovementioned problems, there are two additional methodological caveats that are linked to these sources.¹⁵ First and foremost, there is always the possibility that eyewitnesses did not speak the truth about their daily activities and the temporal minutiae. However, even if they did so, they had to come up with a more or less plausible story that matched the expectations of the examining magistrates. Everyday life, as well as societal rhythms, were already highly synchronized in eighteenth-century Antwerp, and every deviation from the norm would have alarmed the judges. A case in point was the testimony of laundress Anna Moons, who was called to the witness box in 1781 when her housemate Augustinus Cordelier was accused of exhibitionism. Moons stated that she had always harboured suspicions about Cordelier, who had a habit of rising early – before five o’clock in the morning – and was often in bed already around half past eight in the evening, when Moons arrived home from work. Apparently, the fact that his everyday routines were so out of kilter of what was expected aroused serious suspicion.¹⁶ Secondly – and this is a far more serious problem – the motley crew of witnesses called to testify was not entirely representative for the Antwerp population at large. Eyewitnesses were predominantly male, middle- or upper-class, and taken from the ranks of the more senior city-dwellers, as their testimonies were seen as more reliable than the observations of women, youths, or lower-class witnesses.¹⁷ However, even with these biases in mind it is beyond doubt that the examining magistrates of the Vierschaar summoned a wide sweep of people to the witness box. Together their statements can shed some light on the changing rhythms of work, leisure, and sleep in early modern Antwerp. Was the traditional balance between day and night really disrupted by a slow but steady process of nocturnalization?

In May 1789, Matheys Merckx, a cotton spinner, was called to testify in a case of larceny. According to his statement, he had been working in the cotton mill in the Bontemantelstraat tot laet (until late). Around a quarter to ten, he finally called it a day and went home.¹⁸ As evening work was anything but uncommon in eighteenth-century Antwerp, his statement would have raised no eyebrows. Domestic servants, innkeepers, musicians, and other workers in the service economy were forced to work long hours, while the night watchmen, cesspool cleaners (ventjaegers), and other notorious nighthawks would only begin their nocturnal meanderings after ten o’clock in the evening. The examinatieën en informatieën also demonstrate that a small host of craftsmen, shopkeepers, and unskilled labourers were still at work around nine or ten in the evening. Peter Dom, a journeymen plumber, declared in 1766 that he had finished working around half past nine, when he, his brother, and his nephews were beaten up by a selection of the city’s riff-raff on their way home.¹⁹ In 1772, Maria Elisabeth Meijers, an elderly ironer, was mugged around half past eight at the Veemarkt, when her friends came to pick her up from work.²⁰ Even though Elisabeth and Peter were unfortunate to be harassed on their way home, these and other examples show that the lack of public lighting did not hold townspeople back from working late. Early modern illustrations of people working by the flickering light of candles, oil lamps, or other light sources are common (figs. 1–2). Even without révèrberes and other modern street lamps, late eighteenth-century Antwerpers were clearly colonizing the night.

Meijers, Merckx, and Dom were not really representative of the Antwerp population in general, however. Most late eighteenth-century people stopped working somewhere between seven and eight o’clock in the evening, after a (very) long work day. For most Antwerpers, this work day would have started at around six in the morning, with a short (breakfast) pause around nine or ten, a longer lunch break between twelve and two, and some short interruptions in the afternoon (tab. 1). Merckx, for instance, claimed that he had resumed work in the cotton mill around a quarter past two in the afternoon after his lunch, and that he had steadily worked till ten in the evening, with only two short interruptions to relieve himself outside of the workshop.²¹ These habits raise a lot of questions. Were these people working long hours and until late in the evening to maximize their family income? Did they cut back on precious leisure time? Were the traditional rhythms of everyday life being disrupted by a creeping industrious revolution?²² Analysing the data from the Vierschaar, that does not seem to have been the case, as late eighteenth-century Antwerpers did not necessarily work much longer or much later than their predecessors in the first decades of the century. Although we have to be careful with statistics drawn from a small sample size, the evidence from the examinatieën en informatieën does not seem to point at a steady increase in working hours throughout the century. Working hours hovered – almost invariably – at around eleven to twelve hours a day in both seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Antwerp. Daily labour input even seemed to decrease slightly on the eve of the French Revolution (tab. 1).

