Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.

Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.

Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.

Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.

Hygiene in medieval times

I get off on some of the Game of Thrones sex scenes, but find myself thinking how rank people must've smelled back then. Even people of a higher class, or whatever, must've had stank breath and crotch rot smell most of the time.

And womyn during their periods...don't even get me started! Men not wiping their asses well (just as in modern times!)...it must've been horrific.

Yet they still managed to get their sex on...

by Anonymousreply 211February 6, 2018 3:39 PM

Yes, but everyone smelled so no one noticed. Kind of like if you go to Russian immigrant neighborhoods.

by Anonymousreply 1May 7, 2014 5:01 PM

Not to mention all the piss and shit in the streets.

by Anonymousreply 2May 7, 2014 5:02 PM

I read somewhere that the Roma/Gypsies in Europe fared relatively well during the plague years because they were hygienically advanced.

by Anonymousreply 3May 7, 2014 5:05 PM

Actually people did bathe much more frequently than previously thought. I'm sure the smells were bad, but surely people cleaned up a little before doing the nasty.

by Anonymousreply 4May 7, 2014 5:05 PM

Ewww, the SMEG!

by Anonymousreply 5May 7, 2014 5:09 PM

Gee OP, daddy issues much, with your tiresome "womyn" bullshit and how men don't wipe their ases?

Question: How would you know how men wipe their asses if your face isn't stuck in one?

Answer, cunt. Answer now.

by Anonymousreply 6May 7, 2014 5:09 PM

Ases?

by Anonymousreply 7May 7, 2014 5:10 PM

[quote]Actually people did bathe much more frequently than previously thought.

Interesting. I always figured that during the Middle Ages, hygiene was an afterthought due to the church's emphasis on mortification of the flesh.

by Anonymousreply 8May 7, 2014 5:11 PM

R6 = not laid in a while

Not just body smells either but bad breath! The teeth thing grosses me out big time. Imagine men with chunks of rotting meat between their teeth for weeks at a time, OMG, and not having soap or Listerine.

We are SO lucky!

by Anonymousreply 9May 7, 2014 5:15 PM

Sex was pretty much of the penis/vagina variety.

Not much sucking or licking of anything until the late 20th century.

by Anonymousreply 10May 7, 2014 5:16 PM

You people are incredibly ignorant.

Water is not a 21st Century invention.

True story: when Napoleon invaded Egypt, one of the biggest complaints about the French was their body odor. Think about that. If they were complaining about body odor, that implies that Egyptian personal hygiene was relatively good.

by Anonymousreply 11May 7, 2014 5:24 PM

[quote]one of the biggest complaints about the French was their body odor

Nice to know some things haven't changed much in 2500 years

by Anonymousreply 12May 7, 2014 5:28 PM

Men will stick their dicks into anything.

Pussy, Ass, Sheep, Chickens....

They still do.

by Anonymousreply 13May 7, 2014 5:31 PM

[quote] True story: when Napoleon invaded Egypt, one of the biggest complaints about the French was their body odor. Think about that. If they were complaining about body odor, that implies that Egyptian personal hygiene was relatively good.

But some population groups are prone to less BO than others. I remember reading somewhere that Asians, in particular, have less sweat glands. Perhaps Egyptians were the same?

by Anonymousreply 14May 7, 2014 5:34 PM

Constantinople had 900,000 inhabitants in 1150. Paris was around 300,000. The cities stank to outsiders by the natives couldn't smell it.

Big cities had to fight stuff like Typhus. In Constantinople they had a lack of water in summer, so they had many cisterns. Monasteries and hospitals had baths attached to them and there were public baths throughout the city. There were sewers beneath the city that emptied (downhill) into the Golden Horn, Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara.

I don't know about Paris and London.

by Anonymousreply 15May 7, 2014 5:34 PM

[quote]Men will stick their dicks into anything.

[quote]Pussy, Ass, Sheep, Chickens....

Chickenfucker is going to be my new insult word.

by Anonymousreply 16May 7, 2014 5:35 PM

The Egyptians noticed the French stink because they had to wash daily before praying to Allah. Hindus also take ritual baths.

Regarding teeth, remember one thing, sugar and refined flour were rare. The average person ate a diet of coarse grained bread, vegetables and only a small amount of meat or fish. Certainly no candy or HFCS laced drinks. Their tooth decay was probably not as severe as we imagine it and their turds probably came out without as much wiping and smearing.

by Anonymousreply 17May 7, 2014 5:40 PM

People brushed their teeth with twigs. Toothpicks were also known.

by Anonymousreply 18May 7, 2014 5:41 PM

Ugh and all of these people were uncut right?

by Anonymousreply 19May 7, 2014 5:43 PM

[quote] Regarding teeth, remember one thing, sugar and refined flour were rare.

But so was fluoride*, so it all evens out.

One of my favorite writers had three teeth pulled by the time she was 23, in the 1870s.

*Except for drinkers of green tea and in parts of the American SW where there is naturally occurring fluoride in the ground water.

by Anonymousreply 20May 7, 2014 5:45 PM

Not the Jews, R20.

by Anonymousreply 21May 7, 2014 5:45 PM

The Japanese were also a very clean people. Remember the forced bathing in "SHOGUN"?

by Anonymousreply 22May 7, 2014 5:45 PM

Russians had a 'banya'. Finns and Estonians had saunas. Maybe Latvians and Lithuanians, too.

If you really want to know, check out the link "Shakespeare's England" (below). Or ask on twitter from @daintyballerina , the author of said blog. She might be busy, with Shakespeare now 450 years old and all.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 23May 7, 2014 5:46 PM

Thank you, R18.

People here talking about stinky sex in the middle ages ... it's like a hillbilly with bad personal hygiene - everyone he knows is a hillbilly, and they ALL have bad hygiene, so he thinks everyone in the WORLD must also have bad hygiene.

Read. Educate yourself. Travel.

by Anonymousreply 24May 7, 2014 5:48 PM

My dentist said that in medieval times, European people had better teeth than they have today because they did not have access to sugar. Fruits and berries were only available at certain times of the year. The New World hadn't been discovered yet, so no sugar cane, no chocolate.

I mean, plum pudding was considered a tasty dessert and a rare treat. People only had it once a year, if they were able to afford it.

by Anonymousreply 25May 7, 2014 5:59 PM

Consider the smell of any major city right up through the 1920's. The emergence of indoor plumbing (if indoor plumbing can be said to emerge) did nothing about the stench from the horses.

by Anonymousreply 26May 7, 2014 6:04 PM

Nor the women, R21.

by Anonymousreply 27May 7, 2014 6:05 PM

Watch Terry Jones' Medieval series on youtube. He debunks a lot of myths about the time. Unfortunately, the douches at Google won't let you watch it on an ipad or other mobile device because they're incorrigible douches.

by Anonymousreply 28May 7, 2014 6:08 PM

Do you think cities smelled worse then or now with all the fumes in the air we have now from emissions?

by Anonymousreply 29May 7, 2014 6:09 PM

But are they douches, R30?

by Anonymousreply 30May 7, 2014 6:10 PM

The BBC says the richer the medieval person, the more sugar in their diets.

Also I wonder what the heck they were filling cavities with.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 31May 7, 2014 6:12 PM

I've always been curious how they cleaned themselves without toilet paper. I know that sounds gross but I do wonder.

And people often died from things that seem so simple to us today. Tooth infections, for one thing.

by Anonymousreply 32May 7, 2014 6:15 PM

34, sometimes they used a sponge on a stick-- which was a holdover from Roman times.

by Anonymousreply 33May 7, 2014 6:20 PM

The ancient peoples such as Egyptians, Romans, etc. regularly bathed and anointed their bodies with oils and chewing on cloves sweetened breath. I know an Indian guy who chews them during the day.

