This is not a detailed study, but just an essay that I wrote last year, when the discussion about the "dirty Middle Ages" had just begun on my diary. Then I was so tired of controversy that I simply did not hang it out. Now the discussion has continued, well, here is my opinion, it is stated in this essay. Therefore, some things that I have already said will be repeated there.
If anyone needs links - write, I will raise my archive and try to find it. However, I warn you - they are mostly in English.
Eight myths about the Middle Ages.
Middle Ages. The most controversial and controversial era in the history of mankind. Some perceive it as the times of beautiful ladies and noble knights, minstrels and buffoons, when spears were broken, feasts were noisy, serenades were sung and sermons sounded. For others, the Middle Ages is a time of fanatics and executioners, the fires of the Inquisition, stinking cities, epidemics, cruel customs, unsanitary conditions, general darkness and savagery.
Moreover, fans of the first option are often embarrassed by their admiration for the Middle Ages, they say that they understand that everything was not like that, but they love the outward side of knightly culture. While the supporters of the second option are sincerely sure that the Middle Ages were not called the Dark Ages for nothing, it was the most terrible time in the history of mankind.
The fashion to scold the Middle Ages appeared back in the Renaissance, when there was a sharp denial of everything that had to do with the recent past (as we know it), and then, with the light hand of historians of the 19th century, this most dirty, cruel and rude Middle Ages began to be considered ... times since the fall of ancient states and until the 19th century, declared the triumph of reason, culture and justice. Then myths developed, which now wander from article to article, frightening fans of chivalry, the sun king, pirate novels, and in general all romantics from history.
Myth 1. All knights were stupid, dirty, uneducated dorks.
This is probably the most fashionable myth. Every second article about the horrors of Medieval customs ends with an unobtrusive morality - look, they say, dear women, how lucky you are, no matter what modern men are, they are definitely better than the knights you dream of.
Let's leave the dirt for later, there will be a separate discussion about this myth. As for ignorance and stupidity ... I thought recently how it would be funny if our time was studied according to the culture of "brothers". One can imagine what a typical representative of modern men would be like then. And you can’t prove that men are all different, there is always a universal answer to this - “this is an exception.”
In the Middle Ages, men, oddly enough, were also all different. Charlemagne collected folk songs, built schools, and knew several languages himself. Richard the Lionheart, considered a typical representative of chivalry, wrote poems in two languages. Karl the Bold, whom literature likes to display as a kind of boor-macho, knew Latin very well and loved to read ancient authors. Francis I patronized Benvenuto Cellini and Leonardo da Vinci. The polygamist Henry VIII knew four languages, played the lute and loved the theatre. And this list can be continued. But the main thing is that they were all sovereigns, models for their subjects, and even for smaller rulers. They were guided by them, they were imitated, and those who could, like his sovereign, could knock down an enemy from a horse and write an ode to the Beautiful Lady enjoyed respect.
Yeah, they will tell me - we know these Beautiful Ladies, they had nothing to do with their wives. So let's move on to the next myth.
Myth 2. The “noble knights” treated their wives like property, beat them and didn’t set a penny
To begin with, I will repeat what I have already said - the men were different. And in order not to be unfounded, I will remember the noble seigneur from the XII century, Etienne II de Blois. This knight was married to a certain Adele of Norman, daughter of William the Conqueror and his beloved wife Matilda. Etienne, as befits a zealous Christian, went on a crusade, and his wife remained to wait for him at home and manage the estate. A seemingly banal story. But its peculiarity is that Etienne's letters to Adele have come down to us. Tender, passionate, yearning. Detailed, smart, analytical. These letters are a valuable source on the Crusades, but they are also evidence of how much a medieval knight could love not some mythical Lady, but his own wife.
We can recall Edward I, whom the death of his adored wife knocked down and brought to the grave. His grandson Edward III lived in love and harmony with his wife for over forty years. Louis XII, having married, turned from the first debauchee of France into a faithful husband. Whatever the skeptics say, love is a phenomenon independent of the era. And always, at all times, they tried to marry their beloved women.
