As hard as it is to believe, the smell of an unwashed body was considered a sign of deep respect for one's health. They say that different times have different flavors. Can you imagine how the unwashed and sweaty bodies of powdered beauties who had not washed for years smelled? And it's not a joke. Get ready to learn some embarrassing facts.
Colorful historical films fascinate us with beautiful scenes, chicly dressed heroes. It seems that their velvet and silk outfits radiate a dizzying fragrance. Yes, this is possible, because actors love good perfumes. But in the historical reality, "incense" was different.
For example, the Spanish Queen Isabella of Castile knew water and soap only twice in her entire life: on her birthday and on her happy wedding day. And one of the daughters of the king of France died from ... lice. Can you imagine how big this zoo was, that the poor lady said goodbye to her life for the love of "animals"?
The note, which has been preserved from time immemorial and has become a well-known anecdote, gained great popularity. It was written by the loving Henry of Navarre, one of his beloved. The king asks the lady in it to prepare for his arrival: “Do not wash, dear. I'll be with you in three weeks." Can you imagine how palpable that night of love was in the air?
The Duke of Norfolk categorically refused to bathe. His body was covered with terrible rashes that would have led the "clean" to death ahead of time. Caring servants waited until the master was dead drunk, and dragged him away to wash.
Continuing the theme of medieval cleanliness, one cannot but recall such a fact as teeth. Now you will be in shock! Noble ladies showed bad teeth, proud of their decay. But those whose teeth were naturally good covered their mouths with their palms so as not to frighten the “disgusting” beauty of the interlocutor. Yes, the profession of a dentist could not feed at that time :)
In 1782, the "Guidelines of courtesy" was published, where there was a ban on washing with water, which leads to a high sensitivity of the skin "in winter to cold, and in summer to heat." It is interesting that in Europe we Russians were considered perverts, since our love for the bath horrified the Europeans.
Poor, poor medieval women! Even before the middle of the 19th century, frequent washing of the intimate area was banned, as it could lead to infertility. What was it like on critical days?
The shocking hygiene of women in the XVIII-XIX centuries. ekah
And these days were critical for them in the full sense of this expression (maybe the name has “clung” since then). What kind of personal hygiene products could we talk about? Women used scraps of fabric, and used it repeatedly. Some used for this purpose the floors of the underskirt or shirt, tucking it between the legs.
Yes, and the menses themselves were considered a “serious illness”. During this period, ladies could only lie and get sick. Reading was also forbidden, as mental activity worsened (as the British believed in the Victorian era).
It is worth noting that women in those days did not menstruate as often as their current girlfriends. The fact is that from adolescence until the onset of menopause, a woman went pregnant. When the child was born, then the lactation period began, which is also accompanied by the absence of critical days. So it turns out that medieval beauties had no more than 10-20 of these “red days” in their entire lives (for example, for a modern lady, this figure appears in the annual calendar). So, the issue of hygiene worried women of the 18th and 19th centuries not particularly.
In the 15th century, the first scented soaps were produced. The cherished bars smelled of rose, lavender, marjoram and cloves. Noble ladies began to wash their faces and wash their hands before eating and going to the toilet. But, alas, this "excessive" cleanliness concerned only open parts of the body.
The first deodorant... But first, some interesting details from the past. Medieval women noticed that men respond well to the specific smell of their secretions. Sexy beauties used this technique, lubricating the skin on the wrists behind the ears, on the chest with the juices of their body. Well, the way modern women do it, using perfume. Can you imagine how intoxicating this scent is? And only in 1888 the first deodorant appeared, which brought a little salvation to a strange way of life.
What kind of toilet paper could we talk about in the Middle Ages? For a long time, the church forbade cleansing yourself after going to the toilet! Leaves, moss - that's what ordinary people used (if they did, then not all). Noble clean people had prepared rags for this purpose. It wasn't until 1880 that the first toilet paper appeared in England.
It is interesting that the disregard for the cleanliness of one's own body did not at all mean the same attitude towards one's appearance. Makeup was popular! A thick layer of zinc or lead white was applied to the face, lips were painted in flashy red, eyebrows were plucked.
There was one smart lady who decided to hide her ugly pimple under a black silk patch: she cut out a round flap and glued it over the ugly pimple. Yes, the Duchess of Newcastle (that was the name of the smart lady) would be shocked to learn that after a couple of centuries her invention would replace a convenient and effective tool called “concealer” (for those who are “out of touch”, there is an article). And the discovery of a noble lady still received a response! The fashionable "fly" has become an obligatory decoration of the female appearance, allowing to reduce the amount of white on the skin.
Well, a “breakthrough” in the matter of personal hygiene occurred by the middle of the 19th century. This was the time when medical research began to explain the relationship between infectious diseases and bacteria, the number of which decreases many times over if they are washed off the body.
So do not sigh too much for the romantic medieval period: “Oh, if I lived at that time ...” Use the benefits of civilization, be beautiful and healthy!
