Probably, many, having read foreign literature, and especially “historical” books by foreign authors about ancient Russia, were horrified by the dirt and stench that allegedly reigned in Russian cities and villages in ancient times. Now this false template has become so ingrained in our consciousness that even modern films about ancient Russia are filmed with the indispensable use of this lie, and, thanks to the cinema, noodles continue to be hung on the ears that our ancestors allegedly lived in dugouts or in the forest in the swamps, did not wash for years, walked in rags, often got sick and died from this in middle age , rarely living past 40 years.
When someone, not very conscientious or decent, wants to describe the “real” past of another people, and especially an enemy one (the whole “civilized” world has long and quite seriously considered us an enemy), then, writing a fictional past, they write off, of course, from myself, since they cannot know anything else either from their own experience or from the experience of their ancestors. This is exactly what “enlightened” Europeans have been doing for many centuries, diligently guided through life, and long resigned to their unenviable fate.
But sooner or later a lie always emerges, and we now know for sure who in fact was unwashed, and who was fragrant in cleanliness and beauty. And enough facts from the past have accumulated to evoke appropriate images in an inquisitive reader, and personally feel all the “charms” of supposedly clean and well-groomed Europe, and decide for yourself where - truth, And where - Lying.
So, one of the earliest references to the Slavs that Western historians give notes how home the peculiarity of the Slavic tribes is that they "pour water", that is wash in running water, while all the other peoples of Europe washed themselves in tubs, basins, buckets and bathtubs. Even Herodotus in the 5th century BC. speaks of the inhabitants of the steppes of the northeast, that they pour water on stones and bathe in huts. Washing under the jet it seems so natural to us that we seriously do not suspect that we are almost the only, or at least one of the few peoples in the world that does just that.
Foreigners who came to Russia in the 5th-8th centuries noted the cleanliness and neatness of Russian cities. Here the houses were not clung to each other, but stood wide, there were spacious, ventilated yards. People lived in communities, in peace, which means that parts of the streets were common, and therefore no one, as in Paris, could throw out a bucket of slop just outside, while demonstrating that only my house is private property, and don't care about the rest!
I repeat once again that the custom "pour water" previously distinguished in Europe precisely our ancestors - the Slavic-Aryans, and was assigned precisely to them as a distinctive feature, which clearly had some kind of ritual, ancient meaning. And this meaning, of course, was transmitted to our ancestors many thousands of years ago through the commandments of the gods, namely, even the god Perun, who flew to our Earth 25,000 years ago, bequeathed: “Wash your hands after your deeds, for whoever does not wash his hands loses the power of God…” Another commandment says: “Purify yourself in the waters of Iriy, that a river flows in the Holy Land, to wash your white body, to sanctify it with the power of God”.
The most interesting thing is that these commandments work flawlessly for a Russian in the soul of a person. So any of us, probably, becomes disgusted and “cats scratch our souls” when we feel dirty or sweaty after hard physical labor, or summer heat, and we want to quickly wash off this dirt and refresh ourselves under clean water. I am sure that we have a genetic dislike for dirt, and therefore we strive, even without knowing the commandment about washing hands, always, having come from the street, for example, immediately wash our hands and wash ourselves in order to feel fresh and get rid of fatigue.
What has been going on in supposedly enlightened and pure Europe since the beginning of the Middle Ages, and, oddly enough, until the 18th century?
Having destroyed the culture of the ancient Etruscans (“these Russians” or “Russes of Etruria”) - the Russian people, who in ancient times inhabited Italy and created a great civilization there, which proclaimed the cult of purity and had baths, the monuments of which have survived to our times, and around which was created MYTH(MYTH - we have distorted or distorted the facts, - my transcript A.N.) about the Roman Empire, which never existed, the Jewish barbarians (and they were undoubtedly them, and no matter what people they were hiding behind for their vile purposes) enslaved Western Europe for many centuries, imposing their lack of culture, dirt and debauchery .
Europe has not washed for centuries!!!
We first find confirmation of this in letters Princess Anna- daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Kiev prince of the 11th century AD. It is now believed that by marrying his daughter to the French king Henry I, he strengthened his influence in the "enlightened" Western Europe. In fact, it was prestigious for European kings to create alliances with Russia, since Europe was far behind in all respects, both cultural and economic, compared to the Great Empire of our ancestors.
Princess Anna brought with her to Paris- then a small village in France - several convoys with their personal library, and was horrified to find that her husband, the king of France, can not, Not only read, but also write, about which she was not slow to write to her father, Yaroslav the Wise. And she reproached him for sending her to this wilderness! This is a real fact, there is a real letter from Princess Anna, here is a fragment from it: “Father, why do you hate me? And he sent me to this dirty village, where there is nowhere to wash ... " And the Russian-language Bible, which she brought with her to France, still serves as a sacred attribute on which all the presidents of France take the oath, and earlier the kings swore.
