If the average person were transported to the Middle Ages, would they find their fellow humans stinky?

Well, your nose might be so overwhelmed by the stench of garbage, offal, and sewage streaming down your street that you might not notice what people smelled like.

There was so much grossness - heaps of dung, mud, slaughterhouse discards — on the street that it piled up I believe 1–2 feet high until muckrakers came with carts to scoop it up: Anatomy of a 14th Century Asbo

Medieval hygiene is a bit controversial as you can see by the answers in this thread. I suspect hygienic practices varied by medieval period, access to baths, ponds, or water, wealth, etc. But there were bathhouses and people of both sexes appear to have gone.

People bathed in a communal style and could catch glimpses of the opposite sex naked.

The bathhouses were places of leisure and bathing was seen as a social activity. In fact, people often ate in the bath! (See the food across the image below.)


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For example, Henry VIII (whom I consider to be medieval) closed the bathhouses in the syphilis epidemic during his reign, which wouldn't have helped matters. But people bathed more before then as I understand it.

People bathed and had met with prostitutes in medieval bathhouses. (Did people in the Middle Ages take baths? - Medievalists.net)

By the time most people reached their twenties, their breath probably smelled terrible due to the lack of dental hygiene and rotting teeth. One visitor to a medieval court complained about the stench of people’s breath because they ate too much meat. (This implies to me that maybe the peasants with their mainly grain diet might have had much sweeter breath and teeth in better condition.)

In Tudor England, people believed in washing your undergarments (personal linens) instead of your body. The nobility only spot cleaned their outer clothes.

To get rid of fleas, which were rampant, people would hang their clothes in the garderobe — a closet-type room built into castles that would have an open seat so urine and feces would fall into a moat or cesspit below.

People hung their clothes in the garderobe because ammonia from urine would kill the fleas. Presumably your clothes would have stank like heaven knows what from this practice.

This is the inside of a garderobe:

This is the outside of a garderobe:


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Do you find the habits of medieval people disgusting?

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Что вы думаете по этому поводу?
40 Comments
Luis Perez
The original inhabitants of Mexico, Peru and the Caribbean coast lines, including the islands, used to bathe at least once a day and this healthy procedure was forbidden by the European invaders.
13
22.11.2018 10:21
Sue Tomasetti
I guess that they didn't know much about hygiene and things like the water closet and plumbing hadn't been invented yet. Nowadays we find it revolting because science has advanced so much and we have all the necessary things to maintain cleanliness. Unfortunately the poor in many countries still can't access running water and don't have plumbing for toilets etc. and are still in the same situation. Those that do should consider themselves very fortunate.
8
02.11.2018 05:04
mariaplacidoteddy
Before I came to Canada, we didn't have a bathroom in house, we had an outhouse. So I know about stinky bathrooms. We bathed in a sawed of wooden barrel. Hey it's all good I've managed to survive the bad hygiene 🇵🇹🇨🇦
6
03.02.2022 04:39
Paul Jacob
Would like to know what future ages think about us!
5
18.06.2019 02:46
Johnny Rock
Has not everyone heard of "The Plague"? Of course, and because of their ignorance of hygiene and their unsanitary habits, practices, along with unsavory indulgences in Medieval times, 50 million people died and I don't think any of them ever washed their hands.
1
12.02.2024 04:48
Caroline Weis
Some of our pioneers only bathed once a week or less and when they did the man would go first then the kids then the wife and all in the same tub with the same water and in the kitchen in front of the wood burning stove. Some didn't bathe in the winter since it was too cold, and then in the spring would bathe.
1
26.12.2023 05:14
Mac Anslow
It was their time did'nt know any different they're are still around that stink to high heaven but why didn't they wash in the river
0
23.08.2023 12:29
Leticia Olsen
👍🏼Yes, according to history the medieval people were unhygienic!! I can write everything what I read but I suppose it was a world history!!
1
15.09.2021 07:19
Janine
Darlene Davidson, in italy they don’t shave their pits so I would image body odor
0
19.07.2021 07:27
Isagani Isidro Sogocio
yeh, a bit controversial. Interesting!
0
23.06.2020 10:14
bina sarmah
Darlene Davidson, As per Asian bathing was very important in the pass, still very import for them.
0
28.04.2020 10:42
Marian Waesche
Not my cup of tea for sure.
0
22.10.2019 05:34
Yvette Nichols
Nasty As Hell😠
1
18.09.2019 05:09
Nina Davis
I believe the middle easterners bathed fairly often.
1
05.05.2019 07:10
Sue Gembrini-Spataro
When I went to Hampton Court, outside London, where King Henry 8th lived, there was a toilet like room, just outside his living quarters (out house type) which had a shaft where his urine & feces dropped. The shaft was open on the front......about 3 ft by 3ft on one of the inside walls of the huge kitchen, We were told it was cleaned out every few days. Eck
3
25.04.2019 11:43
stellaclaude
I don’t suppose they knew any better.
2
13.04.2019 07:19
littledick
CaiWei Chew, Where on the river did they test it? Varanasi or much further upstream?
1
01.04.2019 12:17

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