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6. Bathing in the Middle Ages was life-threatening?!

Without further ado, let's talk about the most intolerable part of everyday life in medieval Europe - unhygiene!

One thing do you ask, do you usually take a shower once a few days?

As far as the author knows, many women who love cleanliness often take a bath every day, and most people take a bath every two or three days. Even the most unsophisticated men should take a shower at least once a week, otherwise they will feel itchy and uncomfortable.

But you know what? Many Europeans in the Middle Ages often only took two or three baths in their lifetime!

According to some exaggerated statements by historians, medieval Europe was called "a thousand years without bathing"!

-- In medieval Europe, according to the Catholic Church, the filthy body was seen as closer to God, and not bathing became a symbol of holiness! Those who have the courage not to take a bath for many years will even be canonized as saints! Just like the chastity archway that the Chinese praise ****!

Thus, under the **** of this great spiritual encouragement, many devout clergy and Christians began to practice filthy and arduous practices - His Excellency St. Abraham insisted on not washing his face and feet for 5o years, and finally succeeded in canonization.

Monsieur Saint-Simon allowed the worm to arch over his festering wounds, and never washed it until he died.

Madame Saint Eulfracia presided over a convent and taught more than 13o of the most devout nuns, strictly supervising them not to bathe for the rest of their lives.

The mother of King Henry IV of France insisted on not bathing for the rest of her life and was canonized as the Holy Lady of Agnès......

Of course, you could argue that these religious fanatics are all trying to gain prestige, and that challenging the Guinness Book of Records for self-abuse is not representative of the daily lives of the vast majority of normal people - how many unreasonable things have been done by those Guinness record seekers in modern times, leaving aside for the time being, even in ancient China and Japan, there were ascetics and devout Buddhists who would prick their fingers with long needles and bleed into inkstones to copy Buddhist scriptures...... But this does not mean that the ancient Chinese and Japanese liked to play with needles!

Indeed, medieval Europeans were not so unclean from the beginning - the Romans and Greeks before the Middle Ages were very bathing peoples, and almost every Roman city had a large public bath.

And the first group of border barbarians who invaded the Roman Empire also quickly learned this enjoyment and were fascinated by it.

For example, the famous "Whip of God" Hun King Attila once enlisted a large number of Roman prisoners of war to build a very luxurious Romanesque marble luxury bathroom on the steppe.

However, on the whole, the barbarians were more destructive than constructive, and European civilization in the early Middle Ages was constantly regressing.

As the glory of the Roman Empire faded, the advanced engineering techniques of various boiler pipes were lost, and the large public baths of ancient times gradually collapsed and fell into disuse. Medieval Europeans slowly became unable to bathe as well as the ancient Romans.

-- During the Roman Empire, many of the large baths in Rome were as ornate as palaces, but many of them were charitable facilities for the public. It is either completely free or a symbolic fee, no matter how poor ordinary people are, there is a place to wash. But in the Middle Ages, due to the degradation of technology, the ability to build large and complex boilers and pipes was lost, and the cost of bathing in Europeans increased dramatically.

Therefore, in the early Middle Ages, even kings and nobles mostly took a bath once every three months, mainly for four reasons: first, a very delicate cloth or silk should be padded under the bath, so that the body would not be pierced by the wooden thorns of the bath tub when bathing (you can imagine how rough the wooden bathtub was in those days), and the common people could never afford to buy so many high-grade fabrics to pad their buttocks.

The second is the problem of bath water, at that time there was no huge bathhouse in ancient Rome, and boiling a pot of water in a large pot at home was only enough to fill one-third of the bathtub, so it was very troublesome to boil water three times in a hot bath. Moreover, iron pots were also rare and expensive items in early medieval Europe, and many farmers did not even have iron farm tools at home, so they could only use wood, bone, and stone tools to plough the land like primitive people, let alone iron pots.

The third is the soap used by the ancient Romans for bathing (soap made by kneading powdered pine cones with water), sesame oil and spices, which were very expensive in medieval Europe, except for the big nobles above the earl, no one could afford to buy them.

Fourth, the bad influence of feudal superstition, the Catholic Church believes that bathing will damage the vitality of the body, and it is best to take less baths unless it is absolutely necessary (at that time, it was only not advocated, similar to Buddhism's broad statements such as abstaining from alcohol and meat, and abstaining from sex, and later began to be strictly prohibited).

Therefore, most of the Europeans in the early Middle Ages did not take a bath very much, ordinary people could not afford expensive bathing equipment, and many people did not take a good bath once in their lives. The farmer may often swim in the pond, but he never washes himself properly. It is only in some of Italy's Roman cities that there are a number of intact baths, and the citizens have maintained the habit of bathing regularly. (Note that medieval Sicily and Spain, for a long time were Arab territories and were not part of the Catholic world.) ）

Belch? You say that this exaggeration is nonsense, and there are many medieval pictures and documents that record the scenes of Europeans bathing together at that time, and there are also traces of public baths in the ruins of some monasteries and castles?

