Shocking facts about hygiene in the Middle Ages

By the way, regrettably, the Christian Church is responsible for almost all the negative aspects of life in that Europe. Catholic first.

The ancient world made hygienic procedures one of the main pleasures, it is enough to recall the famous Roman baths. Before the victory of Christianity, more than a thousand baths operated in Rome alone. Christians first of all, having come to power, closed all the baths. The people of that time were suspicious of washing the body: nudity is a sin, and it’s cold - you can catch a cold. (Actually, not quite so. The “shift” in nudity occurred somewhere in the 18-19 centuries, but they really didn’t wash themselves - P. Krasnov). A hot bath is unrealistic - firewood was already very expensive, the main consumer - the Holy Inquisition - was hardly enough, sometimes the favorite burning had to be replaced by quartering, and later - by wheeling.

Queen of Spain Isabella of Castile (end of the 15th century) admitted that she washed herself only twice in her entire life - at birth and on her wedding day. The daughter of one of the French kings died from lice. Pope Clement V dies of dysentery, and Pope Clement VII dies painfully of scabies (as did King Philip II). The Duke of Norfolk refused to bathe for religious reasons. His body was covered with ulcers. Then the servants waited until his lordship got drunk dead drunk, and barely washed it.

Russian ambassadors at the court of the French king Louis XIV wrote that their majesty "stinks like a wild beast."

The Russians themselves were considered perverts all over Europe because they went to the bath once a month or more - ugly often ...

If in the 15th-16th centuries wealthy 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. The French king 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.

In those troubled Christian times, caring for the body was considered a sin.

Christian preachers urged to walk literally in rags and never to wash, since it was in this way that spiritual purification could be achieved. It was also impossible to wash because it was possible to wash off the “holy” water that you 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. (Not all, but only some orders - P. Krasnov)

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. (Also not all, but only some orders - P. Krasnov)

People are so unaccustomed to water procedures that Dr. F.E. In a popular medical textbook of the end of the 19th (!) century, Bilts had to persuade people to bathe. “There are people who, in truth, do not dare to bathe in a river or in a bath, because since childhood they have never entered the water. This fear is unfounded, - wrote Biltz in the book "The New Natural Treatment", - After the fifth or sixth bath, you can get used to it ... ". Nobody believed the doctor...

Perfume - an important European invention - was born precisely as a reaction to the absence of baths. The original task of the famous French perfumery was one - to mask the terrible stench of years of unwashed body with harsh and persistent perfumes. The French Sun King, waking up one morning in a bad mood (and this was his usual state in the morning, because, as you know, Louis XIV suffered from -for bedbugs), ordered all the courtiers to choke. We are talking about the edict of Louis XIV, which said that when visiting the court, one should not spare strong spirits so that their aroma drowns out the stench from bodies and clothes.

Initially, these "odorous mixtures" were quite natural. The ladies of the European Middle Ages, knowing about the stimulating effect of the natural smell of the body, smeared their juices, like perfume, on the skin behind the ears and on the neck in order to attract the attention of the desired object.

Toilet in an "advanced" European castle - everything falls out under the windows With the advent of Christianity, future generations of Europeans forgot about flush toilets for a thousand and a half years, turning their faces to night vases. The role of the forgotten sewage was performed by grooves in the streets, where fetid streams of slops flowed.

Forgetting about the ancient benefits of civilization, people now relieved themselves wherever they could. 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. The chamber pots stood under the beds for days and nights.

After the French king Louis IX (XIII century) was doused with shit from the window, the inhabitants of Paris were allowed to remove household waste through the window, only shouting three times: “Beware!”.

Around the 17th century, wide-brimmed hats were invented to protect heads from feces.

Initially, the curtsey was intended only to remove the smelly hat away from the sensitive nose of the lady. 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.

The French Sun King, like all other kings, allowed the courtiers to use any corner of Versailles and other castles as toilets. 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? No, it never even occurred to anyone, because the Tradition was guarded by ... diarrhea /diarrhea/.

Ruthless, relentless, capable of taking anyone, anywhere, by surprise. With the appropriate quality of medieval food, diarrhea was permanent. The same reason can be traced in the fashion of those years for men's pantaloons, consisting of one vertical ribbon in several layers.

The Parisian fashion for large wide skirts is obviously caused by the same reasons. Although skirts were also used for another purpose - to hide a dog under them, which was designed to protect the Beautiful Ladies from fleas.

Naturally, devout people preferred to defecate only with God's help - the Hungarian historian Istvan Rath-Veg in the "Comedy of the Book" cites types of prayers from a prayer book called:

“The immodest wishes of a God-fearing soul ready for repentance for every day and on various occasions”,

which include "Prayer in the administration of natural needs."

The medieval cities of Europe, which did not have sewage, had a fortress wall and a defensive moat filled with water. He played the role of "sewerage" and performed. Shit was thrown from the walls into the moat. In France, heaps of shit outside the city walls grew to such a height that the walls had to be built up, as happened in the same Paris - the heap grew so much that the shit began to roll back, and it seemed dangerous - suddenly another enemy will penetrate the city by climbing the wall on a pile of excrement.

The streets were buried in mud and shit so much that there was no way to go through them in the mud. It was then, according to the chronicles that have come down to us, that stilts appeared in many German cities, the “spring shoes” of a city dweller, without which it was simply impossible to move around the streets.

