https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.12148
Research on the history of dreams has relied on a plethora of sources, including legal acts, compendia of knowledge, memoirs, correspondence, inventories (lists of possessions and assets), financial records of institutions and households, literary prose, and iconography. This article delves into a poorly explored source, namely phrasebooks for learning a foreign language. Phrasebooks were widely published in early modern Europe, including in border regions where both Polish and German were spoken, such as Royal and Ducal Prussia and Silesia. In particular, these materials were designed to help young, German-speaking urban dwellers learn Polish. Future merchants and craftsmen from Gdańsk, Wrocław, and small towns gained a working knowledge of the Polish language to communicate and conduct business with the Poles living in border areas and other Polish regions. The article analyzes four German-Polish phrasebooks authored by Nicolaus Volckmar (1612), Johann Ernesti (1689), Karol Woyna (1690), and Jan Moneta (1720). These materials contain information about the duration of sleep among children and adults among municipal residents and, less frequently, among the nobility, as well as the sleeping conditions, including rooms, furniture, bed linens, and night attire. Some dialogues make a reference to factors that hindered peaceful sleep, such as hard mattresses, cold, noise (snoring of individuals sharing a room or bed, barking of dogs, meowing of cats), and bedbugs (fleas and lice). Others describe psychological phenomena affecting the quality of sleep, including night terrors, nightmares, and dreams. Phrasebooks provide insights into daily habits related to going to bed and rising in the morning
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