A Little Mattress History

Since we were little kids we've been sleeping on a thing that we call the mattress, yet all that, most of us know very little about how it became the most popular sleeping apparatus in the world. Now let's take a look at how the mattress developed into the most used sleeping implement in the world. Here is the quick history and some important facts about the mattress.

The mattress, as we all know it is regularly found on top of the bed frame, is a mat or a pad used to cushion the person in the bed frame. There are different sizes of mattresses that match the different sizes of bed frames, sizes like the single bed, the double bed, the queen sized bed, the king sized bed and the super king sized bed. For each of the bed frame sizes there are matching mattress sizes. In addition there are also different types of mattress. There coil or spring type mattresses and latex and foam mattresses, air mattresses and water mattresses. And the list goes on.

Some experts say that the history of the mattress can be traced back to the time of the Crusades. During those times it was not uncommon to find crusaders and their parties to sleeping on the hard ground at night. The Europeans then adopted a method of sleeping on cushions thrown on the floor from the Arabs. The very word mattress is derived from the Arabic words 'to throw' and the 'place where something is thrown' and the word 'materas' eventually descended and transformed to mattress from Middle English.

After the Crusades the custom of throwing cushions on the floor eventually evolved. Aside from throwing or putting cushion on the floor, though still popular and is still one of the ways of accepting guests, some transformed the practice by using platforms and elevated boxes to place the mattress. The popularity of the platform mattress caught on and was considered to be the forerunner of the modern beds. Some of the older forms of the platforms used were rock slates, metal boxes, wooden boxes and stone foundations. The ancient mattresses were filled with a variety of natural materials at that time. The filling varied from hay, straw, feathers and dried grass, nowadays mattresses are filled by cotton, wool, foam, polyester, even air and water. Natural fibers are still used but they are processed to avoid decaying.