this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
33 points (100.0% liked)
History
23674 readers
41 users here now
Welcome to c/history! History is written by the posters.
c/history is a comm for discussion about history so feel free to talk and post about articles, books, videos, events or historical figures you find interesting
Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember...we're all comrades here.
Do not post reactionary or imperialist takes (criticism is fine, but don't pull nonsense from whatever chud author is out there).
When sharing historical facts, remember to provide credible souces or citations.
Historical Disinformation will be removed
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
that's kind of a huge deal to gloss over, imo. easy access clean, running water makes up a huge part of my hygiene and cleanliness.
I probably haven't studied this topic enough, but it does seem like other cultures at the time had a better handle on hygiene than Europeans. I'm sure part of the issue was the feudalism, but idk
Eleanor Janega talks about this a lot but being super stinky and not bathing is an early modern phenomenon. Medieval people washed and bathed as much as they could.
They took less "baths" because a tub of hot water is a lot of work. The solution? They took sponge baths. They definitely had different hygiene standards compared to us but they had standards.
Definitely. Also in cities and towns they would use economy of scale and have dedicated bathhouses.
Medieval people would stink less than Romans as they actually had soap instead of perfumed olive oils.
Yeah you would often wash off a bit after work etc, but generally people loved taking a bath and would try do it frequently if they could, I think weekly wasn't uncommon.