Yes, in Russia with hygiene at all times there were no such global problems as in Europe, which for this reason was called unwashed. As you know, medieval Europeans neglected personal hygiene, and some were even proud of the fact that they washed only two, or even once, in their lives. Surely you would like to know a little more about how the Europeans observed hygiene and who they called "God's pearls".
Don't steal, don't kill, don't wash
And it would be okay only firewood. The Catholic Church forbade any ablutions except those that take place during baptism (which was supposed to wash a Christian once and for all) and before the wedding. All this, of course, had nothing to do with hygiene. And it was also believed that when the body is immersed in water, especially in hot water, pores open through which water enters the body, which then will not find an exit. Therefore, supposedly the body becomes vulnerable to infections. This is understandable, because everyone washed in the same water - from the cardinal to the cook. So after water procedures, the Europeans really got sick. And strongly.
Louis XIV bathed only twice in his life. And after each he was so sick that the courtiers were preparing a will. The same "record" belongs to Queen Isabella of Castile, who was terribly proud that the water touched her body for the first time - at baptism, and the second - before the wedding.
The Church ordered to take care not of the body, but of the soul, therefore, for the hermits, dirt was a virtue, and nudity was a shame (seeing a body, not only someone else's, but also one's own, is a sin). Therefore, if they washed, then in shirts (this habit will continue until the end of the 19th century).
Lady with a dog
Lice were called "God's pearls" and considered a sign of holiness. The troubadours in love removed the fleas from themselves and put their hearts on the lady, so that the blood, mixed in the stomach of the insect, would unite the hearts of the sweet couple. Despite all their "holiness", insects still got people. That is why everyone carried a flea-catcher or a small dog (in the case of ladies). So, dear girls, when carrying a pocket dog in a pink blanket, remember where the tradition came from.
Lice were disposed of in a different way. They soaked a piece of fur in blood and honey, and then placed it in the hair. Smelling the smell of blood, the insects were supposed to rush to the bait and get stuck in the honey. They also wore silk underwear, which, by the way, became popular precisely because of its “slipperiness”. "God's pearls" could not cling to such a smooth fabric. This is what else! In the hope of being saved from lice, many practiced a more radical method - mercury. It was rubbed into the scalp and sometimes eaten. True, it was primarily people who died from this, not lice.
National unity
In 1911, archaeologists unearthed ancient buildings made of burnt bricks. These were the walls of the fortress of Mohenjo-Daro, the ancient city of the Indus Valley, which arose around 2600 BC. e. Strange openings along the perimeter of buildings turned out to be toilets. The oldest found.
Then the toilets, or latrines, will be with the Romans. Neither in Mohenjo-Daro, nor in the Queen of Waters (Ancient Rome), by the way, they did not assume solitude. Sitting on their “shocks”, located opposite each other around the perimeter of the hall (similar to the way seats are arranged in the subway today), the ancient Romans indulged in conversations about stoicism or epigrams of Seneca.
At the end of the 13th century, a law was issued in Paris that, when pouring a chamber pot out of a window, you need to shout: “Beware of water!”
In Medieval Europe, there were no toilets at all. Only the highest nobility. And that is very rare and the most primitive. They say that the French royal court periodically moved from castle to castle, because there was literally nothing to breathe in the old one. Human waste was everywhere: at the doors, on the balconies, in the yards, under the windows. With the quality of medieval food and unsanitary conditions, diarrhea was common - you simply could not run to the toilet.
At the end of the 13th century, a law was issued in Paris that, when pouring a chamber pot out of a window, you need to shout: “Beware of water!”. Even the fashion for wide-brimmed hats appeared only to protect expensive clothes and wigs from what was flying from above. According to the descriptions of many guests of Paris, such as Leonardo da Vinci, there was a terrible stench on the streets of the city. What is there in the city - in Versailles itself! Once there, the people tried not to leave until they met the king. There were no toilets, so “little Venice” did not smell of roses at all. Louis XIV himself, however, had a water closet. The Sun King could sit on it, even receiving guests. To be present at the toilet of high-ranking persons was generally considered “honoris causa” (especially honorable).
The first public toilet in Paris appeared only in the 19th century. But it was intended exclusively ... for men. In Russia, public latrines appeared under Peter I. But also only for courtiers. True, both sexes.
And 100 years ago, the Spanish campaign to electrify the country began. It was called simply and clearly - "Toilet". It means "unity" in Spanish. Along with insulators, other faience products were also produced. The very ones whose descendants now stand in every house are toilet bowls. The first toilet with a flush tank was invented at the end of the 16th century by the courtier of the English royal court, John Harington. But the water closet was not popular - because of the high cost and lack of sewerage.
And tooth powder and thick comb
If there were no such benefits of civilization as an elementary toilet and a bath, then there is no need to talk about a toothbrush and deodorant. Although sometimes they used brushes made of branches to brush their teeth. In Kievan Rus - oak, in the Middle East and South Asia - from arak wood. In Europe, cloths were used. And they didn't brush their teeth at all. True, the toothbrush was invented in Europe, or rather, in England. It was invented by William Addison in 1770. But mass production became far from immediately - in the 19th century. At the same time, tooth powder was invented.