Antwerp was not really an exception on the rule. Even if a city was bathed in the light of the new réverbères, the collective rhythms of labour did not seem to have moved into the night. In London, where street lighting had been introduced in the late seventeenth century and proliferated in the eighteenth, through the initiatives of private street-light companies, labour time invariably hovered around eleven hours a day, at least according to Hans-Joachim Voth’s careful estimates based on Old Bailey proceedings.²³ Londoners usually stopped working around seven o’clock in the evening. Traces of an industrious revolution rather left an imprint on the weekly and annual rhythms, as people appeared to have cut back on Saint-Mondays (traditionally part of the weekend) and all sort of holidays rather than on their everyday leisure.²⁴

Labour time fluctuated throughout the seasons, as the amount of natural daylight had some effect on the beginning and end of work. Antwerpers were already up and about around half past five in summer, while they remained in bed for an extra half hour in winter. Work ended half an hour earlier in winter than in summer.²⁵ Fluctuations between high summer and deep winter were thus limited to one hour a day, which is surprisingly little given the limited amount of daylight available between the autumnal and the vernal equinox. With the sun rising around 7h44 and setting around 15h44 in the depths of winter, Antwerpers worked a staggering number of hours in the dark using candles, oil lamps, torches, and other artificial light to find their way.²⁶ Master brewer Antonius Leemans, for instance, was summoned by the Vierschaar on 9 January 1787, when one of his journeymen, the cooper Theodorus Schoof, was accused of larceny. Leemans declared to the examining magistrates that he and Schoof had been working in the brewery until half past ten. When they were locking up, his journeyman was arrested by the corps de garde. Working late was rarely if ever frowned upon.²⁷ Outdoor activities were perhaps a little less obvious, but even these were not impeded by darkness. Toon Dom, a plumber and jack-of-all-trades, was asked about his evening activities in December 1769. The clerk of the court wrote down his answer meticulously: ‘The prisoner says that he hawks mussels on the street until seven o’clock, although rarely that late, and then spends his evening at home winding silk and making nets to earn his living. Every so often, he also goes for a beer in the Jaeger (the Hunter).’²⁸ Toon and his fellow townsmen appear barely hindered by the lack of public street lighting in Antwerp. In London, where street lighting was extant from the late seventeenth century onwards, seasonal variations also occurred, although they were somewhat less obvious than in Antwerp.²⁹

For most Antwerpers, work was without further ado swapped for leisure around seven or eight o’clock in the evening. Men raced home for a quick meal – some slices of bread with cheese, with fish or dried meat on the side – and then went to their favourite inn to meet their friends and to share some beers or Dutch gin.³⁰ Dom’s testimony was therefore typical for a wide sweep of lower- and middle-class Antwerpers. Leisure time during the evening was punctuated by two important moments. First of all, there was the temporal landmark of the closing of the city gates. On sultry summer evenings, Sundays, or holidays, Antwerpers were keen to escape the city for a breath of fresh air in the countryside like most townspeople. Walking was popular.³¹ Others went to the vegetable gardens, the bleaching fields, or the mills that were situated outside the ramparts.³² Moreover, beer was much cheaper in the inns, taverns, and gin boots in Borgerhout and other villages outside Antwerp, since the taxes were much lower there. Even in the evening, a great many people were out and about.³³ However, Antwerpers returned in haste to the city as soon as the bells of the city gates started to toll. One summer’s evening in 1770, Jan Lambrechts hurried to the Rode Poort after a couple of drinks in an inn outside the city wall. Even though it was corts na negen uur (a few minutes after nine o’clock), Lambrechts found that the barrier and the gates were already closed.³⁴ Unlike other towns, where the custom of closing the city gates at night was gradually abolished, Antwerp stuck to the time-honoured tradition.³⁵ In the depths of winter, the drawbridge was already raised around five o’ clock in the afternoon. Antwerpers were so familiar with the custom that omtrent het poortsluyten (‘around the time that the city gates are closing’) became a temporal beacon, equally precise as op de noen (at noon), tusschen zeven en acht in den avond (between seven or eight in the evening), or other notions of time.³⁶

