Human eyesight, in less than an hour’s time, gradually improves in the dark as the iris expands to permit sufficient light. Despite losses in color recognition and depth perception, peripheral vision may actually sharpen. Humans see better at night than most animals, many of which are virtually blind. Quite possibly, the nocturnal sight of preindustrial populations benefited from consumption of leafy green vegetables and fresh fruit, rich in vitamin A, though availability was largely limited to late spring and summer. In addition, consumption of alcohol, a staple of early diets, improves night vision, unless imbibed to excess. Plainly, some individuals, said to have “cat’s eyes,” exhibited a superior ability to see after dark. A correspondent to the Gentleman’s Magazine described “men” whose sight nearly approached that of “the cat, the owl, or the bat.”19
Then, too, lanterns and torches afforded portable sources of light. Made from thick, half-twisted wicks of hemp, dipped in pitch, resin, or tallow, a single torch weighed up to three pounds. Lighter by contrast, lanterns were also dimmer. Featuring a handle attached to a metal frame, either cylindrical or rectangular in shape, the typical lantern contained a single candle protected by sheets of animal horn, though animal skin, talc (mica), and glass were also employed. Some lanterns, made entirely of metal, emitted light through perforated holes. Beginning in the late seventeenth century, with the steady growth of British glassmaking, “bull’s-eye lanterns,” with their central glass lens, bodies of thin sheet brass, and magnified light, gradually gained favor.20
Among propertied families, it was common on black nights for a single servant to light the way. Gracious hosts instructed footmen to escort departing guests safely home. And when a master was late in returning after dark, diligent servants knew where to fetch him. “Met Sam at ye head of St. Clements’ Lane coming for me with a lanthorn,” noted Robert Sanderson in 1729. In the Danish town of Roskilde, a blacksmith’s guild ordered servants to meet their masters with lanterns, candles, and staffs. Wealthy households traveled in grander style. Footmen accompanied coaches through city streets, carrying flambeaux aloft as they trotted alongside. Ahead of the coach, a “moon-man” sometimes served as a guide, holding a globular lantern—the “moon”—atop a long pole.21
In most towns and cities, one could hire a linkboy for a small sum. These, for the most part, were orphans or other impoverished adolescents who, for a pedestrian’s benefit, carried links (torches) or, less often, lanterns. In some English communities, they were nicknamed moon-cursers, for the harm done their trade by moonlight. Within London, they congregated in such well-known spots as Temple-Bar, London-Bridge, and Lincoln Inn-Fields. Samuel Pepys occasionally relied upon linkboys when trudging home to Tower Hill. In Venice, they were termed codeghe, and in France porte-flambeaux or, for lantern-carriers, falots. “Here’s your light,” they cried in Paris streets. Louis-Sébastien Mercier exulted, “The lantern-man’s light is a convenience, and a precaution well worth while for those whose business or pleasure keep them late from home.”22 At least in London, however, linkboys bore a checkered reputation for consorting with street ruffians. “Thieves with lights,” Daniel Defoe charged. It was a common complaint that they conveyed besotted customers into the waiting grasp of robbers, extinguishing their links at the critical moment. Warned John Gay, “Though thou art tempted by the link-man’s call, / Yet trust him not along the lonely wall; / In the mid-way he’ll quench the flaming brand, / And share the booty with the pilf’ring band.” Defoe favored strict regulation by licensing linkboys, akin to the prevailing system in Paris during most of the 1700s. There, in sharp contrast, falots became infamous toward the end of the ancien régime for acting as spies. “Hand in glove with the police,” described Mercier, who applauded their contribution to public safety. Customers kept their money if not their secrets.23
Thomas Rowlandson, A Linkboy, 1786.