Well, that's because just as modern fashion trends are always changing, medieval Europeans did not have a constant concept of hygiene for thousands of years.

After the Crusades, the Arabs' bathing methods and large bathhouse construction techniques were slowly introduced to Europe with the returning Crusaders, and cheaper soaps were also discovered. In addition, the Viking pirates of Northern Europe were rampant, and in addition to burning and looting, they also spread the steam baths (saunas) of their homeland to all parts of the world, such as Normandy in France and England in Britain.

Thus, from the 10th century onwards, the Europeans began to slowly build a number of medium and large baths. By 1292, there were already 26 steam rooms and baths in Paris. At that time, there were also special men who walked the streets of Paris and beckoned guests to take a bath.

However, it should be noted that although public baths were already common at that time, they were always explicitly boycotted by the church, but only with little force.

In the concept of Europeans at that time, bathing was actually the same as the ** of modern people, and it was not a good enjoyment to say openly. And the guy who greets the guests to take a bath is basically no different from the **** who pimps the ******** lile - but there were indeed many **** soliciting guests in the bathroom at that time, and in the better steam room, they also provided fine wine and food and a small private room with a bed...... Much like the shampoo room in Dongguan, modern China.

Therefore, the church still regards bathing as a "degenerate" act similar to overeating and alcoholism, those loyal and devout fanatics still insist on not bathing, and priests are strictly forbidden to take baths (whether it can be really carried out is only God knows, at that time there were priests who built luxury bathrooms and maids to take mandarin duck baths in mansions) - in medieval superstitious and ignorant Europe, such guys accounted for a large proportion of the population!

However, in the next century, this good habit of bathing came to an abrupt end in Europe. The main cause was the Black Death.

Beginning in the early 14th century, the Black Death spread across Europe, killing one-third of Europeans, and the Decameron was written during this period. In the aftermath of the catastrophe, Europeans looked for the cause everywhere, and bathing was unfortunately among them. At that time, doctors believed that water would weaken the function of the organs, and that when the pores were fully opened in a hot bath, toxic air would enter the body. Therefore, the more you take a bath, the more likely you are to get sick, only if you don't take a bath can you be healthy, if there is a thick layer of dirt on your body, you can resist the invasion of disease!

Thus, under the fear of the Black Death and the propaganda of the church, Europeans finally entered a "stinking age" in which the whole people did not take a bath

-- The public baths, which were once thriving, were all shut down by fire, and people did not get wet until they had to. Bathing was used as a form of torture and medical treatment, and treatment was given to the mentally ill...... Similar to the modern Professor Yang's use of electroshock therapy to treat Internet addiction.

According to the doctor's orders, the nobles wiped their faces with a dry white cloth every morning for cleanliness, but never with water - the quacks in Europe advised people to clean their faces and eyes only with a dry white cloth. Because washing with water is harmful to eyesight, it can cause dental problems and colds, make the face pale, and be more sensitive to the heat and cold of the weather......

Even in the 17th century, during the reign of King Louis XIV of France, the most clean French noblewoman bathed only twice a year without the advice of a doctor, and usually wiped herself with a dry towel.

King Louis XIV himself had to bathe carefully under the guidance of a physician, bathing only once in the 64 years from 1647 to 1711 – an astonishing record that is still preserved in the daily physical records of Louis XIV's imperial physician.

By the 18th century, King Louis XV of France bathed only three times in his life, one on his birthday, the second on his wedding, and three on his burial.

(Alas, think that Louis XV's famous **** Madame de Pompadour is really pitiful, and she has to deal with such a piece of stinking carrion every day.) ）

But people stink if they don't take a bath, and Europeans don't seem to have **** enough to take stinky as beauty - in France, "the whole aristocratic class, even the king, stenched like a beast of prey, and the queen smelled like an old goat, both in summer and winter." ”

As a result, the French had to devote themselves to the study of perfumes, which were first discovered in ancient India and Persia, and in Europe, the Italians, who inherited the Roman legacy, established the first perfume workshops.

But the craft of perfume in France has always been backward and it was only later that it suddenly flourished...... Because everyone doesn't take a shower anymore!

Such a harsh living environment naturally makes perfume a necessity of life!

-- The French aristocracy first imported a large amount of perfume from Italy, and then decided that it was not cost-effective, so they thought about starting their own perfume workshops. In the era of Louis XVI, he used the power of the whole country to dig up the masters of the Italian perfume industry and laid the foundation of the French perfume industry in one fell swoop.

