Please do not cite Terry Jones. He is a ‘pop historian’ who frequently cites sources that are fifty years or more out of date – in his Crusades series he repeats the story from Runciman that Conrad of Montferrat fled Constantinople after murdering Alexios Vranas, where the contemporary Greek sources such as Choniates make it clear that Conrad honorably defeated Alexios Vranas in battle – and sometimes he outright makes things up, such as claiming that Reynald de Chatillon raped Saladin’s sister (the only source that Reynald even captured Saladin’s sister is the much later Continuation of William of Tyre and no chronicler claims that he raped her, not even Baha ad-Din, who doubtlessly would’ve known of any such incident and wouldn’t have hesitated to include it in his works).
Btw, for those who are interested in medieval hygiene in Europe, Nicholas Orme’s *Medieval Children * (2003) discusses what ‘good manners’ and hygiene were taught to English children during this period. Courtesy books recommended that the face and hands be washed when rising in the morning and before every meal.
It seems like common folk often bathed outside in streams, as deaths are recorded when people drowned while bathing and swimming in streams. There’s a story recorded in 1200 of a nurse washing a child in a leaden bath placed over a fire. Accounts of the household of Prince Henry and his siblings in 1273/4 mention Spanish soap being purchased for the children’s baths.
In Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge by Miri Rubin (2002), Rubin discusses life in a medieval hospital. Beds and clean linens were provided for the sick, and St. Laurence’s of Canterbury required monthly washings of clothes and fortnightly washings of heads to maintain cleanliness. Records of the hospital at Sherburn show that two washerwomen were on staff to cleanse the sick on Saturdays, to wash their clothing twice a week, and clean their utensils daily.
Other medieval books of manners, such as the 14th century Le menagier de Paris, advise wives to keep their husbands in clean linen, to wash his feet, and to keep a steady supply of clean garments on hand. It was considered the duty of a host to provide basins for guests to wash their hands before meals. It is true that medieval households had little furniture. John of Garland, an Englishman of the 13th century, made a list of the furnishings for a gentleman’s house, which was little more than “a decent table, a clean cloth, trimmed towels… strong trestles, firebrands, fuel logs, stakes… benches…armchairs… quilts…”
Royal and noble households had washerwomen on staff, as well as bathing and possibly also some sort of steam-room or sauna (Henry of Grosment advises sweating in steam after a bath, which suggests that medieval Englishmen of good birth had access to steam-rooms). Peasants probably washed only linens, as woolen clothing would’ve been difficult to wash, especially in winter.
Just soooo much wrong here.
- Gruel can be quite tasty if made right.
- Gruel was far from “the standard meal” for anyone except sick people and the unweaned. Bread was common.
- All food was NOT boiled, and certainly not just to a soft mush, even then.
- It certainly wasn’t all boiled because it was contaminated with cowshit. Medieval people washed their food just like we do - Here’s an example recipe for an uncooked salad from an English cookbook. (my bolding):
*Take p̲ſel, ſawge, garlec, chiboil, oynouns, leek, boarge, mynt, porrect, fene, and ton treſſis, rew, roſemarye, purſlarye, laue and waiſche hem clene, pike hem, pluk hē ſmall wiþ þyn honde and myng hem wel with rawe oile, lay on vynegr and ſalt, and sūe it forth. *That bolded bit translates as “and wash it clean” for any non-M-E speakers in the audience.
Also, cite for most people having lost their teeth? It’s not like tooth cleaners and brushes are a modern invention, you know.