# Historical myths DEBUNKED! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2025, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251 "2025-08-19T02:56:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2026, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/401 "2026-01-03T21:54:17Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > 17th century, not really what i would call Modern. But also not medieval That’s the “early modern” period historically ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2026, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/402 "2026-01-03T22:01:02Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’m talking about the overall myth - one you see in almost every film or tv show set in the era, with its dirty peasants But that’s not a myth. Peasants would absolutely be dirty and smelly by modern standards. They worked in the fields and only had wells and natural water sources to wash. Of course they were dirty. The myth is that they were dirty specifically because the religious and secular authorities thought bathing was sinful or unhealthy. If you are working in actual mud, dirt and poo every day and have no running water (and no heated water except what can be heated on a fire) you don’t need a priest telling you it’s sinful to bathe in order to be dirty. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/403 "2026-01-04T06:50:46Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > But that’s not a myth. Except it is. > [@griffin1977](#): > > They worked in the fields and only had wells and natural water sources to wash. Of course they were dirty. I already dealt with this in a [previous](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medieval-bathing/1009976) thread. Bucket washing gets you plenty clean. Unless you also buy into the equally ridiculous “they didn’t have soap” myth, as well? ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/404 "2026-01-04T07:00:27Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Bucket washing gets you plenty clean. Have you tried it? I’d challenge you to work all day in the field, and come back each night to a cold bucket of water (and no change of clothing) and not look dirty AF. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Unless you also buy into the equally ridiculous “they didn’t have soap” myth, as well? Soap existed. Your average peasant was not using it every day to wash to though. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/405 "2026-01-04T08:07:03Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Peasants would absolutely be dirty and smelly by modern standards. Modern standards vary. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/406 "2026-01-04T08:14:03Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Have you tried it? Did you _read_ the linked thread? It’s precisely how I grew up and how many of my countrymen still live. > [@griffin1977](#): > > no change of clothing Where do you get this from? What do you think body linens are _for_. Regional probate-inventory studies indicate that average rural peasants commonly owned [multiple garments](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360315335_Fashion_emulation_and_social_classes_in_late_medieval_Valencia_Exploring_textile_consumption_through_probate_inventories) so it’s clear that the _average_ (non-poorest) peasant commonly possessed _two or more_ changes of body-linen (shirts/shifts) given the way body linen vs outer garment ratios work. > [@griffin1977](#): > > Soap existed. Your average peasant was not using it every day to wash to though. Cite? To an actual academic text written in the last 20 years, I mean. Otherwise you’re just repeating the myth. We know [urban non-elites used soap](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341691497_Laundry_Ladies_in_Medieval_Poland), we know soapmaking was considered [both women’s work and craftperson’s work in the time of Charlemagne](https://web.archive.org/web/20090925094733/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/carol-devillis.html). It was not some exotic substance in the Middle Ages. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/407 "2026-01-04T18:53:15Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > so it’s clear that the _average_ (non-poorest) peasant commonly possessed _two or more_ changes of body-linen (shirts/shifts) given the way body linen vs outer garment ratios work Exactly! if the average peasant only has two changes of clothes (and poorer ones not even that) they absolutely did not change their clothes each day. If you are working in the fields that’s means you are incredibly dirty. Have you ever seen someone who works in the fields all day? I have, even with modern showers, shower gel, and a overalls they are filthy at the end of the day. With no daily change of clothes, no daily soap, and only the water you can manually get from a well or river, they are staying that way > [@MrDibble](#): > > We know [urban non-elites used soap](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341691497_Laundry_Ladies_in_Medieval_Poland) That’s an article about urban washer women using soap to clean laundry for their higher status clients. So it only shows my point. Soap was a luxury item in medieval times, if peasants had access to it all it was an extremely expensive item for them there is no way anyone except the rich elites are using it every day. That would be “conspicuous consumption” in the medieval era. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Did you _read_ the linked thread? It’s precisely how I grew up and how many of my countrymen still live. That’s far far different to the conditions of a medieval peasant, it was centuries later that running water in homes became common. In the medieval times having a communal pipe with high pressure water to use for washing would have been an insane fantasy. The only water available was manually taken from a well or natural water source. There is no way you are getting clean in those conditions. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/408 "2026-01-04T19:18:16Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > if the average peasant only has two changes of clothes I said two or more - and yes, that’s exactly what you do with body linens, even with just two- wear one, wash the other, swap them over. > [@griffin1977](#): > > That’s an article about urban washer women using soap to clean laundry for their higher status clients. Not just higher status clients. Plenty of urban workingmen as well. > [@griffin1977](#): > > Soap was a luxury item in medieval times Citeless assertion is worthless mythmaking. > [@griffin1977](#): > > That’s far far different to the conditions of a medieval peasant Bucket washing is bucket washing. No difference. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/409 "2026-01-04T19:20:49Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > There is no way you are getting clean in those conditions. I have gotten quite clean at a long SCA event, where what I had was a bucket drawn (from a tap, true) warmed slightly by pouring the rest of the teakettle in it, a washcloth and a towel. I stripped to the waist, washed the face, then hands, arm, armpits, then the crotch- and i felt quite clean. In “All Creatures great and Small” he talks about cleaning off his upper body after a messy procedure with the same. I actually worked on the family farm up in Sask two summers, and the men- and I did similar. So, yeah, we get maybe too clean by daily showers or baths, and they werent that clean. not by a long shot. Their clothes smelled of animals and sweat, but they were washed every so often. Of course not a bath or a shower, and by todays nose they’d smell. But they werent filthy all day every day. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/410 "2026-01-04T20:34:33Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > just two- wear one, wash the other, swap them over Of course yes. Just throw them in your medieval washer dryer with some medieval Daz 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/411 "2026-01-04T20:39:26Z")
No need, the soap’s already there by your washing bucket… Man, people who’ve never lived without mod cons are really obvious. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/412 "2026-01-04T22:31:55Z")
IANA expert on Ye Olden Tymes. But … Modern armies in the field all over the world stay somewhere between modern clean & utterly unwashed filthy despite little wash water, often no heat, and 1 or 2 sets of clothing. For months at a crack. Been there done that. Is it as easy as in a first world 21st century home with running hot water and washer dryer machines? Heck no. Is it doable? Of course it is. Ancient soap may well have been expensive enough to be rationed carefully. But a smidgen is vastly more than none in terms of cleaning power. Soap-making tech is ancient. Every frontier 1700s-1800s reenactment I’ve ever seen includes the women & kids making soap. The necessary ingredients are super common in a firewood plus animal husbandry economy. All you need is simple non-strenuous low skill labor. The sort kids & elderly supply in quantity in the subsistence-plus living arrangement that was common then. ISTM this isn’t hard and therefore wasn’t hard. How motivated working / peasant class were to bathe regularly and how thoroughly is a different question. But I’d bet they’d enjoy getting stinky sticky mud+shit from the pig pen off themselves almost as much as you would. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/413 "2026-01-04T22:38:16Z")
Perhaps people in olden times were braver than me because I can’t stand a cold water bath or shower. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/414 "2026-01-04T22:43:01Z")
We (most of us, certainly including me) are unbelievably wimpy / effete compared to our grandparents. Who in turn are as infants compared to their grandparents. Men & women of e.g. 1800 were crazy hardy by our standards. And in turn were dwarfed by people of the 1600s back to the dawn of history. Being an early 21st Century Modern has many advantages. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/415 "2026-01-04T22:45:54Z")
By some standards. We live in close proximity to hundreds of strangers, which earlier people would have had difficulty with. How the English saw those fancy Vikings: > **[hygiene in the viking-age -](https://www.museumnord.no/en/stories/hygiene-in-the-viking-age/)** > > In the Viking-Age hygiene was very important for the norse. They washed once a week and groomed their hair and washed their face every day. who > …caused much trouble to the natives of the land; for they were wont, after the fashion of their country, to comb their hair every day, to bathe every Saturday, to change their garments often, and set off their persons by many frivolous devices. In this matter they laid siege to the virtue of the married woman, and persuaded the daughters even of the noble to be their concubines\* ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/416 "2026-01-04T23:21:46Z")
IOW: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/7wRHBLwpASw/maxresdefault.jpg "ZZ Top - Sharp Dressed Man (Official Music Video) [HD Remaster]") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wRHBLwpASw) ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/417 "2026-01-05T00:26:29Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > We (most of us, certainly including me) are unbelievably wimpy / effete compared to our grandparents. Who in turn are as infants compared to their grandparents. Not really, no - they just didn’t have a choice. If you and I found ourselves in similar circumstances, we’d be miserable at first, but we’d adapt, because that’s what people do. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/418 "2026-01-05T00:45:23Z")
Agreed. We’d grumble but cope. Just as soldiers worldwide do and have done. But it would take a long time for the more spoiled 50% of moderns to quit whining about being teleported to e.g. 1650s northern Europe or central China. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/419 "2026-01-05T07:22:24Z")
Note that when John of Wallingford referred to the viking invaders as “bathing” every Saturday, he probably meant that [they did a more thorough/immersive weekly washing according to their national custom](https://ucatholic.com/blog/why-medieval-catholic-monks-grumbled-over-vikings-unexpected-cleanliness/), **besides** some more piecemeal form of daily cleansing. The less immersive forms of personal cleansing as a regular routine would not have been unfamiliar to John or his contemporaries. > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Perhaps people in olden times were braver than me because I can’t stand a cold water bath or shower. Recall that most people wouldn’t have been putting their whole naked bodies into a tub or under a deluge of unheated water. You’d wet some kind of washcloth and rub a body part with soap, often while remaining partially clothed or covered with a towel, like a modern sponge bath for the bedridden. It’s not so chilling to be essentially wet-wiping your body clean, piece by piece. And yes, I’ve done the bucket-bath thing while living in India, where the process involves a dipping cup where you pour a small amount of water over the part you’re washing. I can get squeaky clean with a five-gallon bucket of water, and need only about half that much if I’m not washing my hair. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2026, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251/420 "2026-01-05T07:33:49Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It’s not so chilling to be essentially wet-wiping your body clean, piece by piece. There is also this thing called “fire” which can turn your bucket of cold water into a bucket of hot water. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-myths-debunked/1022251.md?page=22)