I was watching Regency Manor on PBS and they mentioned using lemon juice under their pits for odor. They also cleaned their teeth with sponges and rags.

by Anonymousreply 34May 7, 2014 6:24 PM

Pretty good link for info.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 35May 7, 2014 6:25 PM

R17=Bryan Singer

by Anonymousreply 36May 7, 2014 6:26 PM

Middle Ages Hygiene Middle Ages hygiene was extremely basic in terms of the disposal of waste products and garbage. However, personal hygiene was better than the perception of Middle Ages Hygiene. People did wash, bath and clean their teeth. The terrible outbreak of the Black Death made Medieval people look for a link between health and hygiene. The words of men who lived during the Middle Ages provide a fascinating and informative first-hand view of different aspects of hygiene during the Medieval era.

Middle Ages Hygiene - Personal Hygiene During the Middle Ages the crusaders brought soap back from the far East to Europe. People generally washed in cold water unless they were wealthy when hot water would be provided for bathing purposes. Bathing was usually conducted in wooden barrels but simply designed bathrooms were added in Medieval Castle interiors for the lords. Before people entered the Great Hall for meals they washed their hands. As cleanliness and hygiene improved during the Middle Ages lavers were introduced which were stone basins used for washing and provided at the entrances of castle dining halls. Bathing was usually conducted in wooden barrels but simply designed bathrooms were added in Medieval Castle interiors for the wealthy nobles and lords.

Middle Ages Hygiene - Dental Hygiene During the Middle Ages people did pay attention to dental hygiene. There was only one remedy for a bad tooth - it would be pulled out without the use of any anaesthetic or pain killer - the pain must have been excruciating. There were no false teeth, or dentures and women especially would have been very concerned about losing their teeth. Teeth were cleaned by rubbing them with a cloth. Mixtures of herbs or abrasives were also used including the ashes of burnt rosemary.

Middle Ages Hygiene - Garderobes or Privies There were many lavatories, called garderobes or privies, included in large Medieval buildings such as castles, monasteries and convents. The Garderobes or Privy chambers were positioned as far away from the interior chambers as practical and often had double doors added to reduce the smell! Chutes were provided for the discharge which often led to the castle moat. Privy seats were made of wood or stone.

Threat to Middle Ages Hygiene - Rush Flooring The practice of covering floors with rushes was a a real threat to hygiene and health during the Middle Ages. Following the Black Death a limited number of carpets and mats were introduced to replace the floor rushes but floors strewn with straw or rushes were still favoured. Sweet smelling herbs such as lavender, camomile, rose petals, daisies and fennel were added to disguise the bad smells which were prevalent due to the inadequate plumbing systems and the rushes.

Erasmus Quote on Middle Ages Health and Hygiene: The great Scholar, Humanist and Reformer Erasmus (1466-1536) wrote to friend describing the state of the Medieval floors during the Middle Ages:

"The doors are, in general, laid with white clay, and are covered with rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for twenty years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned. Whenever the weather changes a vapour is exhaled, which I consider very detrimental to health. I may add that England is not only everywhere surrounded by sea, but is, in many places, swampy and marshy, intersected by salt rivers, to say nothing of salt provisions, in which the common people take so much delight I am confident the island would be much more salubrious if the use of rushes were abandoned, and if the rooms were built in such a way as to be exposed to the sky on two or three sides, and all the windows so built as to be opened or closed at once, and so completely closed as not to admit the foul air through chinks; for as it is beneficial to health to admit the air, so it is equally beneficial at times to exclude it".

by Anonymousreply 37May 7, 2014 6:29 PM

Threat to Middle Ages Hygiene - Waste Disposal Following the devastating outbreak of the Black Death in England (1348-1350) a link appears to have been made between health and hygiene. In 1388 the English parliament issued the following statute in an effort to clean up England and improve Middle Ages Hygiene:

"Item, that so much dung and filth of the garbage and entrails be cast and put into ditches, rivers, and other waters... so that the air there is grown greatly corrupt and infected, and many maladies and other intolerable diseases do daily happen... it is accorded and assented, that the proclamation be made as well in the city of London, as in other cities, boroughs, and towns through the realm of England, where it shall be needful that all they who do cast and lay all such annoyances, dung, garbages, entrails, and other ordure, in ditches, rivers, waters, and other places aforesaid, shall cause them utterly to be removed, avoided, and carried away, every one upon pain to lose and forfeit to our Lord the King the sum of 20 pounds..."

by Anonymousreply 38May 7, 2014 6:29 PM

The unsubstantiated claims that people bathed "more frequently" than usually thought are silly and wrong. Baths were almost never seen, and that extends well into the 19th century, generally, at which point a weekly bath became the norm.

Sponge baths and wipe downs were more the rule. Of course in cultures where public baths and bathing were present things were rather different. But usually cleanliness was judged by a lack of smears and surface dirt. The class distinctions did not apply to the odor of bodies wrapped under layers and layers of clothes that were worn until doomsday. Even George IV was repulsed by the stench of his cousin-wide, Caroline, and he spent more time than most between the legs of strumpets.

WIth all that said, it is true that when everyone stinks it's a different world. The natural "coating" of the body, when not disturbed by daily scrubbing, tends to seal things a bit. Fewer skin infections and a likely slowing of the process towards unbearable rankness likely result.

Nevertheless, the smell of a man and woman pulling off or lifting or dropping their last coverings in order to fuck would be something we would notice as rather barnyard-quality. Recall, too, that such smells were also considered "normal," and the poster who shuddered at menstruation is mindless of the stimulating effects of the lady bouquet in other cultures.

One area, however, that was a real issue was the hair on the head. Lice were prevalent - even at the royal level, with stories of the archbishop at Henry Bolingbroke's coronation recoiling and knocking the ceremonial coin out of the king's hand when has saw the Royal Head crawling with lice as he anointed it with the sacred oil.

Henry VII did dislike the lice - when he found one crawling on the royal table, he had all the kitchen staff and servers shave their heads to prevent a similar affront.

by Anonymousreply 39May 7, 2014 6:31 PM

Elizabeth I had a fondness for sweets and, as a result, horrible teeth. (Sugar was a commodity that only the wealthy could afford, to the point that blackened, rotten teeth became a status symbol. It even became a fad to fake bad teeth by blackening them soot and the like.)

One of Elizabeth's courtiers volunteered to have two of his good teeth pulled before she could finally work up the courage to submit to extraction herself. Eventually she lost so many teeth that she resorted to stuffing her cheeks with rags for public appearances so they wouldn't look sunken.

by Anonymousreply 40May 7, 2014 6:46 PM

[quote]Ugh and all of these people were uncut right?

not the jews or arabs

by Anonymousreply 41May 7, 2014 6:55 PM

[quote]I've always been curious how they cleaned themselves without toilet paper. I know that sounds gross but I do wonder.

leaves.

by Anonymousreply 42May 7, 2014 6:57 PM

[quote] It was also widely believed that being naked and letting the water touch you would make you severely ill.

King Louis the XIV in the 17th century claimed that he never let water touch him more than the tip of his nose his whole life! but at his time was considered very clean and fastidious because he changed his undershirt three times daily.

by Anonymousreply 43May 7, 2014 7:00 PM

"Yet they still managed to get their sex on..."

If they hadn't, we wouldn't be here to marvel at their zealous lust.

by Anonymousreply 44May 7, 2014 7:01 PM

Between back-breaking farming and cold-ass winters, I'm surprised they got their sex on.

by Anonymousreply 45May 7, 2014 7:05 PM

Yes, R20. Yes. And the human race survived. Just as we survive today with a proliferation of soap and water. Slicing your dick then or now is not necessary.

by Anonymousreply 46May 7, 2014 7:10 PM

Interesting thread. Sounds like it was Western Europeans who were hygienically challenged. The rest of the world seems to have found ways to bathe when Western Europeans were still barbarian. Makes sense: MIddle Ages is a construct of European history.

by Anonymousreply 47May 7, 2014 7:17 PM

R20 has bad hygiene and does not know people bathe. Bet he has skid marks.

by Anonymousreply 48May 7, 2014 7:23 PM

Even just 130 years ago people were walking around in dirt and poop all day long. They may have bathed a little more regularly, but it still strikes me as a dirty environment. I used to get grossed out watching Deadwood.

by Anonymousreply 49May 7, 2014 7:30 PM

R49 and R50 - yes, I think you both are absolutely correct.

by Anonymousreply 50May 7, 2014 7:48 PM

Even as recently as (I think) the 1940s, it wasn't the norm in the US to bathe or shampoo more than a couple of times a week.

by Anonymousreply 51May 7, 2014 7:52 PM

I remember as a kid in the early- and mid-'60s that some other kids in my neighborhood (especially those with large families) would sometimes talk about baths on a Saturday night.

