Why the hell did people in the old times not bathe?

[DigDug]

I've always wondered this, and in light of the recent posts on middle ages and old west and the filth this peopel lived in, I thought I'd ask.

It makes no sense. There was no technoligical barrier to good hygeine. Bad hygeine wasn't a "silent killer" that went unnoticed (the smell would have been a tip off to me), and there was enough water to bathe at least somewhat more frequently than these human pigs did. In all those god damn years, why didn't someone just decide to bathe more frequently?

 

[iamme]

I always thought it was because of lack of running hot water......

 

[DigDug]

If I smelled like a months worth of sweatiness, I'd try to take a bath in a mud puddle.

 

[etalns]

Originally posted by: iamme
I always thought it was because of lack of running hot water......

same

 

[iamme]

As gross as it sounds, I think that people were used of the smell. I mean, you and everyone around you smells like that 24-7.....I think you'd get used of it.

 

[LordMaul]

It was a widely accepted fact that bathing would make you sick, so they did it as little as possible (basically).

 

[Brutuskend]

I know a lot of the Europeans thought it was unhealthy TO bathe....
Ever see the movie about Marco Polo??


Edit: Dang lordmaul beat me to the punch....sorta

 

[iamme]

As a scientific experiment, I propose that BlipBlop see how long he can go without bathing......and then return with his observations of how people reacted to him

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: BlipBlop
I've always wondered this, and in light of the recent posts on middle ages and old west and the filth this peopel lived in, I thought I'd ask.

It makes no sense. There was no technoligical barrier to good hygeine. Bad hygeine wasn't a "silent killer" that went unnoticed (the smell would have been a tip off to me), and there was enough water to bathe at least somewhat more frequently than these human pigs did. In all those god damn years, why didn't someone just decide to bathe more frequently?

The Romans and Greeks did bathe quite frequently. But with the advent of Christianity in Rome, bathing was seen as sinful because it required one to be naked (no sh!t). Bathing was frowned upon, and to be done as little as possible. While the Romans had indoor plumbing, Christainity set that back another 1500 years or so. Over time, the smell was actually appreciated, as evidenced in a homecoming letter Napoleon wrote to Josephine telling her to not bathe before he came home.

It wasn't until the late 19th century that bathing started to come back into favor, and not in Europe, but the US. Believe it our not, the practice of frequent bathing was not reintroduced for hygiene, but as the result of an aggressive advertising campaign by soap companies. In fact, "cleanliness is next to godliness" was not a slogan started by the church, but by soap companies. More interestingly, personal hygiene in most areas of Europe lagged behind that of the US all the way up until the last few decades (and still does in some areas).

So, next time you're thankful people bathe, thank capitalism.

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: iamme
I always thought it was because of lack of running hot water......

it was.

 

[DigDug]

Wow.

I don't think I could EVER "appreciate" a woman's unbathed smell, especially down over in the old Cave of Thigh Mountain.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: BlipBlop
Wow.

I don't think I could EVER "appreciate" a woman's unbathed smell, especially down over in the old Cave of Thigh Mountain.

You would if you'd never known anything else.

 

[fr]

haha

 

[andrey]

People didn't have soap back than either, and you can't clean too much dirt w/o soap....

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: andrey
People didn't have soap back than either, and you can't clean too much dirt w/o soap....

Huh? Soap has been around in one form or another since at least 2000 BC and is cited in early Sumerian and Assyrian tablets, as well as in Egyptian papyri. Both the Romans and the Greeks had fat and oil based soaps (basically what soap is today).

 

[StattlichPassat]

I think it was just a lack of convinence (running water, or even clean water). Even queens back in the day in France only washed their hair twice a week... and THAT was a luxury! I visited the Palace of Versailles a couple weeks ago, and they said that they would have to periodically evacuate the place for a few days and open all the windows to let the place air out way back when. Same way in London- do you know why the English Royalty orginally had 7 palaces built? They stink up one, and move onto the next as the year and weather changes progressed. I'm not kidding. They told me that at Windsor Palace in London (not the primary reason, but one that's doggone up on the list).

