I didn't finish it today, so I'm sorry for changing this chapter tomorrow morning.

————

The night is the end of the day's hard work. The darkness of the night freed countless manual laborers not only from social supervision, but also from the punitive hours of work. The Gospel of John says, "When night comes, people no longer need to work." "The term "festival of the blind" in some parts of the UK is customary to mark the arrival of the evening, when it is too dark to work. The Spanish proverb also says, "When the sun sets, the workers are free." ”

In many trades in the Middle Ages, it was illegal to work night shifts. Municipal regulations strictly prohibit continued work at night, even during the few dark hours before the winter curfew bells. In 1375, the municipality of Hamburg demanded that farriers stop working in autumn when "the sun turns golden" and in winter "when night comes". This is not to say that medieval officials were very concerned about the health of their workers. Rather, it is because working overtime at night is not only blasphemous, but also has the risk of causing fires. In addition, restricting industry activity to daylight hours facilitates the regulation of economic activity in setting tax rates and prices. In order to ensure the quality of the products, the craftsmen themselves often limit their working hours. Artisans found that candlelight at night was too dim to use chisels, files, and other delicate tools, and had to stop working for the sake of honor and profit. A familiar adage says, "Working at night is a disruption to daytime work." "From the 12th century onwards, the guilds of England forbade night work. First and foremost are skilled trades that require ingenuity, keen eyesight, and ample lighting. A French Manual of Trades, published in the 13th century, forbade goldsmiths and silversmiths to work at night, because "the light of the night does not allow them to really do their work well". During a street riot in Dijon, France, a knife dealer was stabbed several times for making his workers work late hours. There is more of a deep-seated suspicion of any trade at night, not only because the night is always associated with the devil, but also because unsuspecting customers are at the mercy of dishonest shopkeepers – the Spurs Guild of London condemned the "deception" of unscrupulous merchants in 1345. There is an old saying: "Never pick a woman by candlelight, and don't pick a cloth by candlelight." ”

Still, in the Middle Ages, not all work in cities and villages ended at dusk. There are many exceptions, such as work in the countryside that must be done quickly or work that does not require skills. In the 14th century, the word "night" was included in the ledgers of a large Florentine weaving company, indicating that the workers worked until midnight. In St. Omer, sailors and weavers were among those who could continue to work after the bells were prescribed in 1358. A medieval poet once protested against his neighbors who were unwilling to extinguish the wrought iron furnace: "I have never heard such noise, / The cries of scoundrels and the clanging of clanging bells in the night!" Even tailors and shoemakers occasionally do rough work by candlelight. They were usually in a hurry to make clothes and shoes for the aristocracy, so they were exempt from the ban – and even the workers who were busy for the next day's market. One winter, Louis XIV chartered glove workers in Paris to work until ten o'clock in the evening. At that time, orders for gloves were piling up, and the masters complained that if they did not let the apprentices and servants work at night, they would gamble. In addition to profit, labor is also a form of social control.

In modern times, however, the phenomenon of night work has begun to show an upward trend. With the emergence of new markets and new producers, the local economy began to expand in all directions. Although there were still fears of starting fires, the guilds and municipalities adopted a more lenient policy. In Sweden, for example, beer production has become so important that brewers can work all night. The same is true in Amsterdam. When he was woken up at two o'clock in the morning one day in 1573 by a loud noise, Brother Walter Jacobsen suspected that it was the sound of a nearby brewery "pouring beer into a vat". However, most industries still have the same schedule as the urban middle class, and the day ends when it gets dark. Strictly speaking, according to the Craftsmen's Regulations of England in 1563, all artisans and other laborers worked from five in the morning to seven or eight o'clock in the evening in spring and summer, and from dawn to dusk in autumn and winter (two and a half hours of rest and meal each day). In 17th-century France, the term "daytime worker" referred to those who worked from sunrise to sunset. In Louis-Sébastien Messier's vivid description of the former Paris, it is recorded that every day at sunset when a large number of carpenters and stonemasons return home, leaving white plaster footprints on the streets.

All in all, there is plenty of evidence that nocturnal work was very common before industrialization, especially during the shortest days from autumn to spring. Although there is no light in the night, countless people still toiled in the city and in the countryside. An English writer wrote in 1680: "In this age, the craftsmen, and those who had the work at hand, were in the habit of staying up late to work." "Some only extend for a few hours, while others stay until after midnight. This is confirmed by a 17th-century adage: "Do as much as you want during the day and as much as you can at night." There is also an old Scottish saying: "If you have work to do at night, let the horses into the stables and put the wives to bed." ”

Who is working at night, and for what? Is labor voluntary, or is it forced to do so? One of the answers to these questions is the irregular time of work. The labor intensity of workers varies depending on the date and time. The Sabbath is a time of rest, and on other days the laborer does not strictly adhere to a fixed schedule, but decides for himself how quickly he completes the work of the farmhouse or small workshop, or the speed of the work on the farm. According to Thompson, "Where they control the way they work, workers are always working hard for a while, sometimes idle for a while. "We can't say for sure what percentage of the workforce were at the time, but it's clear that many people put off work that could have been done earlier until the evening, regardless of whether the rhythm of the evening was as lazy as the day. The daytime is spent not only for work, but also for small talk and drinking. Some industries, such as bakery, have to work all night due to the special requirements of the industry, while others are busy with a sudden increase in orders. At that time, goods were produced on demand. John Dane, an apprentice at Herford's tailor's shop, once "stayed up three nights in a row" because his master "had to make many military coats." The glazier Jacques-Louis Menétra spent the whole night making glass windows for a church in Vendôme, because he had to deliver the next day. In 1722, a London shoemaker worked in the shop until nearly midnight, "because he had to make a pair of shoes that night." ”

