Why didn't they take baths in the middle ages?

Answer 1

They did. It's a fallacy that people didn't like to bathe. Particularly when the Crusaders returned from the Middle East, they brought back many foods, customs and learning with them, including the custom of bathing. Here are some sites on how people liked to bathe - so that it almost became a social occasion! -

http://scatoday.net/node/4169
http://www.medieval-life.net/bathing.htm
http://www.florilegium.org/files/PERSONAL/Tubd-a-Scrubd-art.html

"In the Middle Ages, an epoch generally dismissed as dark and dirty, men and women bathed together and took their time about it. They often remained in the water for a meal, served on floating tables, and in time the bath became the favorite place for banquets, accompanied by song and music, with the musicians seated in the water. Men kept their hats on, women were impeccably groomed for the occasion--from the navel upwards, wearing chokers and necklaces, turbans and towering headdresses. A veil marked the status of a married woman. A part from the usual quota of zealots, the Church remained on the whole tolerant of these hedonistic pastimes. Some monastic orders made bathing in hot air and steam part of their regimen, while others forbade bathing except at Christmas and Easter."

"Bathing scenes woven into Gothic tapestries leave no doubt that bathing was indulged with equal gusto by prince and pauper. In the morning, the opening of the public baths was announced by the sound of trumpets and drums, whereupon the good burghers proceeded to them naked--a precaution against theft. For the stay-at-home a wooden tub was brought to the bed-chamber and filled with hot water. If the chronicles are to be believed, the wealthy had elaborate installations with pipes made of gold and silver, and one Heinrich von Veldecke, an epic poet, sang the praises of a golden tub. In the spring, bathing parties would move to outdoor pools and ornate basins, amid statuary and flowering trees. Dark ages indeed! "
http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/herbs/baths.html

You can find a lot about medieval bathing on the internet.

Answer 2

.The Roman Aqueduct was a great boon to bathing in it's day, but was largely out of service by the Middle ages. As a result, not having reservoirs, dams, and processing plants, the usual source of water was springs and wells, and for some using buckets to save rain water was the only option.

Michelangelo even believed that washing the hair caused baldness, softened the scalp and effected the brain. Junkies and alkies a few decades ago had a similar phobia based on the fact that opening the pores of the skin would release certain body fluids. Anyway these aversions are also what led to the wigs, perfumes, and the incense burners in religious buildings.

All this made Bath Houses that could pipe in fresh water big business but by the middle ages only women felt relatively safe in them. Men just ruffed it stopping by a strean to douse the face and kept going. Ironically this same issue is in large part led the Japanese to consider Westerners barbarians!

Answer 3

Actually, they did take baths in the middle ages. It's a common misconception that they didn't. In fact, lords of households really enjoyed baths. Baths of a single person in a tub were more common to lords and ladies, though, not common people, because the heated water had to be brought to the tub by bucketfulls. This made the preparation of baths a long process. In some residences, there was a special room for baths next to the kitchen, where more than one person could bathe at a time. For the general populace, there were bath houses, which were generally a few rooms of water that became dirty very quickly with all the people using them. This is usually refered to as a "stew." Gives a nasty mental image, doesn't it.

Answer 4

Aside from a lack of clean water, people really used to believe that it was dangerous to bathe too often. They thought that if you got too cold or "got a chill" then you would get sick and die. They didn' realize that baths only killed people because the water was cholera-ridden. But families often took baths monthly, or even less often, and the baby was the last to bathe (they all used the SAME WATER!). That's where the saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water" came about. The water would be very cloudy once the baby was ready to be bathed, and you couldn't see through it. So, in a sense, the baby could get lost in there and then get thrown out with the dirty water. lol. But that's also why June weddings became popular. In lots of villages, people took baths at the beginning of summer, hence, a good time for a wedding--everyone was clean.

Answer 5

What on earth gave you that idea?? People in the Middle ages had loads of bath houses, even in small villages, and isolated farms had small ones too, if they had any money. People used to have communal baths, parties with food and music.
When syphilis was brought back from America and started devastating Europe, even worse than AIDS today, the custom had to stop, since syphilis can be contracted by sharing bath water.
Only in the 16th and 17th century doctors started telling people all kinds of diseases were caused by bathing (and fresh air!) so they stopped taking baths and had a bad conscience if they did.

Answer 6

People ddn't know it was unhealthy to not be clean. It is inconvenient to bathe if you don't have the proper facilities. Some ancient people were more advanced in this than later ones. Minoans had good bathrooms. Romans had aqueducts to bring water to houses. When the Romans were conquered by barbarians, there was a long Dark Ages in which past knowledge was lost.

Answer 7

Mostly because the water was so filthy. Rivers were cesspools of scum because they were basically open sewers if they ran anywhere near a sizable city.

Now, they had wells, so I'm not sure why they wouldn't have used that to bathe more regularly. Maybe because they'd have to truck down to the well and haul back several buckets, then heat the water, it was just too much work after a long day of working in fields or whatever.

Answer 8

They didn't make the connection between sanitary conditions and medical issues. I.e. in the middle ages, they did not know that dirty conditions could increase the chances of infections and infectious diseases. This connection to medical science wasn't made until later into the renaissance age.

And since they didn't have PLUMBING, bathing wasn't as easy. So it didn't happen every day like it does for most of us. They didn't see a need for it.

Answer 9

Too hard to carry the water everyday.

Too cold most of time.

And they didn't understand about germs and things like that back then.

My History teacher said a normal bathing schedule for a peasant was.

1 bath when you born

2 bath when you marry

3 bath when ya die

Answer 10

1. Bathing was considered dangerous in the Middle Ages. One, it required you to submerge yourself in water, which they believed cause an imbalance in body humors and lead to sickness. They also believed getting wet could cause illness (kinda like your mom saying you'll get sick if you get caught in the rain).
2. Bathing required a large body of water like a lake or river. Since the vast majority of people couldn't swim, that in itself was dangerous.
3. Bathing required the removal of clothing, which was considered indecent by the religious leaders of the time. Most people, even the rich, simply wore their clothes till they fell apart or couldn't be patched anymore. One of the reasons France became famous for perfumes was to mask the horrible body odor of the nobility.