Weird Cleaning(!) Cultures in the Middle Ages

Epidemics, diseases, animal droppings, human waste… There are dozens of other things we can add to this list. It is such an age; people were deprived of cleanliness even because of the class hierarchy.

Pope’s “A good Christian gets dirtyWhile we are investigating the correctness of banning the baths for you, we will talk about the interesting cleaning cultures of people during this period. As you read, you can thank our cleaning culture.

Contrary to popular belief, bathrooms and cleanliness did not disappear in Europe with the collapse of the Roman Empire.

The Romans left many legacies such as sewage and water resources in terms of cleanliness. even in the Middle Ages Roman canalsThey continued to flow and supplied fresh water.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the movie; Seeing King Arthur, the two characters make a guess as to who he is. One of them: “He must be a king, not all messed up” says. This scene actually summarizes some information about the Middle Ages: In the Middle Ages, people of the normal class did not attach much importance to cleanliness. An example of this belief is Isabella of Castile They are shown as people who are known to take a bath on the day they were born and on the day they got married.

In the Middle Ages, some doctors said that because bathing opened the pores in the skin, there was a possibility of contagious diseases.

Of course, there was no single truth in the Middle Ages either. Contrary to some of the doctors who said this, other doctors said that taking a bath would prevent diseases. But for society, this was hardly possible. Because all the evidence that the rich make bathing a luxury. shows. Maybe they were not lucky enough to take a shower every day like us, but even taking a shower once a month was a great feeling for those people.

Dentists of the period were barbers until the 14th century.

Leaving the barber guild in 1308 Dentists used to whiten teeth with nitric acid as well as tooth extraction and tooth cleaning without anesthesia. Except for the aristocrats, the people’s teeth whitening routine included rubbing the teeth with sand and sea water.

Contrary to what is known, there was a bath culture and these places were used not only for washing but also for socializing.

Bath culture is very important in the Roman Empire. There are even important structures that have survived to the present day. In addition to washing, social relations can be established, sports can be done, games are played, food can be bought like a market place. They were complex structures. Therefore, it was one of the places frequented by the people.

Although it is known that people used to go to the baths in the first Christian period, this situation also changed when the ascetic lifestyle developed in the 3rd and 4th centuries.

St Antony had never even washed his feet in his life, Saint Julian also forbade bathing for those who followed his path. Saint Jerome, on the other hand, advocated the unnecessary use of bathing outside of baptism. Thereupon, devout Christians interrupted their cleansing rituals.

Benedictine Order, the most widespread monastic order in the 6th century St. Benedictine’s founder, St. Benedict, states that healthy people never wash, and that one of the greatest virtues of St. Agnes, who died at the age of 13, was that she never washed. In 745, the Archbishop of Mainz, St. Boniface, also banned mixed baths, which were common areas for men and women, on the grounds of immorality.

While upper-class people could bathe in bathtubs of hot water, this was no more than a dream for the villagers.

Since there is no running water and Villagers have to constantly carry water from rivers to their homes. Since they were very young, it took a lot of effort for a family to be able to take a bath. The water obtained was used without heating. Therefore, there was a common bathroom area that everyone used.

The toilet was known as the mainspring of luxury.

Peasants were not as lucky as the upper class. Everyone had shared toilets, just like the bathroom area. Some people also carry potty or dustbin; they dumped their waste into rivers if there was no cesspool. Where is the clean water used in the bathroom?

The lice and insect problem had become so normalized that people would get together once a week to weed out lice.

When we think of people who live with their animals or who are in the middle of all this mess, the situation seems perfectly normal. lice are normalized People like me also used gathering together to weed lice as a means of socialization.

Who needs a fork and spoon when food heated in dirty water can be picked up with dirty hands and brought to a dirty mouth?

people in the Middle Ages they ate their food with their handsTherefore, washing hands, unlike their bodies, was a very important practice before eating. Just for this, people who acted as faucets were employed, and then a wall-mounted faucet would replace these people.

They were treating wounds with urine.

You’ve probably heard at least once in your life that people recommend urinating on the wound against a jellyfish sting. In the Middle Ages, people took it one click further. They used it to treat open wounds and heal bruises. Yes, bruises.

Even though we feel sorry for the people of the Middle Ages when we look back, in cleaning and hygiene It’s comforting to see how far we’ve come. One does not want to even imagine that he was living in that period.