This always struck me very strange even as a kid--that some people only bathed one night a week, and they were friends of mine?! That way of thinking soon faded into obscurity and showering (not bathing) daily became a way of life. But yes, even in the '60s, some people were only bathing once (or twice) a week.

by Anonymousreply 52May 7, 2014 8:30 PM

Try and picture (or not) French aristocrats (or not) taking a dump at Versailles in a side stairwell or, if aristocratic enough, right in the middle of a marble corridor.

by Anonymousreply 53May 7, 2014 9:03 PM

"Game of Thrones" is not set in Europe's Middle Ages.

by Anonymousreply 54May 7, 2014 9:07 PM

You just made the best post in this thread, r56!

by Anonymousreply 55May 7, 2014 9:12 PM

Was it on DL that I first read about Lizzie Borden's dad emptying the full chamber pot over his peach tree - then gathering sewage covered peaches from the ground, which he and his family ate for breakfast (and got sick from)?

I looked into it and there is a documentary which depicts this as well. The neighbor woman said that she saw Mr. Borden do this. Shit like this sheds light on a motive.

By today's standards the man would be a millionaire seven times over, but he pooped in a bucket and had terrible hygiene.

by Anonymousreply 56May 7, 2014 9:13 PM

[quote]In Constantinople they had a lack of water in summer, so they had many cisterns.

They also had major aquaducts bringing water into the city. You can still see some of them.

by Anonymousreply 57May 7, 2014 9:20 PM

[quote]They may have bathed a little more regularly, but it still strikes me as a dirty environment.

Probably hardier stock though being exposed to dirt. Look at the sterile environment fraus insist on and their precious little snowflakes. I doubt a lot of kids had deadly food allergies or autism back then.

by Anonymousreply 58May 7, 2014 9:20 PM

[quote]I doubt a lot of kids had deadly food allergies or autism back then.

Was peanut butter allowed in schools in those days?

by Anonymousreply 59May 7, 2014 9:29 PM

R61, it was back in the sixties and seventies when I was in school. I don't think the stupid bans took off until the nineties.

by Anonymousreply 60May 7, 2014 9:32 PM

Of course children had food allergies, children were dying left and right in olden times for all sorts of reasons. Autism isn't due to lack of cleanliness or being overly clean.

by Anonymousreply 61May 7, 2014 9:44 PM

People weren't poor until the industrial revolution. Before that, people lived in villages and had jobs relating to the land. Only during times of famine were people "poor."

In villages, everyone had a job to do and everyone got fed. It wasn't until the religious fanaticism of the Puritans and the terrible conditions of the Industrial Revolution that people were allowed to go hungry while there was enough food to go around.

by Anonymousreply 62May 7, 2014 9:45 PM

If you lived back then, any smells, bodily or otherwise, would seem a normal part of life to you. You don't notice the ubiquitous.

by Anonymousreply 63May 7, 2014 9:51 PM

What was the smegma situation like?

by Anonymousreply 64May 7, 2014 10:06 PM

Medieval times?

It's been pretty much the same throughout human history before indoor plumbing.

by Anonymousreply 65May 7, 2014 11:53 PM

The Romans had indoor plumbing....

by Anonymousreply 66May 7, 2014 11:54 PM

[quote]Interesting thread. Sounds like it was Western Europeans who were hygienically challenged.

This is so. When the native Americans met European invaders for the first time they were struck by three things, their hairiness, their short stature and their smelliness

by Anonymousreply 67May 7, 2014 11:58 PM

[quote]It's been pretty much the same throughout human history before indoor plumbing

You rang?

by Anonymousreply 68May 8, 2014 12:01 AM

Yes, they did notice. Read some Chaucer.

by Anonymousreply 69May 8, 2014 12:03 AM

r64, I think the Feudal System serfs would beg to differ.

by Anonymousreply 70May 8, 2014 12:04 AM

R70, nitpicking, but more like 1400 B.C. and actually even earlier.

by Anonymousreply 71May 8, 2014 12:43 AM

That's why women wore so much perfume, and they especially perfumed their pussies.

by Anonymousreply 72May 8, 2014 12:47 AM

That's what I like about Cheryl. She's an old fashioned girl.

by Anonymousreply 73May 8, 2014 12:52 AM

There's this famous photo-book called 'Street Life in London' (you can download it for free, see link) which portrays Londoners ca. 1862. Not suitable for germophobes!

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 74May 8, 2014 1:00 AM

[quote] Sounds like it was Western Europeans who were hygienically challenged.

It's pretty fricking cold in the winter in Western Europe, as opposed to the sunny Greek isles. You can't (and couldn't) just go for a swim. The last thing anyone wants to do is get wet in 20 degree temperatures.

Even during the French Revolution, in England, people paid almost as much for energy--wood, etc, for heating fireplaces--as they did for housing. Imagine having an electric bill that's $2000 every month! So being clean was extremely expensive.

by Anonymousreply 75May 8, 2014 1:00 AM

Aren't there hot springs in Iceland, and saunas in Scandinavia? These things aren't recent occurrences, but have probably been around since ancient times, so at least we know that these people practiced some sort of good hygiene.

Also, the Romans had baths and steam rooms.

by Anonymousreply 76May 8, 2014 1:58 AM

Confused.

Click on thread and realize you speak of me.

by Anonymousreply 77May 8, 2014 2:08 AM

Bath, England had baths that were built by the Romans. Do you think the management knew what was going on in the steam room?

by Anonymousreply 78May 8, 2014 2:37 AM

I remember reading an article about Pakistan after 9/11. They thought it was hilarious how hysterical Americans were over anthrax and other possible agents of bacterial warfare, because Pakistan is so filled with disease (like anthrax). Pakistanis were like, "You pussies!" when just a few people died of anthrax. Despite all the illnesses over there, it's still an overcrowded country. They believe they are far stronger than Americans.

by Anonymousreply 79May 8, 2014 4:09 AM

Remind me not to go to Pakistan then.

by Anonymousreply 80May 8, 2014 4:16 AM

People in Tibet and Nepal smear their faces with dirt to protect from the sun.

by Anonymousreply 81May 8, 2014 4:17 AM

R81 Pakistan is having a polio epidemic because they are suspicious of vaccines. Not so tough when kids end up crippled for life.

by Anonymousreply 82May 8, 2014 5:12 AM

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

by Anonymousreply 83May 8, 2014 7:00 AM

This is one of the most fascinating and informative non-snarky thread I've read in a long time. I am so impressed at the knowledge so many of you possess. Sorry to interject such a base question, but as someone stated very early in the thread, oral se was relatively rare until the mid 20th century. I mean as practiced by the masses as a common everyday act. My question is, do you imagine that what little oral sex did occur in the Middle Ages and before, occurred between men or men and women? Do you think that most homosex in that era was just old fashioned buggery as they called it?

by Anonymousreply 84May 8, 2014 7:39 AM

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

by Anonymousreply 85May 8, 2014 7:57 AM

I absolutely believe what you say to be true vis a vis fellatio, men, their wives and other men prior to the second half of the 20th century. My father was in the Navy during WWII and while he has never actually said it, he has hinted that during their stateside leaves in San Fran and their long cruises in the South Pacific, well...men will be men and shit happened.

by Anonymousreply 86May 8, 2014 8:34 AM

The inverted snobbery of "anti-colonialist" notions such as those expressed at r49 is extremely tedious, and often wrong.