Now let's move on to more practical myths that are actively promoted in the cinema and greatly confuse the romantic mood among fans of the Middle Ages.
Myth 3. Cities were sewage dumps.
Oh, what they just do not write about medieval cities. To the point that I came across the assertion that the walls of Paris had to be completed so that the sewage poured outside the city wall would not pour back. Effective, isn't it? And in the same article it was stated that since in London human waste was poured into the Thames, it was also a continuous stream of sewage. My fertile imagination immediately thrashed in hysterics, because I just couldn’t imagine where so much sewage could come from in a medieval city. This is not a modern multi-million metropolis - 40-50 thousand people lived in medieval London, and not much more in Paris. Let's leave aside the completely fabulous story with the wall and imagine the Thames. This not the smallest river splashes 260 cubic meters of water per second into the sea. If you measure this in baths, you get more than 370 baths. Per second. I think further comments are unnecessary.
However, no one denies that medieval cities were by no means fragrant with roses. And now one has only to turn off the sparkling avenue and look into the dirty streets and dark gateways, as you understand - the washed and lit city is very different from its dirty and smelly inside.
Myth 4. People haven't washed for many years.
Talking about washing is also very fashionable. Moreover, absolutely real examples are given here - monks who did not wash themselves from excess “holiness” for years, a nobleman, who also did not wash himself from religiosity, almost died and was washed by servants. And they also like to remember Princess Isabella of Castile (many saw her in the recently released film The Golden Age), who vowed not to change her linen until victory was won. And poor Isabella kept her word for three years.
But again, strange conclusions are drawn - the lack of hygiene is declared the norm. The fact that all the examples are about people who vowed not to wash, that is, they saw in this some kind of feat, asceticism, is not taken into account. By the way, Isabella's act caused a great resonance throughout Europe, a new color was even invented in her honor, so everyone was shocked by the vow given by the princess.
And if you read the history of baths, and even better - go to the appropriate museum, you can be amazed at the variety of shapes, sizes, materials from which the baths were made, as well as ways to heat water. At the beginning of the 18th century, which they also like to call the age of dirty, one English count even got a marble bath with taps for hot and cold water in his house - the envy of all his friends who went to his house as if on a tour.
Queen Elizabeth I took a bath once a week and demanded that all courtiers also bathe more often. Louis XIII generally soaked in the bath every day. And his son Louis XIV, whom they like to cite as an example of a dirty king, because he just didn’t like baths, wiped himself with alcohol lotions and loved to swim in the river (but there will be a separate story about him).
However, to understand the failure of this myth, it is not necessary to read historical works. It is enough to look at pictures of different eras. Even from the sanctimonious Middle Ages, there are many engravings depicting bathing, washing in baths and baths. And in later times, they especially liked to portray half-dressed beauties in baths.
Well, the most important argument. It is worth looking at the statistics of soap production in the Middle Ages to understand that everything that is said about the general unwillingness to wash is a lie. Otherwise, why would it be necessary to produce such a quantity of soap?
Myth 5. Everyone smelled terrible
This myth follows directly from the previous one. And he also has real proof - the Russian ambassadors at the French court complained in letters that the French "stink terribly." From which it was concluded that the French did not wash, stank and tried to drown out the smell with perfume (about perfume is a well-known fact). This myth flashed even in Tolstoy's novel "Peter I". Explaining to him couldn't be easier. In Russia, it was not customary to wear perfume heavily, while in France they simply poured perfume. And for a Russian person, a Frenchman who smelled abundantly of spirits was "stinking like a wild beast." Those who traveled in public transport next to a heavily perfumed lady will understand them well.
True, there is one more evidence regarding the same long-suffering Louis XIV. His favorite, Madame Montespan, once, in a fit of a quarrel, shouted that the king stinks. The king was offended and soon after that parted with the favorite completely. It seems strange - if the king was offended by the fact that he stinks, then why shouldn't he wash himself? Yes, because the smell was not coming from the body. Ludovic had serious health problems, and with age, he began to smell bad from his mouth. It was impossible to do anything, and naturally the king was very worried about this, so Montespan's words were a blow to a sore spot for him.
