In the mid-18th century, Thomas Nugent, an Englishman on a grand tour then passing through Westphalia, observed with surprise:
There is one thing very particular to them, that they do not cover themselves with bed-clothes, but lay one feather-bed over, and another under. This is comfortable enough in winter, but how they can bear their feather-beds over them in summer, as is generally practised, I cannot conceive.