When the crusades began crusaders hit both the Arabs and the Byzantines with the fact that they reeked of “like homeless people,” as they would say now. West became for the East a synonym for savagery, filth and barbarism, and he was this barbarity. Returning to Europe, the pilgrims, it was, tried to introduce a peeped custom to wash in the bath, but it was not there! From the thirteenth century baths already officially hit banned, allegedly as a source of debauchery and infection!
As a result, the 14th century was probably one of the most terrible in the history of Europe. It flared up quite naturally plague epidemic. Italy and England lost half of the population, Germany, France, Spain - more than a third. How much the East lost is not known for certain, but it is known that the plague came from India and China through Turkey, the Balkans. She bypassed only Russia and stopped at its borders, just in the place where baths. This is very similar to biological warfare those years.
I can add to the words about ancient Europe about their hygiene and cleanliness of the body. May we know that perfume The French invented not to smell good, but to DO NOT stink! Yes, just so that perfumes interrupt not always pleasant smells of a body that has not been washed for years. According to one of the royals, or rather the Sun King Louis XIV, a real Frenchman washes only twice in his life - at birth and after death. Only 2 times! Horror! And immediately I remembered the allegedly unenlightened and uncultured Russia in which every man had own bath, and in the cities there were public baths, and at least once a week people took baths and never got sick. Since the bath, in addition to cleanliness of the body, also successfully cleanses ailments. And our ancestors knew this very well and constantly used it.
And, as a civilized person, the Byzantine missionary Belisarius, visiting the Novgorod land in 850 AD, wrote about the Slovenes and Rusyns: “Orthodox Slovenes and Rusyns are wild people, and their life is wild and godless. The naked men and girls lock themselves together in a hotly heated hut and torture their bodies, whipping themselves with wood twigs mercilessly, to the point of exhaustion, and after jumping into the hole or a snowdrift and, chilling, again going to the hut torturing their bodies ... "
Where is this dirty unwashed Europe could know what a Russian bath is? Until the 18th century, until the Slavs-Russians taught "clean" Europeans cook soap they didn't wash. Therefore, they constantly had epidemics of typhus, plague, cholera, smallpox and other "charms". And why did the Europeans buy silk from us? Yes, because lice did not start there. But while this silk reached Paris, a kilogram of silk was already worth as much as a kilogram of gold. Therefore, only very rich people could afford to wear silk.
Patrick Suskind in his work "Perfumer" described how Paris "smelled" of the 18th century, but this passage also fits very well to the 11th century - the time of the queen:
“There was a stench in the cities of that time, almost unimaginable for us modern people. The streets stank of manure, the yards stank of urine, the stairs stank of rotten wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of bad coal and mutton fat; the unventilated living rooms stank of packed dust, the bedrooms of dirty sheets, damp duvet covers, and the sweet-sweet fumes of chamber pots. Sulfur smelled from the fireplaces, caustic alkalis from the tanneries, slaughtered blood from the slaughterhouses. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; their mouths smelled of rotten teeth, their bellies smelled of onion juice, and as they grew older, their bodies began to smell of old cheese and sour milk and painful tumors. Rivers stank, squares stank, churches stank, stank under bridges and in palaces. Peasants and priests, apprentices and wives of craftsmen stank, the whole nobility stank, even the king himself stank - he stank like a predatory beast, and the queen stank like an old goat, in winter and summer ... Every human activity, both creative and destructive, every manifestation of nascent or perishing life was accompanied by a stench ... "
Queen of Spain Isabella of Castile proudly admitted that she bathed only twice in her life - at birth and before the wedding! Russian ambassadors reported to Moscow that king of France "stinks like a wild beast"! Even accustomed to the constant stench that surrounded him from birth, King Philip II once fainted when he stood at the window, and the carts passing by loosened the dense, perennial layer of sewage with their wheels. By the way, this king died of... scabies! It also killed Pope Clement VII! And Clement V fell from dysentery. One of the French princesses died eaten by lice! It is not surprising that for self-justification, lice were called "God's pearls" and considered a sign of holiness.
Nowadays, some people have formed a strong belief that people in the Middle Ages almost never washed at all, or washed very rarely. But as the analysis of primary sources shows, this is not entirely true ...
For example, the code of etiquette of the 15th-16th centuries emphasized the need to wash hands before the meal, as well as when waking up and getting out of bed. Plus, good manners ordered the awakened to rinse the mouth.
