Epidemics, diseases, animal droppings, human waste… There are dozens of other things we can add to this list. It is such an age; people were deprived of cleanliness even because of the class hierarchy.
While we are investigating the correctness of banning the baths with the Pope’s words “Good Christians will be dirty”, we will talk about the interesting cleaning cultures of people during this period. As you read, you can thank our cleaning culture.
Contrary to popular belief, bathrooms and cleanliness did not disappear in Europe with the collapse of the Roman Empire.
The Romans left many legacies such as sewage and water resources in terms of cleanliness. Even in the Middle Ages, Roman canals continued to flow, supplying fresh water.
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Seeing King Arthur, the two characters make a guess as to who he is. One of them says: “He must be a king, not all messed up.” This scene actually summarizes some information about the Middle Ages: In the Middle Ages, people of the normal class did not attach much importance to cleanliness. An example of this belief is shown as people who are known to take a bath on the day they were born and on the day of their marriage, such as Queen Isabella of Castile.
In the Middle Ages, some doctors said that because bathing opened the pores in the skin, there was a possibility of contagious diseases.
Of course, there was no single truth in the Middle Ages either. Contrary to some of the doctors who said this, other doctors said that taking a bath would prevent diseases. But for society, this was hardly possible. Because all the evidence shows that the rich make bathing a luxury. Maybe they were not lucky enough to take a shower every day like us, but even taking a shower once a month was a great feeling for those people.
Dentists of the period were barbers until the 14th century.
Dentists, who left the barber guild in 1308, were whitening teeth with nitric acid as well as removing teeth without anesthesia and cleaning teeth. Except for the aristocrats, the people’s teeth whitening routine included rubbing the teeth with sand and sea water.
Contrary to what is known, there was a bath culture and these places were used not only for washing but also for socializing.
Bath culture is very important in the Roman Empire. There are even important structures that have survived to the present day. In addition to washing, they were complex structures where social relations could be established, sports could be done, games were played, and food could be bought like a market place. Therefore, it was one of the places frequented by the people.
Although it is known that people used to go to the baths in the first Christian period, this situation also changed when the ascetic lifestyle developed in the 3rd and 4th centuries.
While Saint Antony had never even washed his feet in his life, Saint Julian forbade bathing in his way. Saint Jerome, on the other hand, advocated the unnecessary use of bathing outside of baptism. Thereupon, devout Christians interrupted their cleansing rituals.
St. Benedictine, the founder of the Benedictine Order, the most widespread monastic order in the 6th century, states that healthy people never wash, and that one of the greatest virtues of St. Agnes, who died at the age of 13, was never to wash. In 745, the Archbishop of Mainz, St. Boniface, also banned mixed baths, which were common areas for men and women, on the grounds of immorality.
While upper-class people could bathe in bathtubs of hot water, this was no more than a dream for the villagers.
It took a lot of effort for a family to take a bath, as there was no running water and the villagers had to constantly carry water from the rivers to their homes. The water obtained was used without heating. Therefore, there was a common bathroom area that everyone used.
The toilet was known as the mainspring of luxury.
Peasants were not as lucky as the upper class. Everyone had shared toilets, just like the bathroom area. Some people also carry potty or dustbin; they dumped their waste into rivers if there was no cesspool. Where is the clean water used in the bathroom?
The lice and insect problem had become so normalized that people would get together once a week to weed out lice.
When we think of people who live with their animals or who are in the middle of all this mess, the situation seems perfectly normal. As lice were normalized, people also used gathering to remove lice as a means of socialization.
Who needs a fork and spoon when food heated in dirty water can be picked up with dirty hands and brought to a dirty mouth?
In the Middle Ages, people ate their food with their hands, so handwashing as opposed to their body was a very important practice before eating. Just for this, people who acted as faucets were employed, and then a wall-mounted faucet would replace these people.
They were treating wounds with urine.
You’ve probably heard at least once in your life that people recommend urinating on the wound against a jellyfish sting. In the Middle Ages, people took it a step further and used it to treat open wounds as well as heal bruises. Yes, bruises.
Although we feel sorry for the people of the Middle Ages when we look back, it is comforting to see how far we have come in cleaning and hygiene until today. One does not want to even imagine that he was living in that period.
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