And what about toilet paper? Nothing, of course. In ancient Rome, it was replaced by sponges soaked in salt water, which were attached to a long handle. In America - corn cobs, and for Muslims - plain water. In medieval Europe and in Russia, ordinary people used leaves, grass and moss. Know used silk rags.
It is believed that the perfume was invented only to drown out the terrible street stench. Whether this is true or not is not known for certain. But the cosmetic product, which would now be called deodorant, appeared in Europe only in the 1880s. True, back in the 9th century, someone Ziryab suggested using a deodorant (apparently of his own production) in Moorish Iberia (parts of modern France, Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar), but no one paid attention to this.
But already in ancient times, people understood: if you remove the hair in the armpit, the smell of sweat will not be so strong. The same goes for washing them. But in Europe, as we have already said, this was not practiced. As for depilation, the hair on the female body did not annoy anyone until the 1920s. Only then did European ladies think for the first time: to shave or not to shave.
We have heard this more than once: “We washed ourselves, but in Europe they used perfumery.” It sounds very cool, and, most importantly, patriotic. It’s clear where everything grows from, centuries-old traditions of cleanliness and hygiene are more important than an attractive “wrapper” of smells. But a shadow of doubt, of course, cannot but arise - after all, if the Europeans really hadn’t “washed themselves” for centuries, would European civilization have been able to develop normally and give us masterpieces? We liked the idea of looking for confirmation or refutation of this myth in European art of the Middle Ages.
Bathing and washing in medieval Europe
The culture of washing in Europe dates back to the ancient Roman tradition, the material evidence of which has survived to this day in the form of the remains of Roman baths. Numerous descriptions testify that a visit to the baths was a sign of good form for a Roman aristocrat, but as a tradition not only hygienic - massage services were also offered there, and an elected society gathered there. On certain days, terms became available to people of a simple position.
Baths of Diocletian II in Rome
“This tradition, which the Germans and the tribes that entered Rome with them could not destroy, migrated to the Middle Ages, but with some adjustments. The baths remained - they had all the attributes of the thermae, were divided into sections for the aristocracy and commoners, continued to serve as a meeting place and an interesting pastime, ”as Fernand Braudel testifies in the book“ Structures of Everyday Life ”.
But we digress from a simple statement of fact - the existence of baths in medieval Europe. We are interested in how the change in lifestyle in Europe with the advent of the Middle Ages affected the tradition of washing. In addition, we will try to analyze the reasons that could prevent the observance of hygiene on the scale that has become familiar to us now.
So, the Middle Ages - this is the pressure of the church, this is scholasticism in science, the fires of the Inquisition ... This is the appearance of the aristocracy in a form that was not familiar to Ancient Rome. Throughout Europe, many castles of feudal lords are being built, around which dependent, vassal settlements are formed. Cities acquire walls and craft artels, quarters of masters. Monasteries are growing. How did a European wash during this difficult period?
Water and firewood - without them there is no bath
What is needed for a bath? Water and heat to heat the water. Let us imagine a medieval city which, unlike Rome, does not have a water supply system through viaducts from the mountains. Water is taken from the river, and it needs a lot. Even more firewood is needed, because heating water requires a long burning of wood, and boilers for heating were not yet known at that time.
Water and firewood are supplied by people doing their business, an aristocrat or a wealthy city dweller pays for such services, public baths charge high fees for using pools, thus compensating for low prices on public "bath days". The class structure of society already allows you to clearly distinguish between visitors.
Francois Clouet - Lady in the Bath, circa 1571
We are not talking about steam rooms - marble baths do not allow you to use steam, there are pools with heated water. Steam rooms - tiny, wood-lined rooms, appeared in Northern Europe and in Russia because it is cold there and there is a lot of available fuel (wood). In the center of Europe, they are simply irrelevant. A public bath in the city existed, was available, and the aristocrats could and did use their own "soaps". But before the advent of centralized water supply, washing every day was an incredible luxury.
But for water supply, at least a viaduct is required, and in flat areas - a pump and a storage tank. Before the appearance of a steam engine and an electric motor, there was no question of a pump, before the advent of stainless steel there was no way to store water for a long time, it would “rotten” in a container. That is why the bath was far from accessible to everyone, but at least once a week a person could get into it in a European city.
Public baths in European cities
France. The fresco "Public Bath" (1470) depicts people of both sexes in a vast room with a bath and a table set right in it. It is interesting that there are "rooms" with beds right there ... There is a couple in one of the beds, another couple is clearly heading towards the bed. It is difficult to say how much this atmosphere conveys the atmosphere of “washing”, it all looks more like an orgy by the pool ... However, according to the testimonies and reports of the Parisian authorities, already in 1300 there were about thirty public baths in the city.
Giovanni Boccaccio describes a visit to a Neapolitan bath by young aristocrats as follows:
“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” ...
A European, a resident of a large city in the Middle Ages, could use the services of public baths, for which funds from the city treasury were allocated. But the pay for this pleasure was not low. At home, washing with hot water in a large container was excluded due to the high cost of firewood, water and lack of flow.