George Duby, in his History of Private Life, wrote:
“... Among the ruling classes, cleanliness was highly valued. No formal dinner, given in a large hall with a large number of guests, began until the guests were offered jugs for pre-dinner ablutions. And the obligatory prelude to love games among the middle and upper classes was the adoption of a hot bath, and by both parties.
The most ardent medieval moralists and churchmen condemned bathing and body care only because these procedures exposed the bodies. Therefore, for example, bathing was considered a prelude to sin. And public baths were condemned because they were too accessible. But at the same time they advised to bathe in seclusion at home.”
Despite the fact that bathing as such, and even more so mixed bathing, was actively discouraged by the Church, there is historical evidence that dinners and wedding banquets were often held in the baths. And these events were combined with bathing and taking a bath (moreover, the available art documents from such events show that they were based on a sexual overtone rather than a social one.
So, how often did people wash and bathe?
There are many references to the popularity of baths in ancient Germany. People bathed several times every day. And sometimes they spent whole days doing this. In particular, according to the entries found in the diary of a medieval German, it follows that the author from May 20 to June 9, 1511 bathed one hundred twenty seven times.
In one of the Polish cities in the XIII-XV centuries there was a law according to which every citizen was obliged to visit a public bath at least once a week. Those who did not comply with this order were fined, and malicious violators were even taken into custody.
However, of course, given the undeveloped infrastructure and the relative remoteness of the ancient cities from each other, there were settlements in which some people lived for weeks and months without washing. But gradually Europe began to actively develop in terms of personal hygiene. A particularly active jump occurred after outbreaks of plague. It also contributed to the development artistic culture, which glorified the beauty of the human body - especially during the Renaissance.
Private baths
Medieval residents loved to take baths more than we might expect, however, this process was not always easy.
The bath itself was a wooden tub filled with water heated on the hearth. A washing person was fenced off from an idle gaze with a canopy or a canopy. In warm weather, the tub was taken out to the castle garden, and in cold weather, the bath was placed near the fireplace or hearth. The wealthy often hired servants whose only duty was to prepare the bath for the whole family. This man often traveled with his family.
Medieval bath in a private house
Some medieval castles had specially built-in bathtubs.
So, for example, in Leeds Castle, in 1291, a niche measuring about 7x5 meters was created, lined with stone, into which water was poured from the lake surrounding the castle. There was also a shelf for bathroom supplies, an alcove for the bath, and a dressing room located directly above the bath.
Rarely, but still there are castle baths, where they let through the pipes hot and cold water. And some lords got bath rugs to protect their feet from the cold.
As a rule, the role of an everyday washbasin was played by an ordinary vat, where water was settled, or a stone bowl built into the wall. The washbasin was used for washing hands before and after meals.
Some washstands were decoratively decorated and had outlets in the shape of animal heads.
public baths
Already in the mid-1200s, many large European cities had their own public baths. The water in them was heated over an open fire, which in turn led to certain inconveniences: an open fire in itself was dangerous and was a potential source of a possible fire; at the same time, the number of forests began to decline, which led to an increase in the price of firewood (at the same time, some baths tried to heat coal, but its vapors turned out to be unhealthy).
These reasons forced many public baths to close.
Moreover, by the mid-1300s, only the rich could afford to buy firewood in winter not for heating their homes, but for heating water for a bath. What can we say about the bulk of the poor population - they were forced to literally walk around dirty all winter. Hot water was forced to be saved - often the heated water in a large barrel was not changed until the whole family, and sometimes the neighbors, washed up.
Medieval public bath
However, bathing at home provided only the necessary hygiene. It could not replace a real bath in the sense that already in the Middle Ages they could not imagine without it.
The basic methods of organizing a steam room were the same in most countries of Northern and Eastern Europe: first, stones or stoves were heated in a confined space, then water was poured onto the stones to create steam. The soarers sat naked on the benches near the stones exuding heat. To increase blood circulation during soaring, they used special fans that pumped heat, used bundles of leaves.
“The herald patrolled the streets of 13th century Paris to call the people to the heated steam baths and baths. These institutions already numbered twenty-six in 1292.
(Riolan, Curieuses Recherches, p. 219).
The interior decoration of the baths varied depending on their prestige. Some were quite modest and were intended purely for washing and soaring, and some housed luxurious seating areas with beds and served various dishes on tables with expensive tablecloths.
