Well, even if you're lucky enough to travel to medieval Europe before the Black Death, attached to a wealthy aristocratic heir, and not a fanatic mom or dad forces you to rot and not be allowed to bathe, the family has a lot of money to buy a luxury bathtub, and a beautiful maid is selected to accompany you to the bath...... But watching her pull a lump of poop at the base of the bathroom wall without any hesitation, and then climb into the tub as if nothing happened, can you still happily bathe in the stench of feces?

-- If it is an exaggeration to say that Europeans "do not take a bath for a thousand years," then it is an indisputable fact that Europeans "defecate in the open for a thousand years."

In medieval Europe, for ordinary people, the floor was their toilet, and after pulling it, it was okay to shovel it into the corner of the wall. Besides, they are usually used to the smell of body odor, so they naturally feel indifferent to the feces and urine that are close at hand.

Only the most elaborate nobles and high-ranking priests had special toilets in their living rooms, and they were elegantly furnished and comfortably - because the word toilet was so indecent, it was vaguely called "private room", "cozy place" or "prayer room".

Hehe, in this way, everyone knows that the prayer room of the church was originally used as a toilet, or later the toilet was changed into a prayer room. The priests pooped every day while holding Bibles in their hands, and the Xiangshang Emperor prayed for repentance...... At the end, tear up another page of the Bible and wipe your ass?

Well, that seems a bit too blasphemous, and the Bible is too expensive, wiping your ass too wasteful......

But the problem is that the servants who serve the nobles still defecate in the open, so most of the castle is still filthy, and it is good to ensure that the place where the lord and wife usually stay is not too dirty.

Of course, the lords would also order the servants to clean their quarters regularly. However, lazy servants usually dump their excrement and garbage directly into the moat to save trouble...... Over time, the castle became a stinking chamber surrounded by dung water.

In fact, many aristocrats also liked to defecate in the open. For example, in the summer of 1665, Charles II and members of the royal family went to Oxford for a holiday with a large number of servants, and afterwards a local antique dealer wrote in his diary: "Although they looked well-dressed and happy, they were very rude and rude." As they left, everywhere, in the chimney, in the study, in the bedroom, in the cellar, there was feces everywhere. ”

The French, who prided themselves on their romantic elegance, were even more unhygienic than the English and other Europeans, and even the royal palaces and aristocratic residences had no toilets, at most a wooden toilet - and so they defecated in the open in the fireplace, behind the door, on the walls and on the balcony. Urine and feces were everywhere on every stone in the corridors of the palace and on the grand welcome steps until the end of the Middle Ages, and the people of Fontainebleau were still "everywhere and everywhere on the streets......

Louis XIV, the great French "Sun King", had to solve the problem of urinating and defecating in Versailles, the Louvre, and the Château de Fontainebleau, and that was to move in turns—once a month, and when the nobles were ruining one place, they had servants clean the other.

In short, the French after the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have always been the dirtiest and most unhygienic sloppy in all of Europe. Even in the glittering Palace of Versailles, there are no sewers, toilets and bathrooms...... Do you have a feeling of disillusionment?

-- In fact, in the history department of a pedagogical university on our side, there was a famous sloppy ghost who was unkempt and smelled of sewerage, and was not only forced by his teacher to change his clothes and take more showers, but was also ridiculed by his classmates as "the most innocent Frenchman......

In the same way, in connection with the story of Joan of Arc mentioned above, for you female readers, if someone says that you are like a saint, it may not be a praise for your bravery and skill, but a subtle reminder that you have not bathed for too long.