This is how, according to European archaeologists, a real French knight looked like at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries: the average height of this medieval “heartthrob” rarely exceeded one meter and sixty (with a little) centimeters (then the population was generally undersized).

The unshaven and unwashed face of this "handsome man" was disfigured by smallpox (at that time almost everyone in Europe was ill with it). Under the knight's helmet, in the matted dirty hair of the aristocrat, and in the folds of his clothes, lice and fleas swarm in abundance. The knight smelled so strongly from the mouth that for modern ladies it would be a terrible test not only to kiss him, but even to stand next to him (alas, Nobody brushed their teeth back then. And the medieval knights ate everything, washing it all down with sour beer and eating garlic - for disinfection.

In addition, during the next campaign, the knight was clad in armor for days, which, with all his desire, he could not remove without outside help. The procedure for putting on and taking off armor took about an hour, and sometimes longer.

Of course, the noble knight fulfilled all his needs ... right in armor. (This was far from always the case - during the transition, chain mail was usually worn, solid armor was usually worn before the battle - it was too hard in them. P. Krasnov)

Some historians have wondered why Sallah ad-Din's soldiers found the Christian camps so easily. The answer came very soon - by smell ... If at the beginning of the Middle Ages in Europe one of the main foodstuffs in Europe was acorns, which were eaten not only by commoners, but also by the nobility, then later (in those rare years when there was no famine) the table was more diverse. Fashionable and expensive spices were not only used to show off wealth, they also covered the smell of meat and other foods.

In Spain, in the Middle Ages, women often rubbed garlic on their hair to prevent head lice.

To look languidly pale, ladies drank vinegar. Dogs, in addition to working as living flea traps, aided the beauty of women in another way: in the Middle Ages, hair was bleached with dog urine.

Syphilis XVII-XVIII centuries became a trendsetter.

Gezer wrote that because of syphilis, all vegetation on the head and face disappeared.

And so the gentlemen, in order to show the ladies that they are completely safe and do not suffer from anything like that, began to grow long hair and mustaches.

Well, those who for some reason did not succeed came up with wigs, which, with a sufficiently large number of syphilitics in the upper strata of society, quickly became fashionable both in Europe and North America. The Socratic bald heads of the sages have ceased to be held in high esteem to this day. (note: this is some exaggeration of Gezer, the hair on the head was shaved so as not to breed lice and fleas - P. Krasnov)

Thanks to the destruction of cats by Christians, the breeding rats spread the plague flea all over Europe, causing the death of half of Europe. Spontaneously, a new and much-needed profession of a rat-catcher appeared spontaneously. The power of these people over rats was explained only as given by the devil, and therefore the church and the Inquisition dealt with the rat-catchers at every opportunity, thus contributing to the further extinction of their flock from hunger and plague.

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.

Troubadours in love collected fleas from themselves and transplanted them onto a lady so that the blood would mix in a flea. Beds, which are frames on turned legs, surrounded by a low lattice and always with a canopy, become of great importance in the Middle Ages. 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. (Crushed bedbugs - P. Krasnov)

Feeding lice, like bedbugs, was considered a "Christian feat." The followers of St. Thomas, even the least dedicated, were ready to extol his dirt and the lice he wore. To look for lice on each other (just like monkeys - ethological roots are obvious) - meant to express their disposition.

Medieval lice even actively participated in politics - in the city of Gurdenburg (Sweden), the common louse (Pediculus) was an active participant in the election of the mayor of the city. At that time, only people with bushy beards could be candidates for a high post.

The elections took place as follows. Candidates for mayor sat around the table and spread their beards on it. Then a specially appointed person threw a louse into the middle of the table. The elected mayor was the one in whose beard the insect crawled.

Neglect of hygiene cost Europe very dearly: in the XIV century, from the plague (“black death”), France lost a third of the population, and England and Italy - up to half.

Medical methods of providing care at that time were primitive and cruel. Especially in surgery.

For example, in order to amputate a limb, a heavy wooden mallet was used as an "anesthetic", a blow to the head of which led to the loss of consciousness of the patient, with other unpredictable consequences.

Wounds were cauterized with a red-hot iron, or poured with boiling water or boiling resin. Lucky for someone who only has hemorrhoids. In the Middle Ages, it was treated with cauterization with a red-hot iron. It means - get a fiery pin in the ass - and free. Healthy. Syphilis was usually treated with mercury, which, of course, could not lead to favorable consequences.

In addition to enemas and mercury, the main universal method that treated everyone in a row was bloodletting.

Diseases were considered sent by the devil and were subject to expulsion - "evil must come out."

At the origins of the bloody belief were the monks - "blood makers".

Blood was allowed to everyone - for treatment, as a means of combating sexual desire, and for no reason at all - according to the calendar.

Well, a little bit from myself… as it was a very long time ago, back in my school years, I came across a book (I won’t reproduce the exact title now) which describes the memories of the Ambassador of Persia about his trips to that medieval “dedicated” Europe. So, one of the then monarchs of France invited this ambassador to stay for a couple of days in his palace, naturally, the ambassador could not refuse and “with pleasure” agreed. the same evening, after the high-ranking ambassador saw his bedchamber with a mattress “moving” from living creatures.

As a result, for half a day of staying “on a visit”, the Persians had to burn ALL the clothes that were on them, with them and in the carts at the inn, and almost EVERYTHING was shaved on their bald heads.