Although lighting was commonly a function of wealth, from a distance it probably offered onlookers few clues of social rank. Apart from the retinues of footmen accompanying individuals of privilege, a lone torch or lantern, at most, remained customary for pedestrians, whether borne by a servant, linkboy, or just oneself. A London victualer of modest purse taught his dog to carry a lantern in its mouth.24 Scrounging small nubs of tallow, the poor fashioned makeshift lanterns, using paper or hollowed-out turnips for protection from the wind and rain. In the French city of Poitiers, a Scottish visitor during the seventeenth century was impressed by the resourcefulness of “the poor folk” at night. “They take a piece [of] wood that’s brunt only at one end, and goes thorow the toune waging it from one syde to the other, it casting a little light.” Rarely did authorities restrict artificial light by social class. On the British Channel Island of Guernsey, a law granted persons of “first rank” the sole privilege of burning three lights in their lanterns, in contrast to one or two lights accorded lesser ranks. “Differently from all other places in the world, it is on a dark night that one can best distinguish the rank of persons passing through the streets,” a bemused visitor remarked in the early 1800s.25
Even the brightest torch illuminated but a small radius, permitting one, on a dark night, to see little more than what lay just ahead. By all accounts, its glow, though superior to that of a lantern, was a dismal substitute for the light of day. “In comparison of the sun,” affirmed an adage, “a torch is but a spark.” Additionally, there was always the risk, with any type of lighting, that strong winds or rain could douse a flame, even when shielded inside a lantern. In his poem Venus and Adonis (1593), Shakespeare described the frequent surprise of “night wand’rers,” their “light blown out in some mistrustful wood.”26
Despite access to artificial light, many relied upon the heavens for illumination. The darkness of the night sky, for travelers of all ranks, was their single greatest concern. As contemporaries knew firsthand, nighttime took on many different shades, sometimes over the course of a single evening. From the black gloom known as “pit-mirk” to the bright glow of a full moon, there existed a variety of possibilities, some too subtle for our modern eyes to appreciate. For half of each month, 50 percent or more of the lunar face on clear evenings provides a significant source of reflected light. In spite of the reputed menace its beams posed to human health, residents in many parts of Britain referred to the moon as the “parish lantern.” During evenings when full or nearly full, it was sometimes likened, half in jest, to a second sun.27 Persons even awakened, on occasion, in the middle of the night, thinking that it was daybreak, only to be fooled by a “false dawn.” “The moon shining bright mistook it for day light,” wrote a Pennsylvanian in 1762. “Arrose & drest but after rousing the family & getting a light found it was not 2 o’clock.” In Yorkshire, the apprentice clothier Mary Yates arose at 3:00 A.M., thinking “it was day,” though “it being then moonlight” instead.28
Adriaen Brouwer, Dune Landscape by Moonlight, seventeenth century.
A full moon rises at dusk and sets at dawn. Unlike most lunar phases, its glow lasts the entire night. In parts of northern England, the inhabitants referred to this as “throo leet.” Full moonlight revealed the contours of preindustrial landscapes in welcome detail—“obliging me with as much light as was necessary to discover a thousand pleasing objects,” noted a writer in 1712. Wayfarers could discern a small spectrum of colors, including red from yellow and green from blue. According to modern-day lighting engineers, direct sunlight ranges in strength from 5,000 to 10,000 foot-candles, with moonlight roughly equal to 0.02 foot-candles. Despite the dramatic difference, only when lighting declines in strength to 0.003 foot-candles does the human eye fail altogether to detect either colors or detailed features. On a practical level, this meant on moonlit evenings that objects could be sighted from afar. Testifying at the Old Bailey about a robbery, the constable Samuel Clay vouched, “It was a very fine moon-shining night. I could distinguish a person at the distance of one hundred yards, and could swear to a person’s fac
e at the distance of ten yards, or more.” Similarly, a bricklayer in 1676 observed the perpetrator of a burglary in the city of York, “it being then very moonlight.” Even when the moon was hazy, the outline of a human figure could be discerned at a distance. It is not surprising that thieves hid in the shadows or avoided plying their trade on such evenings.29
Among rural folk, the phases of the moon, their sequence and duration, were common knowledge, part of the essential lore conveyed to youngsters at an early age. So, in a simple English verse, “The Honest Ploughman,” children learned that the husbandman “finds his way home by the light of the moon.” Urban households were less tutored in such matters, but almanacs were readily accessible by the seventeenth century. Published across Europe, these charted the moon’s progress in monthly tables. In England, upward of four hundred thousand almanacs were published annually by the 1660s, with an estimated one family in every three a consumer; in early America, almanacs represented the most popular publication after the Bible. Although lunar phases had reputed ramifications for the weather and personal health, nothing was more critical than learning what future nights held for being abroad. In 1764, noting the absence of tables in recent almanacs, an Eton resident asserted, “People may know by looking into the almanack, how long they shall have the moon’s light every night it shines; which is of use to so many purposes.”30
