There were no quilts in ancient times. What did the ancients cover to keep warm when they slept?

In ancient China, people also covered themselves with quilts in winter. It's just that quilts were not popular in ancient times. In the pre-Qin period, people called quilts "quilt", "quilt" and "bedding".

Before cotton entered China, quilts were made of plants such as Pueraria lobata (south) and hemp (north). Early quilts were made of animal skins, and the right side of the word "quilt" was "skin" or related to it.

In winter, a quilt that keeps out the cold needs padding besides a single quilt, which is called a "quilt". Before there was cotton, the ancients who couldn't afford silk often used "wadding" as "quilt". Reed flowers, catkins, cotton (silk scraps) and thatch can all be used as fillers. Ming Gao Lian's "Eight Notes on Respecting Life" said, "Reed flowers are picked in late autumn and quilts are laid."

The quality of flocking is very poor, that is to say, the meaning of "flocking is ruined" is obvious. Cloth blankets are not as comfortable and warm as silk blankets, especially in the first year, and the warm-keeping effect will be even worse. Du Fu, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote in the song of autumn wind breaking the thatched cottage: "The cloth is as cold as iron for many years, and the charming child lies in it."

In addition, the ancients also used feathers and hair of chickens, ducks, geese, sheep and other animals as fillers. The "duck down quilt" and "cashmere quilt" that modern people like are actually not new to the ancients.

During the Tang and Song Dynasties, with the progress of papermaking, people thought of making quilts out of paper, which was called "paper quilt". The quality of paper quilt is the best in Fujian. After receiving the paper quilt brought to him by Zhu Congfu, Lu You, a poet in the Song Dynasty, wrote a poem "Xie Zhu Paper quilt", praising: "The paper is covered with snow on all sides, as white as a fox's armpit." It should be mentioned that after the Ming and Qing dynasties, cotton became a common filler for quilts, and therefore the industry of "playing cotton" appeared.