 

[StattlichPassat]

More interestingly, personal hygiene in most areas of Europe lagged behind that of the US all the way up until the last few decades (and still does in some areas).

So, next time you're thankful people bathe, thank capitalism.

Cool, interesting post! You're correct though- when I went to London a few weeks ago, our tour guide (who stayed with us the entire two weeks my group was abroad) never used deodorant. Little English guy, very friendly, smelled the worst of any person I had been around... and it's ok there! We were like that too as late as the early 1900s.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: AmusedOne

Originally posted by: BlipBlop
I've always wondered this, and in light of the recent posts on middle ages and old west and the filth this peopel lived in, I thought I'd ask.

It makes no sense. There was no technoligical barrier to good hygeine. Bad hygeine wasn't a "silent killer" that went unnoticed (the smell would have been a tip off to me), and there was enough water to bathe at least somewhat more frequently than these human pigs did. In all those god damn years, why didn't someone just decide to bathe more frequently?

The Romans and Greeks did bathe quite frequently. But with the advent of Christianity in Rome, bathing was seen as sinful because it required one to be naked (no sh!t). Bathing was frowned upon, and to be done as little as possible. While the Romans had indoor plumbing, Christainity set that back another 1500 years or so. Over time, the smell was actually appreciated, as evidenced in a homecoming letter Napoleon wrote to Josephine telling her to not bathe before he came home.

It wasn't until the late 19th century that bathing started to come back into favor, and not in Europe, but the US. Believe it our not, the practice of frequent bathing was not reintroduced for hygiene, but as the result of an aggressive advertising campaign by soap companies. In fact, "cleanliness is next to godliness" was not a slogan started by the church, but by soap companies. More interestingly, personal hygiene in most areas of Europe lagged behind that of the US all the way up until the last few decades (and still does in some areas).

So, next time you're thankful people bathe, thank capitalism.

If you think back over history, it's almost upsetting to think about what Christianity did to us back then. Just imagine about how much more advanced we would be as a society..

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: NightFlyerGTI
I think it was just a lack of convinence (running water, or even clean water). Even queens back in the day in France only washed their hair twice a week... and THAT was a luxury! I visited the Palace of Versailles a couple weeks ago, and they said that they would have to periodically evacuate the place for a few days and open all the windows to let the place air out way back when. Same way in London- do you know why the English Royalty orginally had 7 palaces built? They stink up one, and move onto the next as the year and weather changes progressed. I'm not kidding. They told me that at Windsor Palace in London (not the primary reason, but one that's doggone up on the list).

Again, convinence had nothing to do with it. The technology for indoor plumbing and heated water had existed for over two thousand years before the middle ages.

A quote from a website on the history of bathing:

Europeans have an interesting history of bathing. Long before they turned Christian, Scandinavians and Germans bathed naked in lakes and rivers during the summer months, and in public baths during the winter. With the advent of Christianity nakedness came to be associated with vulgarity, lascivious thoughts and, therefore, sinful. St Agnes (d. 1077) never took a bath; St Margaret never washed herself; Pope Clement IIIissued an edict forbidding bathing or even wetting one?s face on Sundays. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the practice of bathing in rivers was frowned upon. In 1736 in Baden (Germany), the authorities issued a warning to students against "the vulgar, dangerous and shocking practice of bathing."

As I said before, frequent bathing did not come back into practice until the late 19th century when soap companies seeked to increase their market. And even then, Europe still, through a by then long held tradition, did not bathe frquently until the last couple of decades.

 

[Jimbo]

If you think back over history, it's almost upsetting to think about what Christianity did to us back then. Just imagine about how much more advanced we would be as a society..

Really, it goes back to the fall of Rome.
I blame the Visogoths!

 

[Nefrodite]

guess none of u watched the pbs series the homesteaders(?) its kinda ike survivor cept u gotta live out in the west like the people that settled it hygene really sucked. they never felt clean. getting up in the morning and putting on crusty socks. washing your hair with nasty soap that leaves residue etc etc etc.


and i guess if u go farther back then that... i think they probably used to believe that bathing too often led to desease? i dunno. catch colds? i dunno no antibiotics and sh*t back then.