Certainly, travel after dark, apart from brief excursions, often hinged upon moonlight. In the view of Henry David Thoreau, who ruminated upon the “infinite” varieties of moonlight, even a “faint diffused light” supplied “light enough to travel.” Time and again, persons wrote of visiting friends, performing errands, or returning home by the moon. “Rather late with us before we got home as we waited some time for moonlight,” commented Parson James Woodforde of dinner at a friend’s. In Paris, a pair of physicians in 1664 consented to visit a feverish patient, “it being about full moon.” Many cities and towns that had once required pedestrians to carry lanterns or torches no longer did so by the seventeenth century. Elsewhere, restrictions went unenforced. Londoners, including men of property, routinely traveled by “brave mooneshine,” as Pepys called it. Of a coach ride to the Lord Treasurer’s home for dinner, Jonathan Swift related, “The moon shone, and so we were not in much danger of overturning.” Conversely, a night’s entertainment, in the moon’s absence, might be canceled or postponed. “He would not dine with us on account of there being no moon,” wrote Nancy Woodforde in 1792 of a Norfolk neighbor.31
Even then, there was often the natural light of the stars, whose glow, though fainter, was more reliable. “It was neither dark nor light; it was a starlight night,” observed a man in 1742. In some parts of England, the first “star” after sunset, Vesper (actually the planet Venus), was called the “Shepherds-Lamp” because of its bright glow above the western horizon. “The shepherd’s lamp, which even children know,” penned John Clare in the early nineteenth century. Besides seeming brighter than today, stars appeared vastly more plentiful, likely totaling on a clear night in excess of two thousand. Like the moon, their light was capable of casting shadows. Wrote the poet Robert Herrick, “Let not the dark thee cumber: / What though the moon does slumber? / The stars of the night will lend thee their light.” A Londoner recounted in the mid-eighteenth century, “Between 11 and 12 it being a fine star-light night, I put my sword and cane under my arm and walked.”32
Unless haze interfered, the Milky Way, a broad swath of white light, stretched from one horizon to another, dividing the sky in two: “The region seems to be all on a blaze with their blended rays,” described a writer in the Universal Magazine of Knowedge and Pleasure in 1753. Although Chaucer and others early on employed the expression Milky Way, it was used interchangeably with the names of different highways, whose routes, depending upon the season, ran in the galaxy’s general direction. Early pilgrims kept to such roads as the “Walsingham Way” in East Anglia and the “Strada di Roma” in Italy by eyeing the sky. “By us,” wrote the astronomer Thomas Hood in 1590, “it is called the Milke way: some in sporting manner doie call it Watling streete,” the ancient Roman road that ran from the outskirts of London to Wroxeter near the Welsh border.33
In the end, neither moon nor stars but clouds regulated the flow of celestial light. Thus Thoreau wrote of the moon’s “continual war with the clouds” on the traveler’s behalf.34 The density and velocity of cloud formations were vital considerations. “Moon shines, tho’ clouds are flying,” noted Elizabeth Drinker on a June evening. The Irish draper Humphrey O’Sullivan referred regularly to nights that were either “thin” or “heavy” clouded. Only on clear evenings could one be confident of protracted light, for within minutes the sky might dramatically change. Observed a passing visitor to Scotland in the late eighteenth century, “During some part of this ride the moon was so much obscured I could scarcely see if I was upon the road, at other times it shone so bright as to give me a distinct view of the country.”35
The blackest nights, when clouds blanketed the sky, inspired numerous expressions—“pit-mirk,” “lowry,” “darkling,” and, of course, “pitch-dark” in reference to the tarry resin of pine trees. “As dark as pitch,” Pepys remarked upon returning home at 2:00 A.M. on a January evening in 1666. Nóche ciéga, Spaniards called “blind nights.” Winter temperatures, due to cloud cover, might be warmer, but vision on such evenings was severely impaired. The sky, let alone distant objects or their colors, was barely visible. “It was such a dark night I could hardly see my finger,” described a London resident in 1754.36 Options for travel were few, with most people all the more inclined to remain safely at home. Some, if possible, employed torches or lanterns, for which they were said to be “belanter’d.” “We were obliged to have a lantern,” wrote Parson Woodforde in 1786, “being very dark.” But, invariably, occasions arose when overcast skies caught individuals off-guard or winds extinguished a candle or torch. Passing through Palaiseau in France, a group of men, finding their lamp broken, canvassed the occupants of an inn for a lantern, for which they exchanged a bottle of wine. “We got a lantern with a rushlight in it, but the wind soon blew it out, and we went on our way darkling.”37
Thomas Bewick, Benighted Traveler, n.d.