The "middle ages" are a construct of Renaissance humanist scholars who distinguished between the ancient world, the middle age of Christian dogma, and the modern era that they were attempting to usher in of rationalism, science, secularism and the arts. But, I guess r49 would argue that the renaissance never offered anything to the world and is simply an imperialist western construct.

The idea that places like China or Africa were far more hygienic than the damn westerners is what is a construct, as if the Chinese were never struck by the plague or Arabs smelt like roses.

I'd like to see the sources for the Egyptians finding French troops smelly. But, I guess troops that had been at sea and then on the march for several weeks and then at war would be more smelly than someone who had been sedentary and could avail themselves of the bathroom (which every late 18th-century Egyptian household had).

by Anonymousreply 87May 8, 2014 8:57 AM

R85 is right. I was reading translations of ancient texts. There was a story about a very wealthy king. It struck me that, by today's standards, he lived like a wretched vagabond.

Today, many people fare more sumptuously than most kings ever did.

by Anonymousreply 88May 8, 2014 10:15 AM

R89 represents conventional Eurocentric history.

No doubt Europe's Middle Ages falls within its historical arc that leads to the Enlightenment. Of course it is a construct. No European scratched his fleas back then, thinking, Oh well, I'm in the middle ages. I'll be enlightened soon.

And nowhere do I argue, nor do I hold, that Europe's renaissance offered nothing - much as it would buttress your wish that I posit a banal anti-colonialist attitude. I just have a wider view of history, a world history, and one that includes European history.

As much as the renaissance ushered in the admirable contributions it did, it is not as if no science or the arts flowered in other civilizations like Arab, Chinese and Indian, while Europe was in its Middle Ages. That is to say, your Middle Ages was not everyone else's. You just hadn't gotten around to learning about others. Yet. As R89 still hasn't, one might note.

What this thread - talk about enlightenment, so thanks for all the fascinating contributions, DLers! - has shown is that hygienic practices and baths cultures existed in other regions outside Western Europe during the latter's musky medieval period.

That is all I meant. Nothing about lack of epidemics or floral scents of races. Those were your words, your thoughts, not mine. And mere childish hyperbole to mask your odor of ignorance.

by Anonymousreply 89May 8, 2014 10:43 AM

Nothing better than burying your face in a ripe Egyptian pit.

by Anonymousreply 90May 8, 2014 10:47 AM

R91, I don't "represent" any kind of history because I'm just a poster on an internet site, not a practitioner of a particular historical method arguing for it at an academic conference.

As someone who purports to have "a wider view of history" could you please provide us with some examples of hygiene and cleanliness practices in China, Africa, the Arab world in previous centuries? With source references (primary or secondary).

It would also be interesting to note where the historiographical methods that produced the kind of cultural history that looks at subjects such as health and cleanliness, as well as economic and social history, developed. Or in which universities the most exciting historical research is taking place. I wonder where the best research on hygiene in human history, in all regions of the world, is currently being done.

Oh, and since you have a wide perspective of global history, please outline for us, since you raised the issue, what Arab, African, Chinese, Islamic, Buddhist or native American periodisations of historical time are? After all, "middle ages" is just so Eurocentric. How do non-European cultures periodise the historical past?

by Anonymousreply 91May 8, 2014 11:23 AM

Gee OP, daddy issues much, with your tiresome "womyn" bullshit and how men don't wipe their ases?

Question: How would you know how men wipe their asses if your face isn't stuck in one?

Answer, cunt. Answer now.

Wishing your Daddy even respected and loved you? Get over yourself, prick. Or, little prick, hence the petty anger issues.

It must suck for others to have what you don't, huh, mental midget?

by Anonymousreply 92May 8, 2014 11:41 AM

[quote]They believe they are far stronger than Americans.

Because they live in a disease-ridden shithole?

That's...interesting. We believe they're backwards and hopelessly ignorant. Thanks for confirming it.

by Anonymousreply 93May 8, 2014 11:44 AM

OP, as others have mentioned, the medieval period, due to the diets followed then, may in some respects, have been more "hygienic" than immediately later periods.

Another factor is urbanisation, particularly in times of economic growth, with more and more people moving to the cities, where they would find themselves living in close proximity to others, often in subpar housing. Disease and infections could spread much more easily, especially before the development of moden sanitary systems.

Typhoid, for example, would be passed on through drinking water and food, and so would spread particularly rapidly in more densely populated areas. It's unbelievable today to think that people were unaware of the connection between unsanitised water or food and disease until the 19th century.

That said, drinking water, particularly in the cities, was so rank and dirty that beer and wine were the standard drinks and not water. They would have been much weaker than today, however.

by Anonymousreply 94May 8, 2014 11:45 AM

P.S. I believe OP asked about medieval times because he's talking about Game of Thrones, which is set in a western European medieval-type environment.

I guess it's terribly Eurocentric and therefore must be forbidden to acknowledge that much of contemporary America's cultural imaginary and mythological fabric is based on the European heritage (including the language we're using).

by Anonymousreply 95May 8, 2014 11:51 AM

As recently as the 1990s, there was a survey in London which estimated that the average number of times someone on the tube bathed per week was 3.4 - suggesting most people did not bathe once a day.

The widespread use of deodorant is also a much more recent phenomenon outside the US.

The 10 largest countries by population (excluding the US and Japan) - China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia - are all countries where the vast majority people would not necessarily have complete access to western style daily hygiene. That's 3.5 billion people...

by Anonymousreply 96May 8, 2014 11:52 AM

Saturday and or Sunday was bath day for my family during the sixties and early seventies. We shampooed our hair then too (once a week). In between bath days you'd sponge bath ie pits, crotch, face, ass. Always brushed the teeth twice a day.

In between shampoos especially for the chicks with long hair that would look oily up towards the scalp, they'd brush talcum powder into their hair to absorb that greasy look. They also had a product called PSSSSST back then which you sprayed into your hair and would do the same thing. I believe it was talcum based?

by Anonymousreply 97May 8, 2014 12:20 PM

R99 They still make it!

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 98May 8, 2014 12:41 PM

[quote] I doubt a lot of kids had deadly food allergies or autism back then.

If they did, they weren't long for the world.

by Anonymousreply 99May 8, 2014 1:04 PM

R31 : Cities smelled worse, because horse dung, and I don't think anyone cared to remove dog and cat poo. And people often did all their business into the street from their windows.

R34 : Depending on where people lived. At least in Northern Europe and during Summer people used large leaves of a plant I can't remember the name of to clean themselves down there after defecating.

I recently read about black pepper, and it was said to have been good for teeth. I don't know if this fact was already discovered in those Medieval times, but pepper was usually the spice of the rich and it was always in great demand, as it can be now, more or less.

R60 , Instead of deadly food allergies, there was diarhhea, typhoid and tuberculosis and whatnot. That's why families often had like ten children, two would survive into adulthood, and only one would live long enough to marry and procreate.

Sex

People used intestines of lambs and other ungulates in lieu of condoms to protect themselves from disease.

by Anonymousreply 100May 8, 2014 1:28 PM

When I was a kid Sunday was bath night (before Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and the Wonderful World of Walt Disney) and I had a shower a couple of times a week until I was in middle school, then I had to shower and wash my hair every night. Sometimes I'd just stand in the hot water and not use soap and my mother would make me take another one if she couldn't smell soap (or saw remaining dirt).

I spent my summers on a lake and my mom would throw me a bar of Ivory soap while I was swimming. I didn't have a proper bath or shower all summer long.

I shower twice a day now.

by Anonymousreply 101May 8, 2014 2:50 PM

R93 sounds exhausting.

by Anonymousreply 102May 8, 2014 3:12 PM

From the link provided about the old times- the thought of the bottom of the rushes being over 20 years old and just filled with all kinds of filth is gag-inducing.

by Anonymousreply 103May 8, 2014 3:14 PM

R93 are you seriously asking if other civilizations periodize their histories differently from the way European history does? This is astounding. What do you THINK?? Apart of what your educational institutions taught (or did not) you, did they not teach you to reason and how to apply whatever learning was imparted? Amaze...

