Medieval bathing

Medievalists.com recently had a useful article which demolishes the myths about people not bathing in the middle ages. 

Although medieval accommodation at even the most elite levels could not parallel what is normative now across the western world much of that is recent. Those of us of more mature years will recall a far more Spartan regimen when we were growing up and the often austere chilly bathrooms of other people’s houses. What was available until little more than a century ago who seem to millennials and Generation Z unbelievably primitive, let alone the usages of five or more centuries ago.

Modern cinema and television does not help in most instances, sustaining far far too often an image of the dirty and drab. This is very much an instance of “Presentism” - the belief that anything less that what we take to be normal usage today is irredeemably primitive.

The evidence from the medieval age is considerable and often hiding in plain sight. It might not have been as easy as today but that does not mean that people did not do the best they could with the resources available - which, if truth be told, is all we do now.

The article can be read at Did people in the Middle Ages take baths?