At Home: A Short History of Private Life

by Bill Bryson

The combination of open flames and combustible materials brought an element of alarm and excitement to every aspect of daily life in the pre-electric world. Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary how he bent over a candle while working at his desk, and soon afterward became aware of a horrible, pungent smell, as of burning wool; only then did he realize that his new and very expensive wig was impressively aflame. Such small fires were a common occurrence. Nearly every room of every house had open flames at least some of the time, and nearly every house was fabulously combustible, since almost everything within or on it, from straw beds to thatched roofs, was a fuel in waiting. To reduce dangers at night, people covered fires with a kind of domed lid called a coverfeu (from which comes the word curfew), but danger could never be entirely avoided.