This is how documentarians describe the Erfurt baths of the 13th century:
“Baths in this city will give you real pleasure. If you need to wash and you like convenience, you can enter there calmly. You will be kindly received. A beautiful young girl will rub you properly with her delicate hands. An experienced barber will shave you without dropping a drop of sweat on your face. When you get tired of the bathroom, you will find a bed to rest in. A pretty woman who won't bother you will skilfully comb your hair with a virginal air. Who wouldn't snatch a kiss from her if he wanted to, since she didn't resist at all? And when they demand payment from you, then one denier will suffice.
As a rule, medieval bathers were naked in the bath, sometimes in loincloths. Women often wore knee-length linen shirts, although the clothes still showed their neck, chest, arms and shoulders quite wide.
The clergy, however, still tried to introduce some restrictions. Thus, the monastic charters indicated the maximum number of permitted baths and toilet procedures, since all this was considered a luxury and a manifestation of effeminacy.
The monastic baths themselves, as a rule, had separate cabins, and the monks bathed in them in cold water and no more than once a week. This was to protect the monks from getting sensual pleasure from bathing.
Based on materials from the site Mag-Az.ru
Different eras are associated with different smells. the site publishes a story about personal hygiene in medieval Europe.
Medieval Europe, deservedly smells of sewage and the stench of rotting bodies. The cities were by no means like the clean Hollywood pavilions in which costumed productions of Dumas' novels are filmed. The Swiss Patrick Suskind, known for his pedantic reproduction of the details of the life of the era he describes, is horrified by the stench of European cities of the late Middle Ages.
Queen of Spain Isabella of Castile (end of the 15th century) admitted that she washed herself only twice in her life - at birth and on her wedding day.
The daughter of one of the French kings died of lice. Pope Clement V dies of dysentery.
The Duke of Norfolk refused to bathe, allegedly out of religious beliefs. His body was covered with ulcers. Then the servants waited until his lordship got drunk dead drunk, and barely washed it.
Clean healthy teeth were considered a sign of low birth
In medieval Europe, clean healthy teeth were considered a sign of low birth. Noble ladies were proud of bad teeth. Representatives of the nobility, who naturally got healthy white teeth, were usually embarrassed by them and tried to smile less often so as not to show their "shame".
In a courtesy guide published in late XVIII century (Manuel de civilite, 1782), it is formally forbidden to use water for washing, "because it makes the face more sensitive to cold in winter, and to heat in summer."
Louis XIV bathed only twice in his life - and then on the advice of doctors. Washing brought the monarch into such horror that he swore never to take water procedures. Russian ambassadors at his court wrote that their majesty "stinks like a wild beast."
The Russians themselves were considered perverts throughout Europe for going to the bathhouse once a month - outrageously often (the common theory that Russian word“stink” and comes from the French “merd” - “shit”, for the time being, however, we recognize it as overly speculative).
Russian ambassadors wrote about Louis XIV that he "stinks like a wild beast"
For a long time, the surviving note sent by King Henry of Navarre, who had a reputation as a burnt Don Juan, to his beloved, Gabrielle de Estre, has been walking around anecdotes for a long time: “Do not wash, dear, I will be with you in three weeks.”
The most typical European city street was 7-8 meters wide (this is, for example, the width of an important thoroughfare that leads to the cathedral Notre Dame of Paris). Small streets and lanes were much narrower - no more than two meters, and in many ancient cities there were streets as wide as a meter. One of the streets of ancient Brussels was called "Street of one person", indicating that two people could not disperse there.
Bathroom of Louis XVI. The lid on the bathroom served both to keep warm, and at the same time a table for studying and eating. France, 1770
Detergents, as well as the very concept of personal hygiene, did not exist in Europe until the middle of the 19th century.
The streets were washed and cleaned by the only janitor that existed at that time - rain, which, despite its sanitary function, was considered a punishment from the Lord. The rains washed away all the dirt from secluded places, and stormy streams of sewage rushed through the streets, which sometimes formed real rivers.
If cesspools were dug in the countryside, then in the cities people defecate in narrow alleys and courtyards.
Detergents did not exist in Europe until the middle of the 19th century.
But the people themselves were not much cleaner than city streets. “Water baths insulate the body, but weaken the body and enlarge the pores. Therefore, they can cause disease and even death, ”said a fifteenth-century medical treatise. In the Middle Ages, it was believed that contaminated air could penetrate into the cleaned pores. That is why public baths were abolished by royal decree. And if in the 15th - 16th centuries rich citizens bathed at least once every six months, in the 17th - 18th centuries they stopped taking a bath altogether. True, sometimes it was necessary to use it - but only for medicinal purposes. They carefully prepared for the procedure and put an enema the day before.
All hygienic measures were reduced only to light rinsing of hands and mouth, but not of the entire face. “In no case should you wash your face,” doctors wrote in the 16th century, “because catarrh may occur or vision may deteriorate.” As for the ladies, they bathed 2-3 times a year.
