Today’s Unwashed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
The signers of the Declaration of Independence probably stank; so did Queen Elizabeth I; so did the Renaissance popes. And, without a doubt, poor people of those eras stank. We’re talking body odor from weeks of unwashed flesh, armpits that would empty a modern day elevator. Simple daily hygiene that we take for granted and expect was actively discouraged as downright sinful for more than a thousand years. Although we’ve heard repeatedly the Christian piety, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” this is a relatively recent piety.
From the fall of the Roman Empire through the Victorian era, it could be said that personal dirtiness was next to godliness. The Romans and their conquered subjects built elaborate public baths that could rival modern-day health spas, with art galleries, libraries, gorgeous gardens. Bathers – poor or rich – stripped, selected perfume oils, perhaps exercised, sweated in the dry heat, then entered the main domed “caldarium. Many of the little walled-off areas featured wall jets spouting various perfumes: you might choose between sensual, flowery or invigorating scents, depending on what activity you planned for later. Nearby, masseurs stood ready to unknot muscles. Prostitutes lay ready for further relaxation.
While public baths started out as male only, soon certain hours were set aside for females, then eventually mixed bathing became the fashion. This nude mingling of the sexes outraged the early Christian Fathers. “Women are not ashamed to strip before spectators as if exposing their person for sale,” complained Clement of Alexandria. “[They] bathe with their own servants and strip naked before their slaves, and are rubbed by them.” He pointed out that seeing naked flesh could lead to… sex.
When the barbarians overran the Roman Empire, they physically trashed the marvelous marble and tiled baths. The Christian Fathers finished the destruction of bathing for a millennia by sanctifying disdain for the body. If chastity were higher than marriage, then ignoring the body was higher than indulgent grooming. “The cleanliness of the body was regarded as a pollution of the soul,” writes William Lecky in History of European Morals, “and the saints who were most admired had become one mass of clotted filth.”
- Saint Abraham the hermit refused for fifty years to wash his face or his feet.
- A famous virgin named Silvia, though sixty and sickly, “refused to wash any part of her body except her fingers.”
- Saint Ammon never saw himself naked.
- Saint Simeon Stylites stood unwashed on giant pillars while worms gnawed at his open sores.
- Saint Euphraxia joined a convent of 130 nuns who never washed their feet and were repulsed by even the mention of the word “bath”.
In the Middle Ages, the monks were not quite as fanatical about seeking personal filth; many monasteries allowed brethren two baths a year. The rules at the famed monastery of Cluny mandated three towels for the entire community.
Culled from: An Underground Education
I’m assuming the Romans did actually get into water and wash, but it almost sounds from the description here that their bathing leaned more toward dousing themselves with perfume and socializing.
Actually, people in the Middle Ages weren’t quite as filthy as all that; while they generally weren’t as clean as modern-day First World residents, most people did make some kind of effort. While they may not have had the option to bathe in a tub (although there were indeed people who had and used them), they did at least give themselves sponge baths with a basin of water, soap, and a washcloth; in warmer weather, outdoor bathing in pools, rivers, etc. was extremely popular and engaged in by both sexes, and there were also public bathhouses in the larger cities. It’s too long and involved a topic to really get into here, but considering that 99% of the population didn’t have indoor plumbing of any kind and had to heat up any hot water they needed over the fire, not to mention not having access to ready-made toiletries (although some people did use perfumes, and health and hygiene handbooks of the day often contain recipes for mouthwash, tooth powders, deodorant washes and powders, hair rinses, etc.), they didn’t do too badly overall. It is true, however, that bathing and washing took a serious back seat during the 17th and 18th centuries, with many people becoming almost pathologically afraid of bathing (The hot water might cook their flesh! Bathing renders you more likely to get sick! Sweat is what keeps you clean!); between the lack of hygiene and the overuse of perfume, gatherings of nobles must have been horrendously stinky…at least the commoner herd only smelled of stale sweat, not stale sweat and musk perfume…