The artist Memo di Filipuccio depicted a man and a woman in a wooden tub on the fresco "The Marriage Bath" (1320). Judging by the atmosphere in the room with draperies, these are not ordinary citizens.
The "Valencian Code" of the 13th century prescribes going to the bath separately, by day, for men and women, highlighting another Saturday for Jews. The document sets the maximum fee for visiting, it is stipulated that it is not charged to servants. Let's pay attention: from the servants. This means that a certain estate or property qualification already exists.
As for the water supply, the Russian journalist Gilyarovsky describes Moscow water carriers already at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, drawing water into their barrels from the “fantal” (fountain) on Theater Square to deliver it to homes. And the same picture was observed before in many European cities. The second problem is stocks. The removal of a huge amount of waste water from the baths required some effort or investment. Therefore, a public bath was not a pleasure for every day. But people washed talking about "unwashed Europe", in contrast to "pure" Russia, of course, there is no reason. A Russian peasant heated a bathhouse once a week, and the nature of the development of Russian cities made it possible to have a bathhouse right in the yard.
Albrecht Durer - Women's Bath, 1505-10
Albrecht Dürer - Men's Bath Bath, 1496-97
Albrecht Dürer's magnificent engraving "Men's Bath" depicts a company of men with beer by an outdoor pool under a wooden canopy, and the engraving "Women's Bath" shows women washing themselves. Both engravings refer to the very time in which, according to the assurances of some of our fellow citizens, "Europe did not wash."
The painting by Hans Bock (1587) depicts public baths in Switzerland - many people, both men and women, spend time in a fenced pool, in the middle of which a large wooden table with drinks floats. Judging by the background of the picture, the pool is open ... Behind - the area. It can be assumed that a bathhouse is depicted here, receiving water from the mountains, possibly from hot springs.
No less interesting is the historical building "Bagno Vignole" in Tuscany (Italy) - there to this day you can swim in hot, naturally heated water saturated with hydrogen sulfide.
Sauna in the castle and palace - a huge luxury
An aristocrat could afford his own soap dish, like Charles the Bold, who carried a silver bathtub with him. It was made of silver, since it was believed that this metal disinfects water. In the castle of a medieval aristocrat there was a soap room, but far from being publicly available, moreover, it was expensive to use.
Albrecht Altdorfer - Bathing Susanna (detail), 1526
The main tower of the castle - donjon - dominated the walls. The water sources in such a complex were a real strategic resource, because during the siege, the enemy poisoned the wells and blocked the channels. The castle was built on a dominant height, which means that the water was either raised by a gate from the river, or taken from its own well in the yard. Delivery of fuel to such a castle was an expensive pleasure, heating water during heating by fireplaces was a huge problem, because in a direct fireplace chimney, up to 80 percent of the heat simply “flies into the chimney”. An aristocrat in a castle could afford a bath no more than once a week, and even then under favorable circumstances.
The situation was no better in the palaces, which in essence were the same castles, only with a large number of people - from courtiers to servants. It was very difficult to wash such a mass of people with available water and fuel. Huge stoves for heating water could not be constantly heated in the palace.
A certain luxury could be afforded by aristocrats who traveled to mountain resorts with thermal waters - to Baden, the coat of arms of which depicts a couple bathing in a rather cramped wooden bath. The coat of arms was granted to the city by the Emperor of the Holy Empire Frederick III in 1480. But note that the bath in the image is wooden, it's just a tub, and that's why - the stone container cooled the water very quickly. In 1417, according to Poggio Braccoli, who accompanied Pope John XXIII, Baden had three dozen public baths. The city, located in the area of thermal springs, from where water came through a system of simple clay pipes, could afford such a luxury.
Charlemagne, according to Eingard, liked to spend time in the hot springs of Aachen, where he built a palace for himself.
Washing was always worth the money ...
A certain role in the oppression of the "soap business" in Europe was played by the church, which very negatively perceived the gathering of naked people in any circumstances. And after another invasion of the plague, the bath business suffered greatly, as public baths became places for the spread of infection, as evidenced by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1526): “Twenty-five years ago, nothing was as popular in Brabant as public baths: today they are already no - the plague has taught us to do without them.
The appearance of modern soap is a controversial issue, but there is evidence of Crescans Davinus Sabonerius, who in 1371 began the production of this product based on olive oil. Subsequently, soap was available to wealthy people, and commoners made do with vinegar and ash.
Edited 05/30/2012
Probably, many, having read foreign literature, and especially historical books by foreign authors about ancient Russia, were horrified by the dirt and stench that reigned in those distant times in Russian villages. This template has become so rooted in our consciousness that even modern Russian films about ancient Russia are shot according to this obviously false scenario, and continue to hang noodles on our ears, allegedly that our ancestors lived in dugouts or in a forest in swamps, did not wash for years , walked in rags, from this they often got sick and died in middle age, rarely living up to 40 years.
When someone wants to describe the allegedly “real” past of another people, and especially the enemy, namely, the whole allegedly “civilized” world sees us as such “barbarians”, then, writing a fictional past, they write off, of course, from themselves, since the other they cannot know that, neither from their own experience, nor from the experience of their ancestors.
