The "Bedding" tradition in Ice and Fire

Cafe Society
1

I don’t consider anything here to be a spoiler–I mention what goes on in the oft-mentioned “bedding”, that is all. I’m asking a historical question about the idea.

But in case others’ spoil-o-meter is tuned more sensitively than mine:

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The book takes so much of its cultural material from 14th century (?) England, that I’m not sure whether or not this “bedding” thing, as well, is something that actually happened back then.

Did it?

2

Hey, I just noticed I managed to leave out even the slightly spoiler-y bit I’d meant to put in.

Basically, the bedding tradition consists in the women of the wedding party stripping the guy (with much joking and bawdiness)–and the men of the wedding party do the same to the girl. The two are carried to their room during this process.

Seems insane to me. But people do insane things.

So is this something that really happened?

ETA: Found this thread which seems to indicate it didn’t happen in England at least. Lots of comments about how the notion of the Westeros-style bedding beggars suspension of disbelief as well–which was sort of my reaction as well.

3

Is this actually mentioned more than once in ASOIAF? I haven’t read the new one, but I’m pretty sure it is only described in passing during:

Tyrion’s wedding to Sansa in Storm of Swords

4

They also stand outside the room making bawdy comments during the consummation.

5

Also Edmure’s and Catelyn recounts it being done during her and Ned’s.

6

It’s definitely not the first time I’ve heard of the tradition. In fact in my set, we joked about doing it to various friends of ours (and to me) when we all got married back in the mid 1990s before any of us had read A Game of Thrones (which while having been published in 1996, didn’t have any wedding/bedding scenes in the first book anyway).

As for a concrete source, well, I dunno. It’s just one of those things you pick up along the way somewhere if you’re at all interested in history, how “in the olden times, people would…”, like the display of the bloody sheet to prove the bride was a virgin (which is not, I don’t think, mentioned in ASoIaF).

7

Also Littlefinger’s marriage to Lysa

8

Well, in some cultures there is a tradiation of women escorting the bride and men escorting the groom to the door of the bridal chamber and sometimes to bed, but rarely are the genders mixed like that. It’s fairly standard in Roma weddings. Whether or not there are bawdy jokes and ribaldry in the process depends on the personalities of all involved.

9

Not exactly the same thing, but in the hill country, shivareeing could get pretty…crude.

10

That was my take on it: one part procession to the bridal chamber, one part charivari, ten parts made up stuff.

11

Heh, it actually is, in A Feast for Crows with regard to Margaery.

12

First of all, you don’t actually have a link to the thread you’re trying to link to. It just says “this”.

To answer your question, there was a bedding ceremony in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The night of the wedding, the bride’s party and guests would escort her to bed, where they’d undress her and put her in bed. Then the groom’s party would escort him to bed, undress him, a priest would bless the bed and then everyone would leave and the couple would consummate the marriage. There was no undressing the opposite sex, though, and the only one who would see the bride naked was the groom (because when the groom’s party came in, she was under the covers).

13

IIRC, there is a depiction of this in the movie ‘Lady Jane’, which is set in the Tudor era.

14

There’s also a depiction in Showtimes The Tudors with Henry VIII’s sister, Princess Margaret and the King of Portual.

Much to his son’s delight the king doesn’t survive the consumation.

IIRC Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (w/Kirsten Dunst) has a similar scene with Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin (Louis XVI). While were on the topic of old wedding customs involving stripping she also had to cross the Franco-Austrian border naked (inside a specially built tent w/ female courtiers & servants), endure a “public” birth (again in front of ladies of the court, no men except the doctors), and be dressed each morning by the same ladies of the court. The last one was especially bizarre. The women were supposed to dress her in order of rank, but higher ranking women kept arriving leaving her to stand their naked & freezing while they kept handing her clother over to the new arrivals.

15

No, not quite ten parts made up. It’s part shivaree and part bundling, with added nudity.

16

‘The Tudors’ is so absolutely inaccurate about, well, just about everything that I won’t use it for historical examples. Even though ‘Lady Jane’ had its own issues - Guildford was certainly not the romantic hero of the movie - it at least made an effort on things like the history, the costuming, and the customs - none of which ‘The Tudors’ even began to bother with. Not that it’s not good drama - I enjoyed it quite a bit - but as an example of things historical? Not so much.

17

I am hereby making sure people in this thread know that what seems prima facie surprising about the Westeros Bedding is the opposite-sex bit. Especially the part where the men are stripping the bride. Is that precedented?

18

I don’t think the “opposite-sex stripping the bride” was common in European bedding ceremonies. The bride and groom would be stripped by members of their own sex. Nudity wasn’t as big a deal then as it is now, but I still can’t see that happening.