Most of the aristocrats were saved from dirt with the help of a perfumed cloth, with which they wiped the body. Armpits and groin were recommended to moisten with rose water. Men wore bags of aromatic herbs between their shirt and vest. Ladies used only aromatic powder.
Medieval "cleaners" often changed their underwear - it was believed that it absorbs all the dirt and cleanses the body of it. However, the change of linen was treated selectively. A clean starched shirt for every day was the privilege of wealthy people. That is why white ruffled collars and cuffs came into fashion, which testified to the wealth and cleanliness of their owners. The poor not only did not bathe, but they did not wash their clothes either - they did not have a change of linen. The cheapest rough linen shirt cost as much as a cash cow.
Christian preachers urged to walk literally in rags and never wash, since it was in this way that spiritual purification could be achieved. It was also impossible to wash, because in this way it was possible to wash off the holy water that had been touched during baptism. As a result, people did not wash for years or did not know water at all. Dirt and lice were considered special signs of holiness. The monks and nuns gave the rest of the Christians an appropriate example of serving the Lord. Cleanliness was viewed with disgust. Lice were called "God's pearls" and considered a sign of holiness. Saints, both male and female, used to boast that the water never touched their feet, except when they had to ford a river. People relieved themselves where necessary. For example, on front staircase palace or castle. The French royal court periodically moved from castle to castle due to the fact that there was literally nothing to breathe in the old one.
There was not a single toilet in the Louvre, the palace of the French kings. They emptied themselves in the yard, on the stairs, on the balconies. When “needed”, guests, courtiers and kings either squatted on a wide window sill at the open window, or they were brought “night vases”, the contents of which were then poured out at the back doors of the palace. The same thing happened at Versailles, for example, during the time of Louis XIV, whose life is well known thanks to the memoirs of the Duke de Saint Simon. The court ladies of the Palace of Versailles, right in the middle of a conversation (and sometimes even during a mass in a chapel or a cathedral), got up and naturally, in a corner, relieved a small (and not very) need.
There is a well-known story of how one day the ambassador of Spain came to the king and, going into his bedchamber (it was in the morning), he got into an awkward situation - his eyes watered from the royal amber. The ambassador politely asked to move the conversation to the park and jumped out of the royal bedroom as if scalded. But in the park, where he hoped to breathe fresh air, the unlucky ambassador simply fainted from the stench - the bushes in the park served as a permanent latrine for all courtiers, and the servants poured sewage there.
Toilet paper did not appear until the late 1800s, and until then, people used improvised means. The rich could afford the luxury of wiping themselves with strips of cloth. The poor used old rags, moss, leaves.
Toilet paper only appeared in the late 1800s.
The walls of the castles were equipped with heavy curtains, blind niches were made in the corridors. But wouldn't it be easier to equip some toilets in the yard or just run to the park described above? No, it didn’t even cross anyone’s mind, because the tradition was guarded by ... diarrhea. Given the appropriate quality of medieval food, it was permanent. The same reason can be traced in the fashion of those years (XII-XV centuries) for men's pantaloons consisting of one vertical ribbons in several layers.
Flea control methods were passive, such as comb sticks. Nobles fight insects in their own way - during the dinners of Louis XIV in Versailles and the Louvre, there is a special page for catching the king's fleas. Wealthy ladies, in order not to breed a "zoo", wear silk undershirts, believing that a louse will not cling to silk, because it is slippery. This is how silk underwear appeared, fleas and lice really do not stick to silk.
Beds, which are frames on turned legs, surrounded by a low lattice and always with a canopy in the Middle Ages, acquire great importance. Such widespread canopies served a completely utilitarian purpose - to prevent bedbugs and other cute insects from falling from the ceiling.
It is believed that mahogany furniture became so popular because it did not show bed bugs.
In Russia in the same years
The Russian people were surprisingly clean. Even the poorest family had a bathhouse in their yard. Depending on how it was heated, they steamed in it “in white” or “in black”. If the smoke from the furnace got out through the pipe, then they steamed “in white”. If the smoke went directly into the steam room, then after airing the walls were doused with water, and this was called “black steaming”.
There was another original way to wash -in a Russian oven. After cooking, straw was laid inside, and a person carefully, so as not to get dirty in soot, climbed into the oven. Water or kvass was splashed on the walls.
From time immemorial, the bathhouse was heated on Saturdays and before big holidays. First of all, the men with the guys went to wash and always on an empty stomach.