But sooner or later a lie always emerges, and now we know for certain who was actually unwashed, and who was fragrant in purity and beauty. And enough facts from the past have accumulated to evoke appropriate images from an inquisitive reader and personally feel all the delights of supposedly clean Europe, and decide for himself where the truth is and where the lie is.
So, one of the first mentions of the Slavs that Western historians give notes as the MAIN feature of the Slavic tribes is that they "pour water", that is, they wash in running water, while all the other peoples of Europe washed themselves in tubs, basins, and baths. 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 stream 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 who do 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 a bucket of slop just onto the street, demonstrating that only my house is private property, and the rest - do not care!
I repeat once again that the custom "pour water" previously distinguished in Europe precisely our ancestors of the Slavic-Aryans, was assigned precisely to them as a distinguishing feature, which clearly had some kind of ritual ancient meaning. And this meaning, of course, was passed on to our ancestors many thousands of years ago through the commandments of the gods, namely, the god Perun, who flew to our Earth 25,000 years ago, bequeathed: “Wash your hands after your works, for he who 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, it probably becomes disgusting for any of us and “cats scratch our souls” when we feel dirty, or sweat a lot after hard physical labor, or summer heat, and we want to quickly wash off this dirt from ourselves and freshen up under streams of clean water. I am sure that our dislike for dirt is genetic, and therefore we strive, even without knowing Perun's commandment about washing hands, always coming from the street, for example, immediately wash our hands and wash ourselves in order to feel fresh and get rid of fatigue.
What was happening in allegedly enlightened and pure Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages and, oddly enough, right up to the 18th century?
Having destroyed the culture of the ancient Etruscans (these Russians or Russians 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 a bath, around which the MYTH was created (my decoding A.N. - we distorted or distorted the facts - MYTH) about the Roman Empire, which never existed, and the monuments of which have survived to our times, the Jewish barbarians (and it was undoubtedly them and no matter what people they were hiding behind for their vile purposes) for many centuries enslaved Western Europe its lack of culture, filth and depravity.
Europe has not washed for centuries!!!
We first find confirmation of this in the letters of Princess Anna, the daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Kyiv prince of the 11th century AD. e.
Having given his daughter in marriage to the French king Henry I, he allegedly 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 of her personal library, and was horrified to find that her husband, the king of France, could not only read, but also write, which she was not slow to write to her father, Yaroslav the Wise. And she reproached him for sending her to this wilderness! It's a real fact, there's a real letter Princess Anna: “Father, why do you hate me? And he sent me to this dirty village, where there is nowhere to wash". And the bible that she brought with her to France, in Russian, still serves as an attribute on which all French presidents, and earlier kings, take the oath.
European cities were buried in sewage: “The French king Philip II Augustus, accustomed to the smell of his capital, fainted in 1185 when he stood at the palace, and carts passing by him blew up street sewage ...”.
The historian Draper has presented in his book A History of the Relationship between Religion and Science a rather vivid picture of the conditions in which the population of Europe lived during the Middle Ages. Here are the main features of this picture: “The surface of the continent was then covered for the most part by impenetrable forests; monasteries and cities stood here and there.
In the lowlands and along the course of the rivers there were swamps, sometimes stretching for hundreds of miles, and emitting their poisonous miasma, which spread fevers. In Paris and London, the houses were wooden, smeared with clay, thatched or thatched. They had no windows and, before sawmills were invented, few houses had wooden floors... There were no chimneys. In such dwellings there was hardly any protection from the weather. Gutters were not cared for: rotting remains and rubbish were simply thrown out the door.
Neatness was completely unknown: high dignitaries, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, were infested with insects.
The food consisted of coarse plant foods such as peas or even tree bark. In some places, the villagers did not know bread, "Is it surprising after that" - further notes the historian - that during the famine of 1030 human meat was fried and sold, or that in the famine of 1258 15 thousand people died of starvation in London?.
A certain Dionysius Fabricius, rector of the church in Fellin, in his collection on the history of Livonia, published a story related to the monks of the Falkenau monastery near Derpt (now Tartu), the plot of which dates back to the 13th century. The monks of the newly founded Dominican monastery sought financial subsidies from Rome, and the request was supported by a description of their ascetic pastime: “every day, having gathered in a specially built room, they light the stove as hard as they can bear the heat, after which they undress, whip themselves with rods, and then douse themselves with ice-cold water.” So they struggle with the carnal passions that tempt them. An Italian was sent from Rome to check the truth of what was described. During such a bathing procedure, he almost gave his soul to God and quickly retired to Rome, testifying there the truth of the voluntary martyrdom of the monks, who received the requested subsidy.
When the crusades began, the crusaders struck both the Arabs and the Byzantines with what reeked from them "like homeless people" as they say now. The West appeared to the East as a synonym for savagery, filth and barbarity, and indeed it was this barbarity. The pilgrims who returned to Europe tried to introduce the peeped custom of bathing in a bath, but it was not there! Since the 13th century, baths have already officially come under the ban of the Church as a source of debauchery and infection! So that the gallant knights and troubadours of that era exuded a stench for several meters around them. The ladies were no worse. You can still see in museums back scratchers made of expensive wood and ivory, as well as flea traps ...