Go google Ottoman empire, Meiji restoration, champa dynasty, the Qin dynasty, golden age of Sanskrit, Persia, majapahit, shogun... oh this is dispiriting. Or to hew closer to our thread, wiki hamam, sauna, ritual baths in Hinduism, Islamic shaving and cleaning rituals relating to sex... Oh dear.

by Anonymousreply 104May 8, 2014 3:24 PM

Absolutely, r104. If one is going to throw out value statements about what the "right" kind of history is or about "barbarians" then it must be thought through exhaustively. Throwing flippant and statements around, usually in an attempt to display one's moral superiority, puts one at risk of being wildly historically inaccurate and, consequently, of appearing stupid.

by Anonymousreply 105May 8, 2014 3:30 PM

Besides body odor, people must have also stank of smoke since wood fires were the only way of warming their homes. Maybe the wood smoke masked their smell? Also, most clothing was spun from wool for all but the wealthiest who could afford silk. Maybe the lanolin in the wool acted as a neutralizer for bad smells? Just speculating.

by Anonymousreply 106May 8, 2014 3:48 PM

[quote]I doubt a lot of kids had deadly food allergies or autism back then.

The stupidity expressed here is breathtaking sometimes.

Food allergies = high mortality rate. A baby with a milk allergy would just die. Ditto any other allergy. There was very little understanding of science or medicine back then. Someone dying of a food allergy was as likely to be blamed on supernatural causes or some medieval belief in "bodily humours" or plague.

Autism = "feeble-mindedness", "idiocy", "lunacy", etc. or just garden-variety eccentric. Many of those types wound up ostracized, objects of abuse or targets of (literal) witch hunts.

These things existed back then, they were just misunderstood, overlooked, or combined with a host of other conditions that complicated them beyond our modern recognition of them.

by Anonymousreply 107May 8, 2014 3:51 PM

R106, sorry, I think you misunderstood. I actually asked you to inform us of the periodisations of the past used by non-western cultures, since you are so offended by the "western construct" of the medieval period.

OP asked about the medieval period, you knocked it and said Europeans were dirty barbarians when other cultures had superior hygiene.

So, I'm simply asking you to tell us about the periodisations of history used by non-western cultures.

You've just given a list of some events or dynasties. That's more like saying Tudors, Stuarts, French revolution. It's not quite the equivalent of ancient, medieval, modern.

Moreover, I was not asking you to name a few dynasties, but to enlighten us on the periodisations used today by Chinese scholars for Chinese history or African scholars for African history. Since you don't like western constructs.

Do you know what historical periodisations Chinese scholars use for their own history? You never know, they may even have a broad category called "middle ages".

I was also hoping, since you have such a wide knowledge of history, if you could inform us of where the most exciting historical research is taking place in the world today, especially in areas of cultural and social history such as hygiene and cleanliness.

by Anonymousreply 108May 8, 2014 3:52 PM

Why ARE the French so smelly?

by Anonymousreply 109May 8, 2014 3:52 PM

Northern Europeans wore linen from flax as well

by Anonymousreply 110May 8, 2014 3:54 PM

It's not a matter of liking a construct or not. It's simply recognizing that it is one. I don't think I'm the one who is offended R110. Look at the language you used in your initial post and the words and sentiments you cooked up, like damn westerner.

Looking at history as a linear narrative there is naturally an early middle later etc. It's like saying a rope on the ground has a beginning a middle and an end. China's Middle Ages is not the medieval we refer to here, of the period before the renaissance. It was actually much more advanced then than other countries and not the rough hygienically disadvantaged period we speak of.

by Anonymousreply 111May 8, 2014 4:19 PM

Interesting about the linen, thanks. Well I found something that claims antibacterial and anti fungal properties for lanolin, so I wasn't too far off in my speculation.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 112May 8, 2014 4:23 PM

The Greeks wore wool, the Egyptians wore linen, too.

by Anonymousreply 113May 8, 2014 4:31 PM

Linen wrinkles so easy, but they wore it every day? Those really WERE the dark ages!!

by Anonymousreply 114May 8, 2014 4:35 PM

[quote] They believe they are far stronger than Americans.

[quote] Because they live in a disease-ridden shithole?

Exactly. They believe Americans are effete and cowardly, while believing they are more like the cowboys of the Old West.

We waste a tremendous amount or resources, like water. People in drier parts of the world are horrified by things like lawns and private swimming pools. That Americans waste water sprinkling lawns (while it's raining out, no less) is thought to be the height of idiocy. That American men work on their yards, watering, fertilizing, dethatching, mowing something that is not a food crop is seen as being feminine, because it is pointless.

If you ever go to Queens, NY, you can tell which houses were bought by South Asian, Central Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants. There is no lawn, there are no trees. They demolish the original home and build a monster-sized house with a huge driveway. If there is any outdoor area leftover after the house and driveway, they make a balustraded patio.

They wouldn't be caught dead tending to a lawn or trees and wont waste money paying someone else to do so.

And if kids are crippled by polio, that's ok with them. They'll turn them into beggars, making them fend for themselves. Their culture of no mercy, it is the will of Allah makes them strong in their eyes. They view Americans the way street wise Londoners in the 18th century viewed the men and women in white powdered wigs inside their horse-drawn carriages, shoving perfumed handkerchieves up their noses at the horror of it all.

by Anonymousreply 115May 8, 2014 4:50 PM

Dumb question, but the kids showering weekly in the 60s and 70s... What was the reasoning behind that?

by Anonymousreply 116May 8, 2014 4:53 PM

Lots of people used perfume to cover body odor. That's the actual reason perfume was invented in the first place.

by Anonymousreply 117May 8, 2014 4:56 PM

My late grandmother talked about life before deodorant. She said they had ewers of water and basins in their bedrooms to freshen up, sometimes several times a day. They used scented toilet water and talcum powder and in hot weather they would also dust their underarms with baking soda. "Toilet water" or "eau de toilette" was a lightly scented cologne that was in common use at the time. Its name came from toilette, the word toilet not being used to refer to a bathroom appliance until years later when indoor plumbing was the norm.

She remembered her sister bringing home a jar of Mum, a much talked about new product that had arrived at the drugstore.

She said she didn't recall anyone around her having a problem with natural body odor. She believed we were propagandized into believing we have odor problems by merchandisers.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 118May 8, 2014 4:57 PM

Because after 1 week, they started to mold.

by Anonymousreply 119May 8, 2014 4:59 PM

[quote] Autism = "feeblemindedness", "idiocy", "lunacy", etc. or just garden-variety eccentric. Many of those types wound up ostracized, objects of abuse or targets of (literal) witch hunts.

You mean like village idiots?

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 120May 8, 2014 5:10 PM

I think people shower way more than necessary in modern times. Unless you work outdoors or live in a very humid/hot climate, you can shower 3-5 days per week and be fine.

by Anonymousreply 121May 8, 2014 5:15 PM

Yes, R122, among other things. Asperger's types would just be seen as oddballs, but the truly afflicted would be "village idiots" and the like.

by Anonymousreply 122May 8, 2014 5:16 PM

[quote]Unless you work outdoors or live in a very humid/hot climate, you can shower 3-5 days per week and be fine.

