[Sca-cooks] Bathing - was Spices in meals: a thought and a question

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

Total immersion bathing was in fact practiced by those who could afford
it; since major cities had bathhouses with tubs as well as steam baths,
immersion bathing for the poorer people would be more common in urban
settings.
-- Jadwiga, author of CA 136-137 Hygiene of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
>
> While total body immersion bathing was likely not done on purpose (falling
> into the pond would COULD be considered bathing by accident  I suppose),
> people did take the equivilent of what my grandmother called a 'whore's
> bath'; washing with a cloth and water.  The water used for bathing was
> scented, which would make your neighbor more pleasant to be closer than 20
> ft away from.  The idea that people were dirty and stinky is just NOT
> accurate.
>


-- 
-- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net