As a result, the 15th century was probably one of the most terrible in the history of Europe. Quite naturally, an epidemic of plague broke out. Italy, 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 were common. It looks like a biological war of those years.
I can add to the word about ancient Europe about their hygiene and cleanliness of the body. Let it be known to you that the French invented perfumes not to smell, but not to stink! Yes exactly. According to one of the royals, or rather Sun King LouisXIV, a real Frenchman washes only twice in his life - at birth and before death. Only 2 times! Horror! And I immediately remembered supposedly unenlightened and uncultured Russia, in which every peasant had his own bathhouse, and at least once a week people washed in bathhouses 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 how, a civilized person, a 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. Naked men and girls, locking themselves together in a hotly heated hut and torturing their own bodies, whipping themselves with twigs of wood mercilessly, to the point of exhaustion? and after jumping into the hole, or a snowdrift, and, cooling down, again going to the hut to torture your body ”.
How could this dirty, unwashed Europe know what a Russian banya is? Until the 18th century, until the Slavs-Russians taught the "clean" Europeans how to make soap, they did not wash themselves. Therefore, they constantly had epidemics of typhus, plague, cholera, smallpox, and so on. Marie Antoinette she washed her face only twice in her life: once before the wedding, the second time before the execution.
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 a kilogram of gold. Therefore, only rich people could afford silk.
Patrick Suskind in his work "Perfumer" described how Paris "smelled" of the 18th century, but by the 11th century of the time of Queen Anna Yaroslavna, this passage will also have a very good example:
“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 pungent-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 old, 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 masters stank, the whole nobility stank, even the king himself stank - he stank like a predatory beast, and the queen - like an old goat, in winter and summer.< ... >Every human activity, both constructive and destructive, every manifestation of nascent or perishing life, was accompanied by a stink.”
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.
In the Handbook of Courtesy, published at the end XVIII century (Manuel de civilite, 1782) it is formally forbidden to use water for washing, "for it makes the face more sensitive to cold in winter, and to heat in summer".
Queen of Spain Isabella of Castile proudly admitted that she washed herself only twice in her life - at birth and before the wedding!
Louis XIV(May 14, 1643 - September 1, 1715) washed only twice in his life - and then on the advice of doctors. Washing brought the monarch into such horror that he vowed to ever take water procedures. Russian ambassadors at the court of Louis XIV, nicknamed the Sun King, wrote that their majesty king of France "stinks like a wild beast" !
Even accustomed to the constant stench that surrounded him from birth, the king PhilipII once he fainted when he stood at the window, and carts passing by loosened with their wheels a dense, perennial layer of sewage. By the way, this king died of... scabies! Her dad also died ClementVII! BUT Clement V fell from dysentery. One of the French princesses died, eaten by lice! No wonder lice were called "God's pearls" and considered a sign of holiness.
The famous French historian Fernand Braudel wrote in his book The Structures of Everyday: “The chamber pots continued to be poured into the windows, as they always were - the streets were sewers. The bathroom was a rare luxury. Fleas, lice and bedbugs were infested both in London and in Paris, both in the homes of the rich and in the homes of the poor..
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 sat down 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 that Versailles guides are so fond of telling, 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.
I will say a few more words about the mores of the barbarian and wild West.
The Sun King, like all other kings, allowed the courtiers to use any corner of Versailles as toilets.
To this day, the parks of Versailles stink of urine on a warm day. 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 diarrhea was the guardian of the tradition. Ruthless, relentless, capable of taking anyone, anywhere, by surprise. Given the appropriate quality of medieval food and water, diarrhea was a constant phenomenon. 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.
In 1364, a man named Thomas Dubusson was given the task “draw bright red crosses in the garden or corridors of the Louvre to warn people there to crap - so that people consider such things to be sacrilegious in these places”. Getting to the throne room was a very smelly journey in itself. "In the Louvre and around it, - wrote in 1670 a man who wanted to build public toilets, - inside the courtyard and in its environs, in the alleys, behind the doors - almost everywhere you can see thousands of heaps and smell a variety of smells of the same thing - a product of the natural administration of those who live here and come here every day ". Periodically, all of its noble residents left the Louvre so that the palace could be washed and ventilated.
And in the book for reading on the history of the Middle Ages by Sergei Skazkin about the culture of Europeans, we read the following: “The inhabitants of the houses threw out all the contents of buckets and pelvises directly into the street, on the mountain to a gaping passerby. The stagnant slops formed stinking puddles, and the restless city pigs, of which there were a great many, completed the picture..
Unsanitary conditions, disease and hunger - that's the face of medieval Europe. Even the nobility in Europe could not always eat their fill. Out of ten children, it is good if two or three survived, and a third of women died during the first birth. Lighting - at best, wax candles, and usually - oil lamps or a torch. Hungry, disfigured by smallpox, leprosy and, later, syphilis, faces peered out of the windows covered with ox bladders.