The head of the family cooked a birch broom, soaking it in hot water, sprinkled kvass on it, twisted it over hot stones until fragrant steam began to come from the broom, and the leaves became soft, but did not stick to the body. And only after that they began to wash and bathe.
One of the ways to wash in Russia is the Russian oven
Public baths were built in cities. The first of them were erected by decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. These were ordinary one-story buildings on the banks of the river, consisting of three rooms: a dressing room, a soap room and a steam room.
They bathed in such baths all together: men, women, and children, causing amazement of foreigners who specially came to gawk at a spectacle unseen in Europe. “Not only men, but also girls, women of 30, 50 or more people, run around without any shame and conscience the way God created them, and not only do not hide from strangers walking there, but also make fun of them with their indiscretion ”, wrote one such tourist. Visitors were no less surprised how men and women, utterly steamed, ran naked out of a very hot bathhouse and threw themselves into the cold water of the river.
The authorities turned a blind eye to such folk custom, albeit with great displeasure. It is no coincidence that in 1743 a decree appeared, according to which it was forbidden for male and female sexes to bathe together in trading baths. But, as contemporaries recalled, such a ban remained mostly on paper. The final separation occurred when they began to build baths, which included male and female sections.
Gradually, people with a commercial streak realized that bathhouses could become a source of good income, and began to invest money in this business. Thus, the Sandunovsky baths appeared in Moscow (they were built by the actress Sandunova), the Central baths (belonging to the merchant Khludov) and a number of other, less famous ones. In St. Petersburg, people liked to visit the Bochkovsky baths, Leshtokovy. But the most luxurious baths were in Tsarskoye Selo.
The provinces also tried to keep up with the capitals. Almost each of the more or less large cities had their own "Sanduns".
Yana Koroleva
In modern works of art(books, films, and so on) a medieval European city is presented as a kind of fantasy place with elegant architecture and beautiful costumes, inhabited by handsome and pretty people. In reality, once in the Middle Ages, modern man I would be shocked by the abundance of dirt and the suffocating smell of slops.
How Europeans Stopped Washing
Historians believe that the love of swimming in Europe could disappear for two reasons: material - due to total deforestation, and spiritual - due to fanatical faith. Catholic Europe in the Middle Ages cared more about the purity of the soul than about the purity of the body.
Often, clergymen and just deeply religious people took ascetic vows not to bathe - for example, Isabella of Castile did not bathe for two years until the siege of the fortress of Granada ended.
For contemporaries, such a limitation caused only admiration. According to other sources, this Spanish queen bathed only twice in her life: after birth and before the wedding.
Baths did not enjoy such success in Europe as in Russia. In times of riot Black Death, they were declared the culprits of the plague: visitors put their clothes in one pile and the peddlers of the infection crawled from one dress to another. Moreover, the water in medieval baths was not very warm and people often caught colds and got sick after washing.
Note that the Renaissance did not greatly improve the state of affairs with hygiene. This is associated with the development of the Reformation movement. Human flesh itself, from the point of view of Catholicism, is sinful. And for the Protestant Calvinists, man himself is a being incapable of a righteous life.
Catholic and Protestant clergy did not recommend touching themselves with their hands to their flock, it was considered a sin. And, of course, bathing and washing the body indoors were condemned by devout fanatics.
In addition, back in the middle of the 15th century, European treatises on medicine could read that “water baths insulate the body, but weaken the body and expand the pores, so they can cause illness and even death.”
Confirmation of hostility to the "excessive" cleanliness of the body is the reaction of the "enlightened" Dutch to the love of the Russian Emperor Peter I for bathing - the tsar bathed at least once a month, which pretty shocked the Europeans.
Why didn't they wash their faces in Medieval Europe?
Until the 19th century, washing was perceived not only as an optional, but also a harmful, dangerous procedure. In medical treatises, in theological manuals and ethical collections, washing, if not condemned by the authors, was not mentioned. The courtesy manual of 1782 even forbade washing with water, because the skin of the face becomes more sensitive to cold in winter and to heat in summer.
All hygiene procedures were limited to light rinsing of the mouth and hands. It was not customary to wash the entire face. Physicians of the 16th century wrote about this “harmful practice”: in no case should you wash your face, as catarrh may occur or vision may deteriorate.
It was also forbidden to wash one's face because the holy water with which the Christian came into contact during the sacrament of baptism was washed away (the sacrament of baptism is performed twice in Protestant churches).
Many historians believe that because of this, devout Christians Western Europe not bathed for years or did not know water at all. But this is not entirely true - most often people were baptized in childhood, so the version about the preservation of "Epiphany water" does not hold water.