By the way, we must not forget that in those days there was no industrial production, the air was clean, and the food may not be very healthy, but at least without chemistry. And therefore, on the one hand, hair and skin did not get greasy for longer (remember our air of megacities, which quickly makes washed hair dirty), so people, in principle, did not need washing for longer. And with human sweat, water, salts were released, but not all those chemicals that are full in the body of a modern person.
Myth 7. No one cared about hygiene
Perhaps this myth can be considered the most offensive for people who lived in the Middle Ages. Not only are they accused of being stupid, dirty and smelly, they also claim that they all liked it.
What was it that had to happen to humanity at the beginning of the 19th century, so that before that it liked everything to be dirty and lousy, and then suddenly it suddenly stopped liking it?
If you look through the instructions on the construction of castle toilets, you can find curious notes that the drain should be built so that everything goes into the river, and does not lie on the shore, spoiling the air. Apparently people didn't really like the smell.
Let's go further. There is a famous story about how a noble English woman was reprimanded about her dirty hands. The lady retorted: “You call this dirt? You should have seen my feet." This is also cited as a lack of hygiene. And did anyone think about strict English etiquette, according to which it is not even possible to tell a person that he spilled wine on his clothes - this is impolite. And suddenly the lady is told that her hands are dirty. This is to what extent the other guests should have been outraged in order to violate the rules of good taste and make such a remark.
And the laws that the authorities of different countries issued every now and then - for example, bans on pouring slop into the street, or regulation of the construction of toilets.
The main problem of the Middle Ages was that it was really difficult to wash then. Summer does not last that long, and in winter not everyone can swim in the hole. Firewood for heating water was very expensive, not every nobleman could afford a weekly bath. And besides, not everyone understood that illnesses come from hypothermia or insufficiently clean water, and under the influence of fanatics they attributed them to washing.
And now we are smoothly approaching the next myth.
Myth 8. Medicine was practically non-existent.
What can you not hear enough about medieval medicine. And there were no means other than bloodletting. And they all gave birth on their own, and without doctors it’s even better. And all medicine was controlled by priests alone, who left everything at the mercy of God's will and only prayed.
Indeed, in the first centuries of Christianity, medicine, as well as other sciences, was mainly practiced in monasteries. There were hospitals and scientific literature. The monks contributed little to medicine, but they made good use of the achievements of ancient physicians. But already in 1215, surgery was recognized as a non-ecclesiastical business and passed into the hands of barbers. Of course, the whole history of European medicine simply does not fit into the scope of the article, so I will focus on one person, whose name is known to all readers of Dumas. We are talking about Ambroise Pare, the personal physician of Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. A simple enumeration of what this surgeon contributed to medicine is enough to understand at what level surgery was in the middle of the 16th century.
Ambroise Pare introduced a new method of treating then new gunshot wounds, invented prosthetic limbs, began to perform operations to correct the "cleft lip", improved medical instruments, wrote medical works, which surgeons throughout Europe later studied. And childbirth is still accepted according to his method. But most importantly, Pare invented a way to amputate limbs so that a person would not die from blood loss. And surgeons still use this method.
But he did not even have an academic education, he was simply a student of another doctor. Not bad for "dark" times?
Conclusion
Needless to say, the real Middle Ages is very different from the fairy-tale world of chivalric novels. But it is no closer to the dirty stories that are still in fashion. The truth is, as always, somewhere in the middle. People were different, they lived differently. The concepts of hygiene were indeed quite wild for a modern look, but they were, and medieval people took care of cleanliness and health, as far as their understanding was.
And all these stories ... someone wants to show how modern people are "cooler" than medieval ones, someone simply asserts himself, and someone does not understand the topic at all and repeats other people's words.
