A rope bed is a type of platform bed in which the sleeper (and mattress) is supported by a lattice of rope, rather than wooden slats. In cold climates, a rope bed would be topped with one or more insulating pailasses or bedticks, which would traditionally be stuffed with straw, chaff, or down feathers. It might also have a canopy hung with warm curtains. Modernly, they may be topped by a thin futon (a form of bedtick) or other roll-up mattress (see mattress topper). In the sixteenth century (England?), bedmats of woven or plaited rush were often laid on the widely-spaced ropes, and the bedticks...