Many people kept flocks of geese, which they plucked for fresh bedding perhaps three times a year (a job that must have been as tiresome for the servants as it was for the geese). A plumped feather bed may have looked divine, but occupants quickly found themselves sinking into a hard, airless fissure between billowy hills. Support was on a lattice of ropes, which could be tightened with a key when they began to sag (hence the expression “sleep tight”), but in no degree of tension did they offer much comfort.