For most people – at least the male part of the population – the closing of the city gates was just an interlude in their evening leisure, as bar-hopping went on within the city walls until ten or eleven o’clock. Leisure slowly but surely petered out when the curfew was sounded and the inns, taverns, and gin shacks started to close. Thirsty customers often begged for a last round of drinks. Barabara Theresia Frans, a publican, attested in the winter of 1787 as to how a band of wigmakers flooded into her inn at around half past ten in the evening. When her husband refused to draw a final round of drinks, given that the wachtklocke (curfew) had already sounded and he wanted to lock up, the men became aggressive and one even punched Barabara on her head.³⁷ Testimonies such as these are legion.³⁸ Unlike other European towns were the curfew was gradually abolished, it still sounded in Antwerp, be it winter or summer, at around 22h30, a practice not abandoned until the late eighteenth century.³⁹ Even though city ordinances strictly forbade drawing beer after the curfew, the bailiff and night watchmen seem to have adopted a policy of tolerance. Notorious nighthawks were not arrested as long as they did not cause trouble. In the spring of 1753, the publican Jan de Groot alerted the watchmen at around a quarter past eleven when one of his customers, a certain Makey, refused to leave. Makey even drew his knife when the knapen (guards) arrived, but when he swore to keep his cool, he was left to finish his drink.⁴⁰ Nearly twenty years later, in September 1772, the frame-maker Joannes Josephus Pelemans declared that he had been drinking in the Koning David (King David) with some colleagues until the small hours. When he finally went home between two and half past three in the morning, he was assaulted in his own house by some lowlife, who gave him a good thrashing.⁴¹ Pelemans’s skin was saved by some neighbours and Hermanus Janssens, a musician who was returning home after an evening spent playing in several inns and taverns.⁴²

These and other examples illustrate that Antwerp’s night owls were not easily discouraged from scouring the city after dark. Even without the praised réverbères they freely roamed the city to have a final drink, to enjoy some music, or even have a dance, come rain or shine, whether it was winter or summer. Yet we have to be aware that these nighthawks were rather the exception than the rule. Most Antwerpers drained their last tankard at around ten in the evening and returned home. By eleven o’clock in the evening only a small minority of Antwerpers (barely six percent) were still up and about (fig. 3).

As daily life in Antwerp was already largely disconnected from the solar cycle and leisure – especially in winter – went on long after dark, the examinatieën en informatieën thus provide little if any evidence for a society-wide nocturnalization. This is no surprise, as modern street lighting was absent. Yet even in cities that were already bathing in the bright light of the révèrberes, daily rhythms were not necessarily very different. In late eighteenth-century Amsterdam, where more than 3,000 street lamps were burning, mobility reached an apex at somewhere between six and nine in the evening before it slowly but surely petered out. At around ten o’clock in the evening, when the rattle guards started their tour throughout the city, public life almost came to a standstill. Amsterdammers who were still up and about after midnight were the exception.⁴³ In London, where the curfew had long since been abandoned and modern street lighting made it possible – at least in theory – to extend leisure time long into the night, Hans-Joachim Voth’s time-use analysis has revealed that most customers of inns, taverns, and coffee houses slunk off at around eleven o’clock in the evening and went home. Even in a metropolis such as London, public life had practically ground to a halt by midnight.⁴⁴ Apparently, Richard Steele’s famous claim that ‘near two thirds of the nation’ had ‘thrown business and pleasure into the hours of rest’ is best taken with a pinch – or rather a sack – of salt, as staying out until sunrise seems to have been a privilege of a small pack of notorious night owls.⁴⁵