And finally - about memoirs. Talking about terrible morals, lovers of the "dirty Middle Ages" especially like to refer to memoirs. Only for some reason not on Commines or La Rochefoucauld, but on memoirists like Brantome, who probably published the largest collection of gossip in history, seasoned with his own rich imagination.
On this occasion, I propose to recall the post-perestroika anecdote about the trip of a Russian farmer (in a jeep in which there was a head unit) to visit the English. He showed the farmer Ivan a bidet and said that his Mary was washing there. Ivan thought - but where is his Masha washing? Came home and asked. She answers:
- Yes, in the river.
- And in winter?
- How long is that winter?
And now let's get an idea of hygiene in Russia according to this anecdote.
I think if we focus on such sources, then our society will turn out to be no cleaner than the medieval one.
Or remember the program about the parties of our bohemia. We supplement this with our impressions, gossip, fantasies and you can write a book about the life of society in modern Russia (we are worse than Brantoma - also contemporaries of events). And the descendants will study the customs in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century, be horrified and say what terrible times were ...
Different eras are associated with different scents. 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".
A courtesy manual published at the end of the 18th century (Manuel de civilite, 1782) formally forbids the use of water for washing, "because it makes the face more sensitive to cold in winter and hot 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 bath once a month - ugly often (the widespread theory that the Russian word "stink" comes from the French "merd" - "shit", until, however, recognized 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 highway that leads to Notre Dame Cathedral). 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.
While cesspools were dug in the countryside, in the cities people defecated 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 illness and even death, ”said a fifteenth-century medical treatise. In the Middle Ages, it was believed that contaminated air could penetrate the cleansed 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 the front staircase of a 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 chiseled legs, surrounded by a low lattice and necessarily with a canopy, in the Middle Ages become of 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 a folk custom, albeit with great discontent. 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 fiction (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, a modern person 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 Rus'. During the rampage of the 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 the face because the holy water with which the Christian came into contact during the sacrament of baptism was washed away (in Protestant churches the sacrament of baptism is performed twice).
Many historians believe that because of this, devout Christians in Western Europe did not wash 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 Rus', 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.
There is a myth about hygiene in the High and Late Middle Ages. The stereotype fits into one phrase: "They were all dirty and washed only by accidentally falling into the river, but in Rus' ..." - then follows a lengthy description of the culture of Russian baths.
Alas, this is nothing more than a myth.
Maybe for someone these words will cause a slight break in the pattern, but the average Russian prince of the XII-XIV centuries was no cleaner than a German / French feudal lord. And the latter, for the most part, were not dirtier. Perhaps for some this information is a revelation, but the bathing craft in that era was very developed and, for the objective reasons described below, it turned out to be 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.
Let's go through public information. For starters - well-known resort areas. Take a look at the coat of arms of Baden (Baden bei Wien), granted to the city by Holy Emperor Frederick III in 1480. A man and a woman in a tub. Shortly before the appearance of the coat of arms, in 1417, Poggio Braccoli, who accompanied the dethroned Pope John XXIII on a trip to Baden, gives a description of 30 luxurious baths. There were two outdoor swimming pools for commoners.
We give the floor to Fernand Braudel ("The structures of everyday life: the possible and the impossible"):
Baths, a long legacy of Rome, were the rule throughout medieval Europe - both private and very numerous public baths, with their baths, steam rooms and loungers for relaxation, or with large pools, with their crowding of naked bodies, male and female interspersed. People met here as naturally as in the church; and these bathing establishments were designed for all classes, so that they were subjected to senior duties like mills, smithies and drinking establishments. As for wealthy houses, they all had "soaps" in the basement; there were a steam room and tubs - usually wooden, with hoops stuffed like on barrels. Charles the Bold had a rare luxury item: a silver bathtub, which he carried around the battlefields. After the defeat at Granson (1476), she was found in the ducal camp.