I agree, that said, our summers are as hot and humid as any, I shower every day then and sometimes more often.

in the winter I shower naturally less often.

by Anonymousreply 123May 8, 2014 5:18 PM

R123, I disagree. If I go a day without showering (as I might do on an occasional weekend day if I know I'm not going out) I feel really gross.

by Anonymousreply 124May 8, 2014 5:19 PM

I'm hairy, I sweat and I take a dump every day. There is absolutely no way I'm foregoing a daily shower, unless I'm camping or there's some other extenuating circumstances.

by Anonymousreply 125May 8, 2014 5:22 PM

R123 is a nasty, disgusting pig.

by Anonymousreply 126May 8, 2014 5:24 PM

R123 here. I shower every other day unless I've been sweating more than usual. I have a desk job and am in my car most of the time so showering everyday is just silly and a waste of water. Not to mention that daily showers dry out my skin. I stopped showering everyday about a year ago. After a certain point, it felt weird to be standing underneath a stream of water when I simply didn't feel or look dirty.

by Anonymousreply 127May 8, 2014 5:27 PM

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

by Anonymousreply 128May 8, 2014 5:28 PM

LOL R128. I hope you don't have dry skin because if you do, I doubt you're doing yourself any good by showering everyday.

by Anonymousreply 129May 8, 2014 5:28 PM

[quote][R123] here. I shower every other day unless I've been sweating more than usual. I have a desk job and am in my car most of the time so showering everyday is just silly and a waste of water. Not to mention that daily showers dry out my skin. I stopped showering everyday about a year ago. After a certain point, it felt weird to be standing underneath a stream of water when I simply didn't feel or look dirty.

I hope that, in the very least, you're washing your ass on those showerless days. Because if not...ewwwww!!

by Anonymousreply 130May 8, 2014 5:40 PM

Living in NYC any time of year and with a daily commute on the subways, walking through streets where the urine and garbage scent has been baked in after a century that no amount of gentrification can undo, I shower every damn day.

by Anonymousreply 131May 8, 2014 5:46 PM

R129 - showering every day is a 'waste of water' how? Is water like oil, a finite resource? Sigh. The idiocy on this board today is killing me.

R133 - I've lived here 20 years and I have NO idea what you are talking about. It rains, washing away the pee, and voila. Pee doesn't 'cake' into cement. And even if it did, they repave and resurface roads and sidewalks every 5 years or so.

Is this Dumb Day, or what?

by Anonymousreply 132May 8, 2014 6:36 PM

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

by Anonymousreply 133May 8, 2014 6:39 PM

R134, have you ever heard of a drought? Water conservation is a huge issue, particularly in the Western states that don't get as much annual rainfall.

by Anonymousreply 134May 8, 2014 6:42 PM

R134,

Where have you been? Fresh water is absolutely a finite resource: due to population explosion, run off into oceans (at which point it can only be reclaimed by expensive as hell desalination plants).

Here, in America, we've just begun treating sewage and sending it back into the pipes as drinking water. (Their was a feature in Bloomberg Magazine, and many others, about this a few weeks ago.)

Netflix has a few documentaries on this, including Blue Gold.

by Anonymousreply 135May 8, 2014 6:44 PM

*there, of course.

by Anonymousreply 136May 8, 2014 6:46 PM

For r134. Welcome to Dumb Day, so glad you could be here.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 137May 8, 2014 6:51 PM

There may be water shortages in times of drought in certain dry locations, but there is no shortage of water on the planet.

Fresh water is renewed constantly.

If people didn't "use" it, it would just flow into the ocean.

This high drama about water being a finite resource is complete bullshit by people with an agenda.

by Anonymousreply 138May 8, 2014 6:56 PM

R140,

And your credentials are what, exactly?

by Anonymousreply 139May 8, 2014 6:58 PM

R140, you might need to go live in Nevada.

by Anonymousreply 140May 8, 2014 6:58 PM

r141 has never seen rain.

by Anonymousreply 141May 8, 2014 7:00 PM

For the people who slept through grammar school.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 142May 8, 2014 7:01 PM

Desalination plants provide jobs, and should be subsidized by the taxpayer, just like banks and mortgages are.

Setting that aside, most people don't live in deserts. They live in areas with abundant fresh water. Deal with it.

by Anonymousreply 143May 8, 2014 7:08 PM

For 144 (there has been an update since grammar school in the Pleistocene era):

The Hydrological Cycle

The hydrological cycle begins with evaporation from the surface of the ocean or land, continues as the atmosphere redistributes the water vapor to locations where it forms clouds, and then returns to the surface as precipitation. The cycle ends when the precipitation is either absorbed into the ground or runs off to the ocean, beginning the process over again.

Key changes to the hydrological cycle (associated with an increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the resulting changes in climate) include:

Changes in the seasonal distribution and amount of precipitation.

An increase in precipitation intensity under most situations.

Changes in the balance between snow and rain.

Increased evapotranspiration and a reduction in soil moisture.

Changes in vegetation cover resulting from changes in temperature and precipitation.

Consequent changes in management of land resources.

Accelerated melting glacial ice.

Increases in fire risk in many areas.

Increased coastal inundation and wetland loss from sea level rise.

Effects of CO2 on plant physiology, leading to reduced transpiration and increased water use efficiency (Goudie 2006).

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 144May 8, 2014 7:15 PM

R144,

You really should seek post-elementary school education.

by Anonymousreply 145May 8, 2014 7:20 PM

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

by Anonymousreply 146May 8, 2014 7:37 PM

Notice in the movies the monarchs usually the Queen always holding a bouquet of flowers when meeting with her council..to ward off the stench of unwashed bodies. Can you imagine how the women must have smelled after having their monthly period...Interesting the Romans loved their baths and were careful about hygiene.mankind regressed.

by Anonymousreply 147May 8, 2014 7:50 PM

To the one asking about a reference for Egyptians at the time of Napoleon's invasion complaining of their body odor, read Al-Jabarti's account, available on Amazon.

by Anonymousreply 148May 8, 2014 8:04 PM

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 149May 8, 2014 8:04 PM

Keep in mind, Western Europe was covered by dense forests in medieval times. They didn't have the luxury of building cities and aqueducts connected to bath houses like they did in places without forests. The drier, sunnier climes were either natural unforested or long deforested (Greece, Sicily, Egypt, Iraq). The longer the human habitation, the more degraded the environment. The Middle East has long been inhabited by humans and their vegetation-devouring goats and sheep. No surprise forests disappeared thousands of years ago.

Remember references to the great lion of Judah? There hasn't been a lion in Israel for thousands of years. At one time, there were woodlands and grasslands with lions and hyenas other African wildlife, but the continued habitation of the area guaranteed the woodland would be decimated for early building and for burning wood. The woodlands would not regenerate thanks to ungulate herding and feeding. So you get rainfall that washes away topsoil and are left with an environment of rocky, sandy, poor soil.

A continent of thick, dark forests, on the other hand, made it difficult for small groups of people to chop down enough wood to make a city. So it took a lot longer for cities to be connected to each other with roads, and for ideas about good sanitation to be implemented. Romans never managed to fully conquer the colder, forested northern parts of Europe. Entire Roman legions disappeared in Northern European forests.

by Anonymousreply 150May 8, 2014 8:17 PM

R148 First of all thank you for saying what needed to be said. Second, those stews sound just FOUL. I can't stand the idea of bathing in a tub in a hotel because I know how many others have previously done so. Can you imagine dipping into the same water?? Just one gigantic petri dish.

by Anonymousreply 151May 8, 2014 8:55 PM

Hope you're never hospitalized, R153. Thousands of germ-ridden people have slept in those beds on those sheets; shat on those toilets; peed into commodes.

Here's the funny thing -- we used to sterilize and reuse things like metal bedpans, washbasins, urinals p. meals were served with regular crockery which went down to the kitchen and was washed in the dishwasher and reused. We only used gloves when we had to change a dirty bed. Then AIDS came along and everything changed. Everyone wore gloves all the time, disposable crockery and bedpans became the norm. It costs billions of dollars every year to use these disposable items. Yet the hospitals are full of germ resistant bacteria now.