First of all, gender seems to have mattered. Men and women were equally active in Antwerp until nine or ten in the evening. Both sexes were found together in inns, where beer and gin were served, and where fiddlers and pipers sometimes played a tune, inviting people to sing along and dance, and where all sorts of card and dice games were played.⁴⁶ Early modern paintings and prints often show women and girls who remained active long even after sunset (fig. 4). An illustrative example was Anna Maria Derijck, who was questioned by the Vierschaar in the autumn of 1772, having been a victim of burglary. On a Sunday in November, Anna Maria and her husband had taken a ride to Lillo in a gig. Around ten o’clock in the evening they returned to Borgerhout and ordered a last round in the local inn. They stayed until midnight before discovering they had been robbed.⁴⁷ Women and men were also found on streets and squares until late, where they gossiped with acquaintances, colleagues, and neighbours. In May 1773 the examining magistrates of the Vierschaar investigated another case of burglary in the Clarestraet, where the house of master tailor Philippus Gevaerts had been looted. Among the eyewitnesses summoned to court were Anna Cools (a fishmonger), Lucie Dellen (a greengrocer), and Johannes Degraef (a cobbler), who, apart from some minor details, offered a similar story. Cools swore that she and her neighbours had been chewing the fat on the street around a quarter past nine salvo justo (circa), when Jan Kindermans – a frame-maker and Gevaerts’s lodger – had arrived. Kindermans fetched some beer in a nearby inn, wolfed down a piece of stockfish, and babbled with the neighbours. They all remembered his edgy, nervous, and suspicious behaviour.⁴⁸ Theresia Hertweghs, a thread-twister, added a little extra colour, as she confided that Kindermans was a man of ill fame, who ‘works little and drinks too much’.⁴⁹

Philippus Gevaerts testified that he and his wife had left the house around half past eight in the evening, as they had been invited at home by some friends ‘to be merry’. After salvo justo een ure (one hour or so), one of the neighbours came to warn them that they had been burgled.⁵⁰ Gevaerts case perfectly illustrates that women in early modern Antwerp – whether accompanied or not – had several options of how to spend their evenings. They could stay at home or visit some friends, but they could just as well gossip on the street or visit their favourite inn. It shows that the classic stereotype of separate spheres, where men were free to roam the streets while women were destined to stay at home, does not fit well with the evidence from Antwerp (fig. 5). These findings dovetail with Bob Pierik’s research on early modern Amsterdam, where women were also found in all sorts of public spaces till late in the evening, although their range might have been somewhat shorter than men.⁵¹ In Antwerp, however, some change occurred throughout the evening. Women were always a minority in inns, but their attendance was most marked between six and eight in the evening before gradually dwindling. After midnight, women were rarely if ever spotted in inns, which turned into an all-male environment. At the same time, the presence of women in a domestic environment increased steadily after eight o’clock in the evening. Not counting some exceptions, the notorious nightbirds that roamed the city after midnight were exclusively male.

Night owls were not only predominantly male, but they also hailed from very specific social groups. Eighteenth-century commentators such as Richard Steele suggested that nocturnalization was primarily fuelled by the thin upper crust of British society, those who frequented the Vauxhall and other pleasure gardens as well as the inns, taverns, coffee houses, theatre and opera houses, and other fashionable venues until cock crow. Diner was only served around nine or ten o’clock, while most of these city-slickers only went to bed (long) after midnight.⁵² Detailed research by Hannah Greig and Amanda Vickery on the political day of MPs in eighteenth-century London has revealed that this landslide in the rhythms of everyday life was not some hyperbole sprouting from the overheated mind of some unworldly spectators, but a reality for the prime political rainmakers in Britain, who after a day of speeches and backstage lobbying, late and sumptuous dinners, endless socializing in clubs and coffee-houses, and attending balls, would finally fall into bed in the small hours.⁵³ Occasionally, traces of such an upper-crust nocturnalization process can also be found in Antwerp. In 1787, the chaplain Gaspar Savery was assaulted by a pack of guttersnipes at around ten in the evening, as he returned home following an exclusive late-night dinner with Miss Catharina Cantaert. At the Paardenmarkt, he was dogged by two men who gave him a sound thrashing with a stick and called him a hoerschen paep schelm (‘whorish, popish scoundrel’). They also taunted him as a keizerlijken pastoor (‘a faithful pastor of the Emperor’), which was a serious insult given the heated and hostile anti-Austrian atmosphere of the Brabantine Revolution.⁵⁴