 

[Jimbo]

AmusedOne is on to something
Contrary to popular legend, Medieval man loved baths. People probably bathed more than they did in the 19th century, says the great Medievalist Lynn Thorndike. Some castles had a special room beside the kitchen where the ladies might bathe sociably in parties. Hot water, sometimes with perfume or rose leaves, was brought to the lord in the bedchamber and poured into a tub shaped like a half-barrel and containing a stool, so that the occupant could sit and soak long. In the cities there were public baths, or "stews" for the populace.

A Medieval Illustration of an Indoors Bath

A Medieval Woodcut of Two Young Lovers Enjoying a Stew

A Medieval Illustration of a Public Stew

Soap was probably invented in the Orient and brought to the West early in the Middle Ages. This was a soft soap without much detergent power. Generally it was made in the manorial workshops, of accumulated mutton fat, wood ash or potash, and natural soda. Laundresses might also use a solution of lye and fuller's earth or white clay. They worked usually by streamside, rhythmically beating the material with wooden paddles. After the winter's freeze they had a great spring washing of the accumulations. It was on such an occasion in the Merry Wives of Windsor that Falstaff hid in the laundry basket. Hard soaps appeared in the 12th century. They were luxury articles, made of olive oil, soda, and a little lime, often with aromatic herbs. They were manufactured in the olive-growing south, especially Spain; hence the modern Castile soap.

Shaving was difficult, painful, and infrequent, since the soap was inefficient and razors, which looked like carving knives and perhaps substituted for them at need, were likely to be old and dull. Even haircutting was disagreeable. Scissors were of the one-piece squeeze type, similar to grass trimming shears; they must have pulled mightily. Although by the thirteenth century a few aristocrats had tooth brushes, the toilet of the teeth was generally accomplished by rubbing with a green hazel twig and wiping with a woolen cloth.



- The Middle Ages. Morris Bishop. New York: American Heritage Press, 1970.

LINK

 

[Nefrodite]

heh but still.. only the rich would have the time/resources to heat up large volumes of water with any frequency

 

[slikmunks]

gross.... just gross....

 

[tcsenter]

The Romans and Greeks did bathe quite frequently. But with the advent of Christianity in Rome, bathing was seen as sinful because it required one to be naked (no sh!t). Bathing was frowned upon, and to be done as little as possible. While the Romans had indoor plumbing, Christainity set that back another 1500 years or so.

If there is a single redeeming quality to religion today, it cannot POSSIBLY 'undue' or 'make-up' for all of the persecutions and killings and molestation and rape and corruption and stupidity and fear and paranoia and superstition and all of the lives destroyed or made materially more difficult and full of pain and suffering caused by Christianity, primarily of the Catholic form.

The public baths mentioned above as favored by the Greeks and Romans were the result of massive public works projects that were only feasible in cities. Actually having a bath in one's home was an expense and luxury only afforded by the very wealthy.

Being only one generation removed from people raised in poverty that made the Ingalls' Family from "Little House on the Prairie" look like privileged barons, I can tell you that, for most people living before the industrial age, there weren't enough hours in the day to bathe often. It was all you could do to accomplish the basic necessities of living from day to day, from the crack of dawn to dusk you worked in order to stay one step ahead of all the inclement realities of life.

Many people couldn't afford to dig a well as the tools and equipment were not 'free' nor were they even readily available in many places. Ever watch the PBS Series "Frontier House"? The one family was only 150 feet from their source of water, a stream, and you see how much work it was carrying water.

My mother's family was 300 YARDS from their nearest source of water. Try carrying as much water as you can possibly shoulder once every day, 300 YARDS, then justify using a single drop of it for anything other than drinking and cooking. It was not uncommon for families to be more than a half mile away from the nearest source of fresh water. It required a helluva lot of work to be 'clean' back then, work that was not always compatible with other pressing priorities.

IOW, people were fsvcking poor, dude.