Another thing is when it comes to monastics. Self-restraint and ascetic deeds for the black clergy is a common practice for both Catholics and Orthodox. But in Russia, the limitations of the flesh have always been associated with the moral character of a person: overcoming lust, gluttony and other vices did not end only on the material plane, long-term inner work was more important than external attributes.
In the West, dirt and lice, which were called "God's pearls", were considered special signs of holiness. Medieval priests viewed bodily purity with disapproval.
Farewell, unwashed Europe
Both written and archaeological sources confirm the version that hygiene was terrible in the Middle Ages. To have an adequate idea of that era, it is enough to recall the scene from the movie "The Thirteenth Warrior", where the wash tub passes in a circle, and the knights spit and blow their nose into the common water.
The article "Life in the 1500s" examined the etymology of various sayings. Its authors believe that thanks to such dirty tubs, the expression “do not throw out the baby with water” appeared.
Spoiler - washed. The conventional wisdom about unscrupulous Europe is more likely to belong to the 17th-18th centuries. From the Roman Empire, the "Dark Ages" (VI-IX centuries) and the early Middle Ages inherited the terms used by the nobility, and hot springs, which were equipped in public baths. Baths were recommended to be visited even by monks, who then tried to adhere to asceticism in everything, including hygiene.
The book of the historian Andrey Martyanov "Walks in the Middle Ages. War, plague, inquisition" (publishing house "The Fifth Rome", 2017) describes the system of baths at that time:
“Another stereotype says: The Middle Ages was the realm of pitch mud, famous for its total lack of hygiene, and an abstract noble knight bathed once in his life, and then accidentally fell into the river.
We will have to upset the carriers of this myth: the average Russian prince of the XII-XIV centuries was no cleaner than a German or French feudal lord. And the latter were not dirtier. The bathing craft in that era was highly developed and, for objective reasons, was completely lost just after the Renaissance, by the onset of the New Age. The gallant XVIII century is a hundred times more odorous than the severe XIV century. It’s amazing, but you can personally get acquainted with the medieval culture of hygiene right now, it’s enough to come to such an archaic country as Iceland, where the traditions of bathing in natural springs and home baths have been sacredly kept for nearly a thousand and two hundred years, since the settlement of this North Atlantic island by the Vikings.
Dark Ages
The Lombards who conquered Italy not only used the Roman baths, but also committed atrocities in them. A story has come down to us about how the Lombard leader Hilmichius in 572 was poisoned by his own wife Rosemund in Verona at the instigation of the Byzantine exarch Longinus. There are some scandalous details:
“Here, Prefect Longinus began to ask Rosemund to kill Hilmichius and marry Longinus himself. Following this advice, she diluted the poison and after the bath offered him a goblet. so they both died." (Fredegar. Chronicles of long-haired kings. About the kingdom of the Lombards.)
The baths in the city of Verona are excellent, and they are used by the barbarians. But St. Gregory of Tours reports in the third book of the "History of the Franks" about no less piquant events concerning the niece of the king of the Franks Clovis Amalasvinta at the end of the 5th century:
“But when he found out what this harlot had done, how she became a mother-killer because of the servant whom she took as her husband, he heated a hot bathhouse and ordered her to be locked there together with one maid. As soon as she entered the bathhouse filled with hot steam She fell dead on the floor and died."
Again, Gregory of Tours, this time about the monastery of St. Radegunde in Poitiers, VI century: "The new building of the bathhouse smelled strongly of lime, and in order not to damage their health, the nuns did not bathe in it. Therefore, Madame Radegunde ordered the monastery servants to openly use this bathhouse until the bath was in the use of the servants throughout Lent and until Trinity.
From which an unambiguous conclusion is drawn - in the Merovingian Gaul of the era of the Dark Ages, they not only used public baths, but also built new ones. This particular bath was kept at the abbey and was intended for nuns, but until the unpleasant smell disappeared, servants - that is, the common people - could bathe there.
Fast forward across the English Channel and give the floor to Bade, the Venerable Benedictine monk and chronicler, who lived in Northumbria in the 8th century at Wyrmouth and Jarrow Abbey and wrote the Ecclesiastical History of the Angles. The entry dates from approximately the end of the 720s:
"There are salty springs in this land, there are also hot ones, the water of which is used in hot baths, where they wash themselves separately, according to sex and age. This water becomes warm, flowing through various metals, and not only heats up, but even boils."
