Did medieval people keep clean

Answer 1

AnswerMedieval people were very clean. They believed that you could tell the condition of people's souls by the way they kept their bodies; cleanliness is next to godliness. Cities, towns, and larger villages had public baths, where people bathed in wooden tubs. It seems this was all done without regard to sex, and the Church was always at odds with itself over the benefits of people being clean versus the benefits of their being modest.

The Renaissance brought perfume, and the reformation brought repression. The result was that people gave up cleanliness and talked about how bad things used to be.

The link below is to a section of a Wikipedia article dealing with the history of bathing in the West.

Actually, medieval Europeans were very suspicious of bathing. They associated it with Roman pagans. They did have baths, but those were not for keeping clean. I don't know how old you are, but medieval baths were places where people did naughty things.

Answer 2

1st AnswerThey didn't keep clean. This was a very dirty time with very little washing of clothing or body. Most outerwear never got cleaned and if a person took a bath it happened once a year. It was a stinky, dirty time. Everyone smelled of wood smoke from the fireplaces and tallow candles that were burned for light. 2nd AnswerA little research shows that peasants bathed in public baths or natural water sources. Many villages, even some small ones, had public baths. It was common to have some sign showing that the water was warm so people could be comfortable in it.

The Middle Ages were times dominated by religious thinking, and the belief was that cleanliness was next to godliness. You could tell the way a person cared for his soul by the way he cared for his body, and everybody wanted to be clean.

It was also a belief of the time that disease was spread by bad air. So foul odors were dealt with.

There is a link below to the European section of an article on bathing.

3rd Answer

I have to agree with the second answer here. In addition to possible religious reasons, bathing seems to have been associated with physical and social pleasure. There is art from the period that shows bathing scenes, many social, or even of mixed gender groups. There are images of people being served meals while in the bath. Bathing and cleanliness also seems to have been associated with sexuality. There are regulations from Paris that require keepers of public bath houses (there very existence of which supports regular bathing) that keep their houses free of prostitutes. The church at times did seem to appose bathing as a "time waster", further evidence that people liked to bath frequently and might linger in a bath, but even the church sanctioned periodic bathing for hygiene.

The original question specifically addresses peasants. We know from tax documents that wealthier individuals had vessels specifically for bathing at home. Peasants would not have been able to afford such luxuries, but would have used improvised facilities such as barrels, and in warmer weather used natural water sources, or simply cleaned themselves with warm water and a cloth. Even those of basic means could afford linen towels for cleaning and drying themselves.

Clothing was washed frequently as well. There was enough demand for laundry services that towns and cities had professional laundresses. A country peasant would likely do their laundry at home, but not all village dwellers were poor. Some peasants had enough land to have hired hands for farm work or servants for the household, and such servants would have likely been chiefly concerned with tasks such as cooking, cleaning the home, laundry, etc.

Answer 3

They used soap for body and clothes. Soap had been invented in ancient times. Soap was important enough that there was a soap makers guild in Verona during the seventh century. The people of the Middle Ages are said to have been very clean because they believed the care people took for their bodies was an indicator of the care they took of their souls, and because they believe that foul odors spread diseases.

Answer 4

In the Middle Ages, people barely took a bath. There was no running water, so maids would bring hot water in a tub and then people would take their bath. But sometimes people wouldn't take a bath for a long time.