By the time of the Napoleonic Empire, the science-loving Emperor Napoleon encouraged French scientists to devote themselves to the study of organic chemistry, so that the French perfume industry began to lead the world trend until today......

However, it should be noted that basically only the French and Spaniards who believe in Catholicism in the whole of Europe have done so much in terms of banning bathing. From the 16th and 17th centuries onwards, other countries began to slowly reinstate the habit of bathing, especially in Protestant countries, which usually recovered the earliest times.

The Spaniards, on the other hand, have many colonies located in the tropics, and ordinary people can't survive without bathing when they get there, so the bathing ban is not as strict as the French. The French did not hold out until the eve of the Revolution in the late 18th century, when the bathing ban was largely abolished. Then, during the Napoleonic Empire, the French finally achieved a reversal in the concept of bathing, and began to think that bathing was a healthy way of life.

Therefore, in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages, the French, who later claimed to be romantic and elegant models, were actually the worst in all of Europe. The polite French gentlemen and ladies in the oil paintings are actually sloppy ghosts full of dirt and lice crawling on their heads, all relying on perfume to solve the problem. If you take off all your clothes, many beggars in modern times are definitely cleaner than them!

For example, the legendary English hero King Arthur in the 5th century and Joan of Arc in France in the 15th century, although there are nearly a thousand years apart, I bet that King Arthur must be cleaner than Joan of Arc - since he is a saint, how can he bathe in a depraved **?

Therefore, Joan of Arc is estimated to be a man who does not use perfume or bath...... Plus the smell of leather, horse manure, and blood...... Those traversers who rushed over to her to ask for autographs, be careful not to make you dizzy!

(By the way, Joan of Arc doesn't seem to be literate, but she may still be able to write her own name!) ）

On the contrary, in the time of King Arthur, the bathing tradition of the ancient Roman Empire and the baths left behind by the Romans are not estimated to have completely collapsed.

To sum up, the Europeans in the early Middle Ages did not take baths, mainly because of economic poverty and lack of hygiene, and for the aristocracy who did not have a problem with the economy, it was purely a personal preference - some people liked bathing very much, and some people hated bathing.

At that time, when a noble knight of high status visited a certain castle, the hostess had to arrange not only a feast, but also hot water and spices for bathing if the guests requested. In Ireland, the hostess of the castle personally accompanies the guests in the bath to show the custom of hospitality. But the Europeans of those days were not ashamed of being dirty, so whether they liked to take a bath or not was the same as whether we smoke or not, and inviting guests to take a bath was also the same as inviting guests to smoke, and it was the freedom of guests to take a bath or not.

However, there seemed to be more aristocrats who hated bathing in those years......

Traveling back to that period, as long as you have the money to buy a luxury bathroom, it is not difficult to take a bath every day, at most it is said to be too extravagant and depraved.

In the middle and late Middle Ages, thanks to the new fashions brought by the Crusaders from the East and the contributions of the Vikings, various bathing methods were once common in Europe, as long as you had money, you could take a bath, and there were also food and drink and erotic services, and the poor were dirty in all eras.

Of course, the premise is that you can't go to the church to be a clergy, otherwise if you don't have some background and support, you will definitely not be able to break your vows and go to the bath.

Finally, if you're unfortunate enough to travel back in time to the end of the Middle Ages after the Black Death and to modern Western Europe before the 17th century, you're in for a treat! Due to the fear of the Black Death, the hatred of Europeans for bathing at that time was unimaginable to us modern people.

In the most dangerous of times, if you secretly bathe behind someone's back, beware of having the priests who are worried about the lack of scapegoats carry a huge black cauldron, frame them as witches or wizards who spread the plague, and then be tied to the pyre by the angry people and burned with fire!

Even if you have dexterous hands and feet and can sneak a shower without being seen, no one else will "risk their lives" to cater to your preferences. So, in your castle, there are piles of garbage in the shape of humans who haven't been bathed in decades...... Living in such a tragic environment, there is no need for assassins to assassinate you, as long as you ask them to come to your side when you are instructed to do things, I am afraid that in less than ten minutes, you will be hit by these humanoid mobile gas bombs to heaven, and complain to the Fallen God Lord who arranged for you to travel back to the Middle Ages.

In these days, women all over Europe, except Jews and Muslims, stink, and you may lose interest in women as a result - think of it, when you call your lover's name affectionately, and flatter her in every way, and at last make her grin, only to show her jagged bad teeth and spew out of her red lips like a dung pit......

Well, I suddenly understand why there were so many princes and kings in that dark medieval Europe, and why Arab slave girls were so popular......