Gallant knights and beautiful ladies of that era exuded a stench for several meters around them. You can still see in museums back scratchers made of expensive wood and ivory, as well as flea traps. Saucers were also placed on the tables so that people could culturally suppress lice. But in Russia they did not put saucers. But not out of stupidity, but because there was no need for it!
Victorian London was full of filth and stench as 24 tons of horse dung and a million and a half cubic feet of human feces flowed daily into the Thames through sewers before the closed sewer system was built. And this at a time when Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were chasing Professor Moriarty around London.
In the Netherlands, which was considered the most advanced power in the technical sense, and where the Russian Tsar Peter came to study, “in 1660 people still sat down to eat without washing their hands, no matter what they were doing”. Historian Paul Sumthor, author of The Daily Life of Holland in the Time of Rembrandt, notes: "the chamber pot could sit under the bed for ages before the maid took it away and poured the contents into the canal". “Public baths were practically unknown Zyumtor continues. — Back in 1735, there was only one such establishment in Amsterdam. Sailors and fishermen, reeking of fish, spread an unbearable stench. The private toilet was purely decorative.”.
“Water baths insulate the body, but weaken the body and enlarge the pores, so they can cause illness and even death.” , - was stated in one medical treatise of the fifteenth century. In the XV-XVI centuries. rich townspeople bathed once every six months, in the 17th-18th centuries. they stopped taking baths altogether. Sometimes water procedures were used only for medicinal purposes. They carefully prepared for the procedure and put an enema the day before.
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 exclusively aromatic powder.
It is not difficult to guess that the church of that time stood as a wall to protect the dirt and prevent taking care of one's body. The Church in the Middle Ages assumed that “If a person is baptized, that is, sprinkled with holy water, then he is already clean for life. That means you don't have to wash.. And if a person does not wash, then fleas and lice are born, which carry all diseases: typhus, cholera, plague. Therefore, Europe was dying out, in addition to wars, and even from diseases. And wars and diseases, as we see, were provoked by the same church and its instrument of subjugation of the masses - religion!
Before the victory of Christianity, more than a thousand baths operated in Rome alone. The first thing the Christians did when they came to power was to close all the bathhouses. The people of that time were suspicious of washing the body: nudity is a sin, and it’s cold - you can catch a cold.
In Russia, since ancient times, great attention was paid to the observance of cleanliness and tidiness. The inhabitants of Ancient Russia knew hygienic care for the skin of the face, hands, body, and hair. Russian women knew perfectly well that curdled milk, sour cream, cream and honey, fats and oils soften and restore the skin of the face, neck, hands, make it supple and velvety; wash your hair well with eggs, and rinse them with infusion of herbs. So they found and took the necessary funds from the surrounding nature: they collected herbs, flowers, fruits, berries, roots, the healing and cosmetic properties of which they knew.
Our ancestors knew the properties of herbal remedies perfectly, so they were mainly used for cosmetic purposes. The medicinal properties of wild herbs were also well known. They collected flowers, grass, berries, fruits, plant roots and skillfully used them to make cosmetics.
For blush and lipstick, they used raspberry juice, cherries, rubbed their cheeks with beets. Black soot was used to blacken the eyes and eyebrows, sometimes brown paint was used. To give the skin whiteness, wheat flour or chalk was taken. Plants were also used to color hair: for example, onion husks dyed hair brown, saffron with chamomile - light yellow. Scarlet paint was obtained from barberry, raspberry - from young leaves of an apple tree, green - from onion feathers, nettle leaves, yellow - from saffron leaves, sorrel and alder bark, etc.
Household cosmetics for Russian women was based on the use of animal products (milk, curdled milk, sour cream, honey, egg yolk, animal fats) and various plants (cucumbers, cabbage, carrots, beets, etc.), burdock oil was used for hair care.
In ancient Russia, great attention was paid to hygiene and skin care. Therefore, cosmetic "rituals" were most often carried out in the bath. Russian baths with a peculiar biting massage with oak or birch brooms were especially common. To cure skin and mental illnesses, ancient healers recommended pouring herbal infusions on hot stones. To soften and nourish the skin, it is good to apply honey on it.
In the baths, skin care was carried out, it was cleaned with special scrapers, massaged with fragrant balms. Among the servants of the baths there were even hair pluckers, and they did this procedure without pain.
In Russia, a weekly bath was common. In the arsenal of preventing hardening of a reasonable hygiene system, the Russian bath has been in the first place for centuries.
Being clean in body and healthy in soul, our ancestors were also famous for their longevity, which not everyone even strives for in our times, realizing that the environment is poisoned, GMO food, medicines are poison, and in general it is harmful to live a lot because of life are dying...
Also, I want to give some examples from the recent past. From our present, so to speak ...
On the Internet, there were memories of eyewitnesses about what they saw washing hands abroad, which is considered the norm for them: “Recently, I had to watch the family of a Russian emigrant who married a Canadian. Their son, who doesn't even speak Russian, washes his hands under an open tap like a mom, while dad plugs the sink with a cork and splashes in his own dirty foam. Washing under the stream seems so natural to Russians that we seriously do not suspect that we were almost the only (at least one of the few) people in the world who did just that..