Bada the Venerable does not confuse anything - hot and salty springs in the modern city of Bath, Somerset are meant. During Roman times there was already a spa called Aquae Salis, and the tradition of bathing continued after the evacuation of the legions from Britain. By the High Middle Ages, it did not disappear, quite the opposite - in the 11th century, Bath (Saxon Hat Bathun, "hot bath") becomes a bishopric, and the first appointed bishop, John of Tours, a Frenchman by birth, immediately becomes interested in such a miracle of nature. As a result, around 1120, at the expense of the Church, John builds three new public baths to replace the Roman baths that have collapsed over the centuries, visits them with pleasure, recommending bathing to the clergy along the way.
Early Middle Ages
In 1138, the anonymous chronicle Gesta Stephani ("Acts of Stephen"), which tells about the reign of the English king Stephen (Etienne) I de Blois, reports:
"Here water flows through hidden channels, warmed not by the labors and efforts of human hands, but from the depths of the earth. It fills a vessel located in the middle of beautiful rooms with arches, allowing the citizens to take lovely warm baths that bring health, which please the eye. From all parts of England sick people flock here to wash away their illnesses with healing water."
Bath baths operate throughout the Middle Ages, no one forbids or closes them, including later eras and the very conservative Cromwell puritans. In modern times, the waters of Bath become famous for the miraculous healing of Queen Mary of Modena from infertility, they were visited by William Shakespeare, who described the springs in sonnets 153 and 154.
Now let us speak to Einhard, a remarkable personality no less than Shakespeare, especially if we take into account the era and the environment in which his life proceeded. From about the beginning of the 790s, he labored at the court of the king, and then the emperor of the Franks, Charlemagne, was a member of the intellectual circle created in Aachen by Alcuin, and was one of the prominent figures of the "Carolingian Renaissance". Einhard's love of ancient literature led him to write Vita Karoli Magni ("The Life of Charlemagne").
Aachen, in ancient times the town of Aquisgranum in the province of Belgica, standing on the strategic Roman highway from Lugdunum (Lyon) to Colonia Claudia (Cologne), in Roman times was nothing worthy of attention. With one exception - there were hot springs, about the same as in Bath. But then Charlemagne appears and arranges a winter residence of 20 hectares in Aachen, erecting here a grandiose palace-palatinate with a cathedral, a columned atrium, a courtroom and, of course, superbly equipped baths right in the courtyard. Einhard did not fail to write about this in the 22nd chapter of the biography of the leader of the Franks:
"He also loved to bathe in hot springs and achieved great perfection in swimming. It was out of love for hot baths that he built a palace in Aachen and spent everything there last years life. For bathing at the springs, he invited not only his sons, but also to know, friends, and sometimes bodyguards and the whole retinue; it happened that a hundred or more people bathed together.
And if "a hundred or more people" could fit in the pools, then one can imagine the scale of the structure. Aachen still has 38 hot springs and remains one of the most popular spas in Germany.
Charlemagne also visited the thermal waters in Plombière-les-Bains, in the Vosges - again, the springs have been known since the time of Roman Gaul, the baths were renovated and rebuilt throughout the Middle Ages and were a favorite vacation spot of the Dukes of Lorraine and the Dukes of Guise. France is generally lucky with hot springs, they are in the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Vosges, on the Mediterranean coast, in Aquitaine, on the Rhone. The zealous Romans instantly adapted the natural heat to their needs and built baths with pools, many of which were inherited or restored in the Middle Ages.
Late Middle Ages
In order to assess the appearance and customs of the inhabitants of Baden in 1417, we give an extensive quote about the baths of Baden:
The hotels have many built-in baths, designed exclusively for its guests. The number of these baths, intended both for individual and for general use, usually reaches thirty. Of these, two baths intended for public use are open on both sides, and plebeians and other small people are supposed to dive in them. These simple pools are crowded with men, women, young boys and girls, representing a collection of local commoners.
Baths, located in private hotels, are kept in much greater cleanliness and decency. The rooms for each floor are also divided here by wooden partitions, the impenetrability of which is again broken by windows cut into them, allowing bathers and bathers to enjoy light snacks together, chatting and stroking each other at ease, which seems to be their favorite pastime.
(Letter from Poggio Bracciolini to his friend Niccolo Niccoli regarding the Baden baths, 1417)
Conclusions about the freedom of morals in the baths can be drawn independently - and after all, among these people, who behave much more relaxed than our contemporaries in a similar situation, inquisitors with torches do not run around, threatening to immediately burn everyone and everyone for such debauchery and obscene behavior! Moreover, in the same letter, Poggio remarks in passing:
"Monks, abbots, priests also come here, who, however, behave much more cheekily than other men. It seems that they throw off their sacred vows along with the cassock and do not experience the slightest embarrassment, bathing with women and after behind them, coloring their hair with bows of silk ribbons.
More in the Interpreter's Blog about life in the Middle Ages.