Evidence from the examinatieën en informatieën, scanty as it is, seems to suggest that the lifestyle of elites was indeed less and less attuned to the mainstream pulse of society at large, as wealthy merchants, senior officials, and other patricians worked, dined, and relaxed at other moments of the day.⁵⁵ Data from even scarcer sources such as diaries and egodocuments point in the same direction. Clara Cornelia van Eijck, a Dutch refugee in exile in Ghent, logged relatively late bedtimes into her diary, as she and her husband were accustomed to spending long evenings with friends. Talking, reading, card playing, and sewing frequently kept Clara busy till eleven or twelve o’clock at night, and sometimes even later. Nonetheless, even in her case burning the midnight oil was rather exceptional.⁵⁶ A similar pattern arises from the Vierschaar files: upper-class witnesses might have stayed active a bit longer than Mr. Average, but the differences were small. A series of advertisements for balls, theatre, and opera performances from the Théâtre d’Anvers suggests that those classic evening activities were often scheduled between six and nine in the evening.⁵⁷ Notorious night-owls, those roaming the streets long past midnight, were usually not upper- or middle-class city-dwellers, but predominantly lower-class townsfolk: unskilled labourers, soldiers, or journeymen. They were also young, often in their twenties or thirties.⁵⁸ Nocturnalization was, in summation, anything but a mass phenomenon in Antwerp, but could only be observed at the fringes of society – be it the silky tasselled or the seamier side – while the silent majority of city-dwellers was by then already deep in the land of Nod.

During the summer of 1734, the examining magistrates of the Vierschaar opened an investigation in a case of manslaughter. Gilles De Backer, a master cobbler, was under suspicion of having murdered his own wife. According to his statement, they had been as thick as thieves. On the Sunday in question, they had shared some drinks in a Berchem inn. When they came home around half past nine in the evening, Gilles’s wife had checked on the children, who were already in bed on the first floor. When his spouse did not return, the cobbler called impatiently: ‘Come to bed my love, I have to rise early tomorrow.’ There was no response and Gilles dozed off.⁵⁹ Not surprisingly, Maria – Gillis’s stepdaughter, who had been in bed on the first floor – told a slightly different story, as she testified that her parents had had a blazing row before she heard a loud slap followed by a dull thud.⁶⁰

Even though the family tragedy was a bit of an exception, Gillis’s remark about the advanced hour was a typical. Testifying in a case of suicide in 1752, the publican, tailor, fiddler, and jack-of-all-trades Guilelmus Colenberger told the judges how he had accompanied husband and wife Vanderneusen home on a wintry Sunday evening around half past eleven. According to Colenberger, Vanderneusen had urged his wife to hurry up, saying ‘I have to rise early tomorrow’. Less than a quarter of an hour later, he was dead – a fight between the spouses had probably gone out of hand.⁶¹ On average, Antwerpers went to bed (relatively) early between ten and eleven o’clock, an unsurprising statistic as they were also early birds. Usually, they rolled out of bed somewhere between five and six in the morning. Even in a best-case scenario – where they fell asleep almost instantly and happily slumbered on till dawn – most Antwerpers barely got seven hours of sleep a day.⁶² There was not much room for nocturnal adventures (fig. 6). Only lucky devils such as Clara Cornelia Van Eijck could afford to stay in bed until eight or nine o’clock.⁶³