Back when we reused sterilized and surgically clean items and only wore gloves when handling bodily fluids, we never had MRSA or C Diff exploding on wards. We washed our hands all the time. But because of AIDS paranoia, billions were added to health care costs annually for equipment and now billions are added to treat resistant bacteria. I'm convinced it's not just overuse of antibiotics which caused this situation. I think the decline of using soap and water to clean hands and sticking hands in garbage pails all the time to discard disposable items contributed to it.

by Anonymousreply 152May 8, 2014 9:42 PM

Oh ITA. Whenever I am hospitalized(usually for detox) I do not go anywhere near the shower. Disgusting, yes. But true.

by Anonymousreply 153May 8, 2014 9:47 PM

Re people and their nether regions being too smelly to deal with "face first", as it were, considering how infrequently they bathed in medieval Europe, wouldn't it be true that lack of bathing actually meant that crotches and armpits packed an overwhelming pheromone punch, do that when you went down there you didn't smell stench. Sort if makes sense.

by Anonymousreply 154May 10, 2014 6:50 PM

R58, that is both interesting and disgusting. Motive is right! He sounds like a TRUE Masshole.

by Anonymousreply 155May 13, 2014 3:22 PM

Cheryl should go into the field of medieval history.

by Anonymousreply 156May 13, 2014 3:45 PM

These days people living in the United States, who are also living in extreme poverty, especially the homeless have the same problem. Through no fault of their own, the prices of soap, doing laundry, toothpaste, toilet paper, shampoo, etc. are out of their reach. Taking showers at shelters is dangerous. If the person taking the shower, especially women, have no one to stand there and watch out for them tragic circumstances often happen. People think the very poor and homeless want to be dirty and stink. They don't. If you have a choice between buying some food or soap you will pick food every time.

by Anonymousreply 157May 13, 2014 4:55 PM

dump

by Anonymousreply 158May 13, 2014 6:47 PM

For all the supposed cleanliness of some Asian countries (that would be nowadays), I'm sure there was plenty of filthy, unsanitary and poopy conditions in medieval Asia.

by Anonymousreply 159May 13, 2014 6:49 PM

Gays stink. Why is it you have to tell guys to take a shower?

by Anonymousreply 160December 17, 2017 2:30 PM

Further to the comment made by R17 , when the Tudor ship The Mary Rose was excavated, the archaeologists were surprised at the cavity-free state of the teeth on the sailors' skeletons likely due to a diet of course bread and lentils and virtually no sugar. One amusing anecdote: a foreign visitor to England remarked that Queen Elizabeth I was so hygienic that she had a bath once a year "whether she needed one or not". I suspect that having a submersion bath in the 16th century was labour intensive without the convenience of indoor plumbing.

by Anonymousreply 161December 17, 2017 3:30 PM

R13, and frauen will spread their legs to get the payoff. Their not looking for a "good father", they just want to find a way to stay home and have someone pay their way and watch Judge Judy.

by Anonymousreply 162December 17, 2017 4:00 PM

[quote]...but find myself thinking how rank people must've smelled back then.

Back then? Someone has to point out that Game of Thrones isn't historical, it's not even set on our planet.

by Anonymousreply 163December 17, 2017 4:05 PM

Elaborate skin care preparations were made centuries ago.

Marie Antoinette, each morning, cleansed her face with Eau Cosmétique de Pigeon (yes, it was really made with pigeons). The Toilette Of Health, Beauty, And Fashion shared the recipe, first used by Danish women, with their readers:

“Take juice of water-lilies, of melons, of cucumbers, of lemons, each one ounce; briony, wild succory, lily-flowers, borage, beans, of each a handful: eight pigeons stewed. Put the whole mixture into an alembic, adding four ounces of lump sugar, well pounded, one drachma of borax, the same quantity of camphor, the crumb of three French rolls, and a pint of white wine. When the whole has remained in digestion for seventeen or eighteen days, proceed to distillation, and you will obtain pigeon-water, which is such an improvement of the complexion.”

After cleansing her skin, she would apply Eau des Charmes, an astringent, and finally, Eau d’Ange, a whitener. To keep her hands soft, the Queen slept wearing gloves infused with sweet almond oil, rose water, and wax.

Unlike most people at Versailles she bathed frequently, but always wearing a flannel chemise to protect her modesty. Once in the bathtub, she would wash herself with a scented (bergamot, amber and herbs) soap, exfoliated her skin with muslin pads filled with bran, all the while sitting on a large pad filled with pine nuts, linseed, and sweet almonds.

by Anonymousreply 164December 17, 2017 4:11 PM

Most people washed themselves. Showers didn't exist and only the rich could afford to heat enough water to take immersive baths, but everyone washed themselves down with a sponge bath or cat bath or bathing in a shallow basin that didn't require much water. For that all you needed was a bucket or basin of water, hopefully warmed, and maybe some soap. Now how often everyone washed I'm not sure, for some it may have been weekly, daily for others.

Which I point out every time one of these threads come up.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 165December 17, 2017 4:19 PM

[quote] I suspect that having a submersion bath in the 16th century was labour intensive without the convenience of indoor plumbing.

Not really R161

6 servants, each with a bucket of warm water fill up a tub, takes no time at all. Another bucket to rinse off and voila, done.

by Anonymousreply 166December 17, 2017 4:19 PM

Public bathhouses also existed in the middle ages, and they don't seem to have been segregated by sex.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 167December 17, 2017 4:21 PM

R166, do you have any idea how much time it takes to heat six buckets of water, if all you have is a fireplace or wood or coal stove?

Oh sure, if you lived in the 16th century you probably had six or ten servants to carry the water from the cookhouse to your tub, no worries there, but you had to give Cook notice in the morning if you wanted a bath in the evening, so she should start heating the water, or better yet, the night before so she could have extra water drawn from the well and carried into the house, and maybe have someone cut down a tree so you'd have enough firewood to heat all that bathwater. Of course if you didn't afford enough wood or coal to heat all that wood and enough children or servants to draw and transport all the water you'd need, you washed in a quart of warm water and thanked God above you didn't have to break the ice on it.

by Anonymousreply 168December 17, 2017 5:23 PM
Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 169December 17, 2017 5:27 PM

Regards oral health - there's a reason we have Wisdom teeth. Well even that's starting to fade from the population now.

by Anonymousreply 170December 17, 2017 6:33 PM

Not only didn’t they bathe often (or at all) but in many cases the clothing of the rich couldn’t be washed either. The dresses were embroidered with rich things like pearls and precious and semi precious stones, and expensive metal threads of gold or silver. The best they could do was to air them out, and gently beat them with special wands for the task that fluffed the dust (and probably bugs) off them. Cedar wardrobes and chests probably helped, if they had access to one. But undergarments were said to be a mess, almost never removed.

by Anonymousreply 171December 17, 2017 6:44 PM

From the middle ages to the early 20th century, rich clothes that couldn't be washed were kept from contact with the skin with undergarments that could. The undergarments could absorb the sweat and be washed regularly, and a rich person would change their undergarments daily but their servants or servs would only have one "shift" that might be washed once a week or never, depending.

So yeah, if the servants washed daily with a basin of water and wore the same undergarments every day, their skin might be cleaner than we'd assume but they'd still stink.

by Anonymousreply 172December 17, 2017 7:00 PM

Between back-breaking farming and cold-ass winters, I'm surprised they got their sex on. —Anonymous

by Anonymousreply 173December 17, 2017 8:31 PM

if you eat good food that isn't full of processed sugar you don't even need toilet paper. we used to shit like other animals cats and dogs who poop fully formed hard mucous encased shit. bad breath was not an issue even 100 yrs ago. the term "halitosis" was made up when the guy who made listerine failed to sell it to hospitals as a cleaner, so he marketed it as a mouth rinse. he invented the shame industry that flourishes to this day to the tune of billions a year.

by Anonymousreply 174December 17, 2017 9:09 PM

Mucuous encased? Really?

by Anonymousreply 175December 17, 2017 9:17 PM

R174 nasty ass. NASTY ASS!

by Anonymousreply 176December 17, 2017 9:19 PM

In a thousand years, people will look back at us for our own hygiene issues, though they’ll note that there were vast improvements in the 20th and 21st centuries.

by Anonymousreply 177December 17, 2017 9:34 PM

When you're horny enough, bad odors are not a deterrent.

by Anonymousreply 178December 18, 2017 4:41 AM

I don't think people became nasty about hygiene until the Middle Ages. The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans reveled in luxurious baths with herbs and flowers and such. I don't believe it was only the wealthy either. Remember the rich slept with their servants and slaves so I suspect they would went them clean-ish as well.

