The Middle Ages Were Cleaner Than We Think --- An era that valued spiritual and physical purity knew the importance of bathhouses, soap and even deodorant.

 

The Middle Ages Were Clean? Unbelievable...

"A longstanding myth holds that people in medieval Christian Europe didn't bathe. In fact, the Middle Ages subscribed heartily to the adage "cleanliness is next to godliness." Thinkers of the period considered physical beauty to represent spiritual purity, and they looked at hygiene in the same way: If one's body was impure, it would by definition be unattractive and out of harmony. If it had any imperfections, one would best address them through cleansing. For women, in particular, cleanliness was one of the very highest virtues.

The daily wash usually involved collecting water in a ewer, heating it, then pouring it into a large basin to be used for scrubbing. Baths in a wooden tub would happen less often, given it was a world without plumbing. Water is heavy, and collecting it, heating it, and then getting it from the kettle into the bathtub was difficult. Baths also required space, which was at a premium in most households.

Luckily, there were a few ways to bathe outside the home. In warmer months, you could simply find a pond or a lake, and you were good to go. But in January this could be a problem, and that was where bathhouses came in. Bathhouses took the laborious and difficult work of drawing and heating water and monetized it. Most towns boasted at least one professional bathhouse, while cities played host to a number of competing establishments.

In Paris, a guild for bathhouse keepers set rules that they had to abide by. Much like modern spas, they offered customers a cheaper "steam bath [for] two pennies; and if he bathes, [he] should pay four pennies." To stand out in a crowded field, Parisian bathhouses employed criers to drum up business from women eager to put their best foot forward.

Rich women had a major advantage in bathing, since they could send servants to fetch and heat water. More luxurious households sometimes had rooms dedicated to bathing, and women with money to spare on travel visited famous bathing spots like Pozzuoli, outside Naples -- a destination so famous that poems were written celebrating its virtues.

This emphasis on cleanliness was echoed in the bathing practices of Muslim communities in Sicily and on the Iberian Peninsula and the Jewish communities that were spread across medieval Europe. Bathing was an explicitly mandated part of Jewish custom and was required before the Sabbath. Women could bathe either in a public bathhouse, which would include steam and hot water, or in a cold-water mikveh, which was used for ritual purification. Meanwhile, Muslim women's interest in the hammam is evidenced by the astounding number of surviving baths as well as by some pointed polemical tracts wherein Muslim men wondered what exactly women were getting up to while they were bathing, away from the prying eyes of men.

The emphasis on cleanliness led to a great medieval invention -- soap. The earliest surviving written description of soap in Europe dates to the 4th century A.D., when Theodorus Priscianus, a physician in Constantinople, described a French product that was used for washing, especially the head. In the Italian-speaking lands, soap was being produced professionally and in great enough quantities that guilds of soap makers existed by at least the 7th century.

In the 12th century, the fine hard soaps of the Middle East began to be imported to Europe. "Hard" indicates that they were made with higher-quality ash, which yields lighter bars of soap, in contrast to darker "soft" soaps made with wood ash and lye, which was the norm earlier. Unfortunately, well-made soaps were a luxury that most women would never know. To fill the gap, they made their own cleansers at home, and they had a range of types to choose from. Soap recipes were common and included in "books of secrets" -- manuals for women to make various beauty products, as well as medicinal items.

Specialist cleansing products were also available. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century German mystic, had her own recipe for barley-water face cleanser, which she recommended for "skin, made harsh from the wind." She assured worried women that after its use, "the skin will become soft and smooth, and will have a beautiful color." Enterprising women were also advised to scent bathwater with herbs, or even concoct what we would call deodorants from hyssop and bay leaf.

Such small luxuries were likely in wide use, given that herb-scented water and homemade soap were not in short supply to those who made their homes on farms. Still, women from wealthier backgrounds had an easier time staying clean in their day-to-day lives. Peasant women were, after all, engaging in manual labor on farms all day, digging in crops and handling farm animals. Women from merchant or noble backgrounds were unlikely to come into contact with the same amount of dirt.

When physically laboring women strived for a clean ideal, they were attempting to emulate women from the sedentary classes. Medieval women of modest means couldn't always live up to the era's beauty ideals by giving themselves gray eyes or blond hair, nor could they reverse the aging process. But even working women could luxuriate in a weekly bath.

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Dr. Janega teaches history at the London School of Economics. This essay is adapted from her new book, "The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society," which will be published on Jan. 17 by W.W. Norton." [1]

1. REVIEW --- The Middle Ages Were Cleaner Than We Think --- An era that valued spiritual and physical purity knew the importance of bathhouses, soap and even deodorant.
Janega, Eleanor.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 14 Jan 2023: C.5.