During the eighteenth century, there was little if any evolution in bedtimes that might point to a creeping nocturnalization (tab. 2). Despite the bright light of the réverbères, the same held true for London, where data from the Old Bailey Proceedings show a significant later bedtime for 1800 (23h21) than in 1750 (22h50), while by the 1830s the average bedtime had reverted to that of the 1760s level (22h46).⁶⁴ In Amsterdam, life also came to a near standstill around eleven o’clock.⁶⁵

Nocturnal escapades were simply impossible for unskilled laborers, craftsmen, retailers, and other blue-collar workers, at least on a regular basis, if they wanted to have enough sleep. Working people also became very aggressive if their precious night rest was jeopardized by rowdy pub-crawlers, noisy nightclubbers, or other troublemakers. On a summer’s eve in 1779, Peter Genaert, a cotton spinner, was already in bed at somewhere between ten and eleven o’clock when he was disturbed by some youngsters singing all sorts of lewd songs in the streets. Fuming with indignation, he addressed the dismal ensemble, telling them sternly ‘that it was not permitted to make such a racket on the street and disturb the peace. We are people who have to earn our living and have to be at work early.’⁶⁶ The rabble were not impressed, and one of their number hit Peter with a club, but he was soon rescued by some neighbors who also denounced such antisocial behavior in every possible way. Once again, it is striking that these nighthawks were youths. Files such as these, where workers tried to safeguard their night’s rest, are thick on the ground. Nighttime noise also appears frequently in the petitions of civilians protesting against boisterous activities in the evening or morning to the city council. It was also strictly regulated by the local bye-laws.⁶⁷ Both illustrate that nocturnalization was anything but a mainstream phenomenon in eighteenth century Antwerp, but remained a privilege of a (very) small flock of the usual nightbirds.

Even though they shed light on (almost) every dimension of everyday life in eighteenth- century Antwerp, the examinatieën en informatieën provide little if any evidence for a process of nocturnalization. At least, not in the sense of the mass phenomenon suggested by Richard Steele and other contemporary spectators: the rhythms of society – the traditional times to work, relax, shop, eat, and sleep – simply did not move into the night. On the contrary, they remained remarkably stable during the eighteenth century. One could, in line with Koslofsky’s hypothesis, argue that this was not really a surprise, as the principal prerequisite for nocturnalization was missing in Antwerp: modern street lighting would only arrive in the nineteenth century. However, time-use analysis from London, Amsterdam, and other cities that bathed their citizens in the bright light of the réverbères has shown that, even when these preconditions were met, daily rhythms did not fundamentally change in the eighteenth century and were – by and large – not very different from a city that was still steeped in darkness. Nocturnalization was probably limited to a small group of night revellers, who either had the time or the money to stray from the strict synchronization of society. These included people such as Cornelia van Eijck, who could wine and dine, read, play cards, or chat until the early hours, but could also sleep until ten o’clock in the morning, or those who, inhabiting the seedier side of society, catered for the nighthawks. Youths were also prone to burning the midnight oil.

Even though Antwerp did not go through a process of nocturnalization in the late eighteenth century, it was highly nocturnalized from at least the late seventeenth century onwards. Life was already largely uncoupled from the solar cycle long before the Industrial Revolution. Antwerpers spent a staggering amount of time in the dark, especially in winter, when they were up and about long before sunrise and active long after sunset. Lacking modern street lighting, they had to make do with candles and oil lamps, lanterns, torches, or – if even these alternatives were unavailable – with moonlight, but that did not seem to have hampered their nocturnal activities. Technology, when finally arriving in the form of modern street lighting in the nineteenth century, would not fundamentally alter the traditional rhythms of early modern society, as Antwerpers in the eighteenth century already squeezed as much activities in a day as was biologically possible. What remained of night was simply too brief for an extra bout of nocturnalization.