To make the most of black nights, wayfarers displayed a rough-hewn resourcefulness. In 1661, overtaken by darkness in mountainous countryside, a mounted party placed a rider on a white horse in front to lead the way. “We followed his trace,” described the servant Robert Moody. The member of another body of travelers recounted a “pit dark” night near Durham: “We was forced to ride close on one another, otherwise we should have losed one another.” And whenever darkness descended on a Georgia plantation, Aunt Sook wore “a white cloth ’round her shoulders” to lead fellow slaves from the fields.38 Just as trees blazed by axes charted paths at night through dense woodlands, so, too, did seasoned travelers get their bearings by viewing the dark silhouettes of coppices and trees against the skyline.39 By contrast, where soil contained large quantities of sand or chalk, men and women scanned the ground around them. In the Down-country of southern England, villagers heaped mounds of chalky soil, known as “down-lanterns,” to mark routes through open fields. Heading south from Edinburgh in 1745, Alexander Carlyle and his brother traveled along the shoreline “as there was no moonlight . . . and the sands always lightsome when the sea is in ebb.”40
On the worst nights, ordinary folk relied heavily upon secondary senses, including their powers of hearing, touch, and smell. Although today the large bulk of our sensory input is visual, sight’s sister senses, for much of the early modern era, remained critical to everyday existence, particularly at nighttime. On overcast evenings, individuals often were forced to navigate, not with their eyes, but with their ears. The nocturnal experience was heavily aural. “The day has eyes, the night has ears,” affirmed a Scottish proverb. After sunset, reliance on hearing was so pronounced that in East Yorkshire the verb “d
ark” meant “to listen.”41 Nighttime, as contemporaries understoood, was well suited to communicating sound. Although the moist air could have a damping effect, impairment of sight naturally sharpened one’s hearing. Observes Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Dark night, that from the eye his function takes, / The ear more quick of apprehension makes. / Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense, / It pays the hearing double recompense.” In addition, nocturnal silence gave heightened resonance to isolated noises. With a less complex soundscape, it was easier for a cocked ear to detect the source and direction of separate sounds.42
Unfortunately, hearing, unlike sight, is a passive sense, and sound can be intermittent at best. “Sounds come and go in a way that sights do not,” John M. Hull, the blind author of Touching the Rock, has recently noted. At night, noises become more sporadic. On the other hand, hearing is a more pervasive sense than sight, not limited to a single direction; nor is it as easily blocked by an intervening obstacle such as a building or a tree. And with the range of earshot extended at night, preindustrial sounds represented the aural equivalent of landmarks.43 Overtaken by darkness on an unfamiliar road outside the Scottish town of Paisley, a set of travelers “proceeded with great caution and deliberation, frequently stopping to look forward and listen.” Where wind and rain, by their sounds, could help to reveal the contours of a landscape, familiar noises afforded welcome wayposts. The “clattering” of their horses’ hooves told visitors to Freiburg that they were entering “a large pavd town.” Bleating ewes and bellowing bulls provided bearings, as did tolling church bells. In 1664, Richard Palmer of Berkshire bequeathed funds for the village sexton to ring the great bell at eight o’clock each night as well as in the morning, not only to encourage “a timely going to rest” but also that persons “might be informed of the time of night, and receive some guidance into their right way.” Most helpful were dogs, whose barks pierced the air. Like a homing signal, the noise increased in volume and intensity the closer that one approached. “We lost our road,” wrote a traveler in France, “and about midnight, directed by the sound of village dogs, dropt upon Fontinelle.” Noted a colonist in seventeenth-century Maryland, “It was a remarkable circumstance, as dogs are used to keep men away from dwellings, but served to bring us to them.”44
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