Soviet people in the 60s, when the first bourgeois films appeared on the screens, were shocked when they saw how a beautiful French actress got out of the bath and put on a dressing gown without washing off the foam. Horror!
But, the Russians experienced real animal horror en masse when they began to travel abroad in the 90s, go on a visit and watch how the owners plugged the sink with a stopper after dinner, put dirty dishes in it, poured liquid soap, and then from this sink, teeming with slops and sewage, they simply pulled out the plates and, without rinsing under running water, put them on the dryer! Some had a gag reflex, because it immediately seemed that everything they had eaten before lay on the same dirty plate. When they told their acquaintances in Russia about this, people simply refused to believe it, they believed that this was some special case of the uncleanliness of an individual European family.
The international journalist Vsevolod Ovchinnikov has a book "Sakura and Oak", in which he described the custom described above that he witnessed during his stay in England and struck him: “the owner of the house where the journalist was staying, after the feast, dipped the glasses in the sink with soapy water and put them on the dryer without rinsing”. Ovchinnikov writes that at that moment he explained the owner’s action to himself as intoxication, however, later he happened to be convinced that this method of washing was typical for England.
Among other things, he was personally in England and made sure that hot water for the British is really a luxury. Since the centralized water supply provides only cold water, hot water is heated through small 3-5 l electric boilers. These boilers were in our kitchen and in the shower. With our - Slavic washing of dishes, when running water, hot water runs out quickly, and often the boiler could not cope with our needs, then we had to use detergents to then wash the dishes with cold water. This was in 1998-9, but even now nothing has changed there.
A few words about longevity. No matter how hard Western historians (From-TORA) try to humiliate us and attribute to our ancestors an early death from all sorts of diseases and undeveloped medicine - all this is just nonsense, with which they are trying to hide the real past of the Slavic-Aryans, and impose the achievements of modern medicine, which allegedly prolonged the life span of the Russians, who, even before the Jewish coup of 1917, were dying en masse before reaching old age, not to mention deep old age.
The truth is that the age of one circle of life, namely 144 years, was considered a natural and normal minimum life span for our ancestors. Some lived more than one circle of life, but could have two or three. For many of us in the family, great-great-grandfathers and great-great-grandmothers lived longer than 80-90 years, and this was considered normal. And in the family books there are entries about 98, 160, 168, 196 years of life.
If anyone is interested in the recipe for longevity, it is simple and I personally came to it myself for a long time thinking about why our old pensioners die early. And the other day I found confirmation of my guess from other people, while the recipe for longevity exactly matches my guesses.
I don’t know how to make secrets, I don’t like it and I won’t - it’s not Russian!
By the way, I am giving a recipe for identifying persons of Jewish nationality in your environment, this is especially evident in childhood, in children's games. So, a Russian person does not make secrets - he is open-hearted, he shares what he knows or has with a completely pure heart and thoughts, does not elevate the possession of some thing or knowledge into a cult. And on the contrary, Jewish children are brought up in a spirit of superiority over the rest, they are not allowed to open their souls to others. Therefore, often from such children you can hear something like this: "I won't tell - it's a secret!". And at the same time, they begin to tease the curiosity of other children, provoking them to financial incentives for revealing the secret. Take a closer look at the children, their games - it all manifests itself at the genetic level !!!
So, it is as simple as it is difficult for many of us - it's work!
Neither pills, nor a healthy lifestyle, although it is inextricably linked with work, since those who work lead a healthy lifestyle - they simply have no time to have fun and spend time idly. Therefore, instead of stadiums and gyms, it is better to work for the good of your kind (family), put your soul into the products of your work and longevity will be much more real for you than the imposed senseless burning of life, which leads only to one thing - to early old age through the wear and tear of your body and consequently to early death. I hope this is already an obvious fact for every reasonable person!
After all, as our ancestors said - "While we work, we live"! On the contrary, what kills old people is not work, from which we want to limit them, taking away their household and household duties for ourselves, while wanting to spare them and give them more time for rest, but inactivity.
Most likely, this is precisely why the state pension system was introduced in order to quickly bring people into a state of unclaimedness, professional worthlessness, and thereby deliberately provoke death not through the natural aging of the body, but from inaction, from uselessness to this society and his family.
The fact that the descendants of the great Slavic-Aryans are still alive, despite the fact that they were most subjected to wars and genocide in the past, is not due to some special Slavic fertility, but due to cleanliness and health. We have always been bypassed or little affected by all the epidemics of plague, cholera, smallpox. And our task is to preserve and increase the heritage given by our ancestors!
We need to be proud that we are Russians, and thanks to the neatness of our Russian mothers, we grew up in cleanliness!
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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 bathhouse 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 God. 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 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 sat down 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 into the same place.
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 always 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 prepared 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 an unprecedented spectacle 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 (they were built by the actress Sandunova), the Central baths (belonging to the merchant Khludov) and a number of other less famous ones appeared in Moscow. In St. Petersburg, people liked to visit the Bochkovsky baths, Leshtokovy. But the most luxurious baths were in Tsarskoye Selo.