In England, however, where it's often chilly year-round, people probably hated bathing, including royalty. Even today, I find London much nastier with B.O. than Paris.

by Anonymousreply 179December 18, 2017 5:05 AM

Whale blubber. Everyone used it for everything. That is why Ahab was so intent on capturing Moby Dick.

by Anonymousreply 180December 18, 2017 5:12 AM

Bet the lezbos enjoyed their tasty treats. Constant fish breath - yum yum

by Anonymousreply 181December 18, 2017 5:21 AM

They gave each other piss baths. I've been told that some people still practice that ancient tradition.

by Anonymousreply 182December 18, 2017 5:39 AM

OP, in the books, Cersei swishes with lemon water to freshen her breath and Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish chews mint. At one point Lysa Arryn tells Sansa how disgusting Jon Arryn’s breath was with his rotted teeth, especially noticeable during sex. I know she’s cray but I always felt badly for her for being married off to that stinky old man.

by Anonymousreply 183December 18, 2017 6:38 AM

Most Europeans did not bathe and considered bathing a sin of immodesty and/or decadence.

by Anonymousreply 184December 18, 2017 6:49 AM

R11, I think there's the story that Napoleon was once on his way back to France, and he dispatched a courrier to Josephine, with the message:"On my way home. Don't wash."

by Anonymousreply 185December 18, 2017 6:49 AM

No, R180, read R164.

Even in the 1700s they had rather sophisticated ablution methods, if you chose to be clean.

[quote]True story: when Napoleon invaded Egypt, one of the biggest complaints about the French was their body odor.

See R185.

[quote]"Ne te lave pas... J'arrive!" (don't wash ... I'm coming) is a dictum attributed both to Henri IV (who supposedly wrote it to Gabrielle d'Estrées) and Napoleon (who supposedly wrote it to Josephine). As of January 2016, its earliest instance in print was in 1967.

In either case, we're talking about weeks or months even between the time the letter was written and the arrival of the man. I tend to believe that Napoleon would have written this, as Josephine was known to bathe frequently.

by Anonymousreply 186December 18, 2017 7:06 AM

I know this isn’t medieval, but it seems like the Hanoverians were concerned with cleanliness. King George IV, before becoming king, was reportedly appalled at the condition of the German princess he was introduced to for marriage because she smelled and her clothes were dirty. He guzzled a glass of brandy immediately when meeting her.

by Anonymousreply 187December 18, 2017 12:46 PM

Queen Isabella was reported to have only taken 2 baths during her life. One upon birth and the other on her wedding night.

by Anonymousreply 188December 18, 2017 12:50 PM

^^^ Isabella I or II ? Because Isabella II looked monstrously fat and I can easily imagine her stinking of BO, shit, and bad pussy and then covering it up with expensive fragrances from her dominions.

by Anonymousreply 189December 18, 2017 12:55 PM

I’ve read that basically the dark ages and late medieval eras were far cleaner than early modern period. Specifically— people stopped bathing after the Black Plague. Water got a bad reputation and doctors said bathing was risky. Bathing finally came back in mid 18C.

by Anonymousreply 190December 18, 2017 1:24 PM

I know it’s not the Middle Ages but when Marie Antoinette was a child she had braces on her teeth. That was like 1750 something! That fact always fascinated me.

by Anonymousreply 191December 18, 2017 2:07 PM

^^^probabky to try to minimize how messed up her teeth probably looked as a result of the Habsburg Jaw most people in her family had.

by Anonymousreply 192December 18, 2017 3:04 PM

I've read that modern deodorants help keep BO in check, but they also can make BO simultaneously worse. Our bodies become reliant on deodorants to help control the smell and as a result if we accidentally skip deodorant a day the smell is immediately and noticeably bad. However, in places where deodorant isn't used or isn't available (and therefore not used every day), body is better able to mitigate the smell. Something about using deodorant kills off whatever the natural defenses the body has against developing bad BO. Granted, I think this assumes the person is able to bathe regularly.

by Anonymousreply 193December 18, 2017 9:44 PM

In reference to bathing as recently as the '60s and '70s, most Americans I knew showered daily. The old people were the ones who tended not to, and stuck with their stankier habits of the previous century. I also lived in Japan for a while then, and they were far cleaner than we were in their bathing habits, but still had open sewers running along the streets and sidewalks. Wacky.

by Anonymousreply 194December 19, 2017 7:21 PM

All I know is in the past when I've visited it stunk to high heaven.

by Anonymousreply 195February 5, 2018 12:44 AM

Queen Isabella was reported to have only taken two baths in her lifetime. Once upon birth and on her wedding night. That bitch smelled like fish/shit.

by Anonymousreply 196February 5, 2018 11:50 AM

[quote]R32

I was in the MFA in Boston recently. One of the Greek vases has an image of a man wiping his ass with a rounded stone.

by Anonymousreply 197February 5, 2018 12:31 PM

OP. I think about this all the time when I watch movies about this period. Were the women really hairy? Shaving is more of a modern requisite, yes? Were they all super hairy like the men?

by Anonymousreply 198February 5, 2018 12:31 PM

[quote]I’ve read that basically the dark ages and late medieval eras were far cleaner than early modern period.

I've read that too. Perhaps a holdover from Roman era baths. Bathing was a very important part of ancient Roman culture and I can see that carrying over.

I know Beau Brummell brought cleanliness and good hygiene back to the upper classes during his heyday and insisted on clean linen and regular bathing. He even had audiences come to his rooms to watch.

by Anonymousreply 199February 5, 2018 12:32 PM

R198, hair removal has been around forever. The Egyptians plucked, sugared, waxed and shaved to avoid lice. More than likely Roman women did the same. Women in the harems also practiced hair removal.

by Anonymousreply 200February 5, 2018 12:36 PM

ancient greeks used an instrument called a strigil to scrape their skin clean, usually after oiling it. These can be seen in museums

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 201February 5, 2018 1:13 PM

Native American Indian women used softened corn cobs as tampons. It was actually quite absorbent. They gave birth by standing up against tall trees.

by Anonymousreply 202February 5, 2018 1:16 PM

in the rural south, well into the 20th, poor people used corn cobs to wipe their asses. also the sears roebucks catalogues were recycled as wiping material in outhouses.

by Anonymousreply 203February 5, 2018 1:26 PM

R198, I recall a line in some ancient greek play about women "plucking their deltas clean", so yeah, hair removal has been around forever!

And since every model in every nude painting for the next two millennia is lacking hair down there, I'm assuming that women found some way to keep things bare down there. Or at least, the sort of women who were willing to show the world did.

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 204February 6, 2018 12:15 AM

[quote]And since every model in every nude painting for the next two millennia is lacking hair down there

Those models were fat and idealized anyway so they artists left it out or maybe they tucked that bush hair up between their layers of extra skin. Not a lot of full beaver shots in the museums.

Wiping your ass with a stone might work to get the big bits, but wouldn't be a completely fresh modern wipe.

by Anonymousreply 205February 6, 2018 12:48 AM

[quote]And since every model in every nude painting for the next two millennia is lacking hair down there.

then we change the world

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 206February 6, 2018 12:50 AM

I bet half the population died of VD.

by Anonymousreply 207February 6, 2018 1:38 AM

I read an account from Marilyn Monroe once where she said as the youngest in the household (and usually a foster child) she would be last after everyone else had bathed in the same water (probably once a week, too).

The idea. Was water billed by the gallon?

I'd rather not bathe at all than wash in everyone's funk soup.

by Anonymousreply 208February 6, 2018 1:44 AM

Think of the old west. They were basically operating at medieval levels when it came to bathing. They used barrels and bucket showers or just plan bucket. Take a bit of soap, dip it in a bucket of warm water, lather yourself up, then pour the bucket of water over yourself. Easiest way to use warm water.

by Anonymousreply 209February 6, 2018 3:39 PM
Loading
Need more help? Click Here.

Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.

×

Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!