In the report of the Parisian Prevost (the era of Philip IV the Fair, early 1300s), 29 public baths in Paris are mentioned, subject to city tax. They worked every day except Sunday. The fact that the Church looked askance at these establishments is quite natural - since the baths and the taverns adjacent to them were often used for extramarital sex, although, of course, the people were still going to wash there. J. Boccaccio writes about this directly: “In Naples, when the ninth hour came, Catella, taking her maid with her and not changing her intention in any way, went to those baths ... The room was very dark, which each of them was pleased with” .
Here is a typical picture of the XIV century - we see a very luxurious institution "for the noble":
Not only Paris. As of 1340, it is known that there were 9 baths in Nuremberg, 10 in Erfurt, 29 in Vienna, and 12 in Breslau/Wroclaw.
The rich preferred to wash at home. There was no running water in Paris, and street water carriers delivered water for a small fee. Memo di Filippuccio, Marriage Bath, circa 1320 fresco, San Gimignano City Museum.
And here is Hans Bock, Public Baths (Switzerland), 1597, oil on canvas, Basel Art Gallery.
Here is a modern reconstruction of a standard public "soap" of the XIV-XV centuries, an economy class for the poor, a budget version: wooden tubs right on the streets, water is boiled in boilers:
Separately, we note that in the "Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco there is a very detailed description of the monastery baths - separate baths, separated by curtains. Berengar drowned in one of these.
Quote from the charter of the Augustinian Order: "Whether you need to go to a bathhouse, or to another place, let there be at least two or three of you. Whoever needs to leave the monastery should go with the one appointed by the commander."
And here is from the Valencian Codex of the 13th century: “Let men go to the bath together on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; women go on Monday and Wednesday; and Jews go on Friday and Sunday; neither man nor woman give more than one meach when entering the bath; and servants like men so they don’t give anything to women; and if men on women’s days enter the bathhouse or any of the buildings of the bathhouse, let each pay ten maravedis; also pay ten maravedis whoever peeps in the bathhouse on women’s day; also if any - If a woman enters a bathhouse on a man's day or is met there at night, and someone offends her or takes her by force, then he does not pay any fine and does not become an enemy; but a person who on other days takes a woman by force or dishonors should reset."
And the story is no joke at all, how in 1045 several important people, including the Bishop of Würzburg, died in the bathing tub of Persenbeug Castle after the ceiling of the bath collapsed.
Steam bath. 14th century - So there were also steam saunas.
The maid in the bath - note, with a broom. "Wenzelsbibel", circa 1400
So, the myth evaporates, along with the bath steam. The High Middle Ages was not at all a kingdom of total filth.
The disappearance of bathing in post-Renaissance times was facilitated by both natural and religious and political conditions. The "Little Ice Age", which lasted until the 18th century, led to massive deforestation and a monstrous shortage of fuel - it was only possible to replace it with coal in the New Age.
Note the sharp increase in firewood prices after 1550:
And, of course, the Reformation had a huge impact - if the Catholic clergy of the Middle Ages treated the baths relatively neutrally (and washed themselves - there are references to visiting the baths even by the Popes), only forbidding the joint washing of men and women, then the Protestants banned it altogether - not in a puritanical This. In 1526, Erasmus of Rotterdam states: "Twenty-five years ago, nothing was so popular in Brabant as public baths: today they are gone - the plague has taught us to do without them." In Paris, the baths practically disappeared under Louis XIV.
And just in the New Age, Europeans begin to be surprised at Russian public baths and steam rooms, which in the 17th century already noticeably distinguish Eastern Europe from Western. The culture has been lost.
Here is such a story.
Albrecht Durer, "Men in the Bath", 1497 - beer, conversations, music, hats for the steam room. Pay attention to the water faucet
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 brought 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 the hot bath and ordered her to be locked there together with one maid. As soon as she entered the bath 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 the 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 bathing tradition continued after the evacuation of the legions from Britain. By the High Middle Ages, it did not disappear, quite the contrary - 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 out 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 route 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 all the last years of his life there. 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 Plombiere-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 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.