However, the stress of survival – neither personal likes and dislikes, nor the speed of work, nor the "morality of pre-industrialization" – is the most common cause of working at night. This is confirmed by an English proverb: "The daylight hours are too short, and there is too much work to be done." "Evenings allow people from poor families to find opportunities to earn money after a hard day's work. In an essay about candlelight, the Elizabethan writer Thomas Decker asked, "How many poor craftsmen do you have around you who live comfortably?" Thomas Long of London worked for two nights in a row to "earn money" to pay the rent. Pastor James Clayton said, "The hardest work of the day often falls on the poor, and it is during the rest time that God and nature allotted. Similarly, in a 14th-century story written by Franco Sarchetti, a man named Bernamicco asks his neighbors, "Are you really so poor that you have to work at night?"

The various manual laborers in the cities are poor people who work at night. In every household in England there were servants who were always at the beck of their master. Some domestic servants, such as maids and maids, have to complete assigned tasks after dark, such as locking doors and windows, making beds, and cutting candles. A Dutch writer said that if a guest arrived, the maid in the house might be busy until two or three o'clock in the morning before going to bed. Outside the home, manual laborers such as porters and delivery workers occasionally work late into the night. At two o'clock in the morning, John Thomson, a London worker, was called to transport the ballast cargo to a ship by the Tyrs, because it was not the light that determined the loading time of the Tyrs, but the tides, and the fishermen were like porters. The streets of the city at night are full of vendors, such as the young vendor who sells custard scones in Paris every night. In Giatano Zumpini's Venetian prints, adults and children use the moonlight to sell perishable foods such as ox blood and fresh oysters. A teenager shouted, "Come and buy my mussels, they are very fresh." "In Rome, vendors sold brandy at night to dispel the "moisture" of the night. "Scavengers" can be found everywhere, searching the alleys for abandoned rags and items that can be sold to paper mills. Sometimes Samuel Pepys would meet a boy carrying a lantern on his way home at night to "pick up rags" - "sometimes he could pick up three or four bushels of rags a day, and sell threepence per bushel." "Horse manure can also bring in a small income. Others rummage through market stalls where the crowds have dispersed, hoping to find bread, vegetables and meat scraps to sell for money. Others walk the streets to collect manure and sell it in the countryside to make fertilizer. Manure can also be turned into money. In Naples, Goethe found that the boys and farmers on the streets "did not want to leave after dark", because "the dung of mules and horses" was also a "gold mine".

Ordinary people would engage in all sorts of simple technical tasks at night. To meet the demands of the growing garment industry, the England Weavers were busy until ten p.m. in front of the loom, even in winter. The situation is similar on the European continent, for example, where the male workers in the weaving mills of Lyon and the women in the silk mills work from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tailors, shoemakers, felt makers, and dyers also work long hours. There is a Scottish proverb: "The time when the freemen sleep is also the time when the shoemakers supper." In The Hague, when David Baker returned to his lodgings at nine o'clock one night in January 1624, he found "Abraham the tailor still working in my house." An 18th-century pamphlet on the various trades in London says that the men who made the sheep fat candles "worked day and night, day and night, but whether the season allowed it, or whether the people needed it." Tom Pondall, a teenager who was nearly blind from smallpox, had to cut the wicks every night for a candle maker.

It was not uncommon for stonemasons, carpenters and other craftsmen of the construction trade to work at night. At Peppis' home in Heating Lane, odd jobs were worked late into the night. On Christmas Eve 1660, Peppis worked as a painter until ten o'clock in the evening—and with great relief, Peppis wrote in his diary: "Tonight he sent them all away." Daniel Eaton, a squire of Northampton, wrote in 1726 that in autumn when the days were shorter, joiners often worked by candlelight. Most bakers work in the evenings to serve hot bread to customers in the morning. Describing the baker in Paris, Messier wrote: "He worked for me in the middle of the night to light the lamp. "After midnight, the brewers toiled hard, crushing the malt, boiling it in water to make a mash, extracting the wort, mixing it with hops and adding yeast.

Workers working around glass and iron furnaces often split into shifts and took turns working around the blazing furnaces. In order to maintain the blazing heat, the furnace burns 24 hours a day, and the kiln for lime smelting and the wood pier for coke after sealing it with peat are also constantly burning 24 hours a day. Celia Fiennes once observed workers in the seaside town of Limemington boiling seawater in cauldrons to boil salt. "As long as the fire in the hearth is not extinguished, they have to take care of it day and night...... On Saturday night they put out the fire and went home, and on Monday morning they re-lit the fire. Taking care of the fire is a great responsibility. "With the exception of London, where noise restrictions have been enacted, blacksmiths in other cities often work late into the night. In order to make full use of natural forces such as wind and water to drive the mills, the mill also needs people to work all night. Just as olive oil mills in the south of France work "day and night," mills in England work 24 hours a day. A Yorkshire farmer said in 1642: "Whenever there is wheat, they will turn the mills all night long (because they often work at night, there is a rumor that the millers' unions use magic). "The mine also operates overnight, because in a mine with miner's lights, it doesn't matter if there is sunlight or not. This is the case with copper mines in central Sweden and silver mines outside Freiburg. According to one writer, Kornwal's "poor people make a living by digging tin and other metal ores from the ground day and night." "We can already see from the fledgling mills, wrought iron mills and mines of modern Europe that night work will make a significant contribution to increased productivity.