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I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

going-medieval.com

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Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#151

Post by raarts »

Osmose wrote: post #145
raarts wrote: post #75

Quoted post unavailable.

You're gonna be disappointed in the rest of the internet and a significant amount of the adults in the world if this language is so foul as to bother you. Completely unnecessary callout. Either way, a skim of some google results looking for other articles on medieval bathing references evidence in the form of obituaries mentioning deaths of peasants while bathing in rivers, as well as the existence of bathhouses in s…

- soap is a motherfucking medieval invention - Your peasant ass - Medieval bathhouses were big fucking business. - Sex workers be showing right TF up in the public baths. - clearly, fucking clearly medieval people bathed - they wanted you to not be going down the bath house and getting your fuck on. - Hitting your chest with rocks and sitting in the desert trying not to wank

This is completely unnecessary.

You forget this is supposed to be a scientist we're talking about here. Someone with a PhD. Great adult example for the kids.

Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#152

Post by bobthepanda »

Jataman606 wrote: post #136
culi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's incredibly silly how tied we are to the idea that something was invented once and then spread. Soap is literally just a fatty acid salt with some phytochemicals that have antimicrobial properties (extremely easy to come by considering most secondary metabolites of plants are specifically produced to keep them from succumbing to bacterial/fungal degradation). Soap has probably been "invented" a million ti…

> Soap is literally just a fatty acid salt with some phytochemicals that have antimicrobial properties It sounds literally like: "monad is just monoid in category of endofunctors, what is so hard to understand?"

I think a better example would be bread. Nearly every culture observed has independently created something like bread, which is just flour and water that is kneaded and baked, and if they don't have bread they probably have noodles, which is just flour and water that is kneaded, stretched and cut into strips.

Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#153

Post by raarts »

zwirbl wrote: post #147
raarts wrote: post #75

Quoted post unavailable.

Why mention what the author identifies with on Twitter? Is that even remotely relevant? What if Donald Knuth self-identified as a sparkly little electricist?

Because of the word 'dirty', which was the point of my reply. Dirty language.

Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#154

Post by prox »

verisimi wrote: post #132
prox wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that is true for writing (who wrote this? Why? How critical is the author?) There is a ton we do know. From literature/art to archeological excavations. Ofcourse, the further you go back, you get more and more filters that make things fuzzy. Lots of things were made of wood for instance, it doesn’t survive on the whole. Medieval lives in the west were very prone to disturbing forces : invasions, successions of…

> There is a ton we do know. From literature/art to archeological excavations. What do you think 'we' know? Is 'knowing' even a group activity? It is not of course, we can only know what we personally verify. Now you can say that you are familiar with what an archeologist has written about what he found, but it is another thing to look at the sources for yourself and see if you concur with the conclusions. I'd be int…

In West Europe at least you get ecclesiastical records from the early 16th century onwards. In it are usually the names of the ones baptized, the parents and sometimes the ones witnessing (often the godmother/father but not always)

Futher records to piece together their lives are tax records, registries (like doing inventories for the government) and you have guilds and orders who wrote things down. From simple bookkeeping to extensive chronicles. If you are lucky you have early authors and artists describing the locale. Even better are judicial records which tend to be exhaustive and on the whole quite accurate in description. Often noting the exact words of the of ones involved. Also there are a ton of objects surviving. Just go to your local antiquarian and be ready to dive into the world of our ancestors.

All in all you get a pretty good picture of your ancestors lives and context they lived in.

While knowing is a personal accomplishment, and you can go through lengths to verify all by yourself, some sources can be trusted and create a bedrock of knowledge. Like if you know C# you don’t have to go and verify if every command works as described. You trust the authors and you know it was done with rigor.

Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#155

Post by thrown_22 »

hutrdvnj wrote: post #93
culi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's incredibly silly how tied we are to the idea that something was invented once and then spread. Soap is literally just a fatty acid salt with some phytochemicals that have antimicrobial properties (extremely easy to come by considering most secondary metabolites of plants are specifically produced to keep them from succumbing to bacterial/fungal degradation). Soap has probably been "invented" a million ti…

I used to think that the printing press has been invented once and then spread, how many times has the printing press with movable types been invented?

The "printing press" was invented multiple times in multiple locations.

Cast movable type was invented once and spread like wild fire.

The largest innovation from Gutenberg was finding an alloy that could withstand printing pressure and be dimensionally stable when it solidifies.

Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#156

Post by bandrami »

nwiswell wrote: post #47
kumarvvr wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://indianculture.gov.in/ebooks/daily-life-ancient-india... A book by a westerner.

Very good. Page 68: > In ancient times, distinction was made between several different categories of farmers. There were those who cultivated their own land, those who had it cultivated by wage-earning laborers, and those who leased their land to 'metayers', farmers who paid rent in kind, in this case half the harvest and crop. There were few big landlords, and the largest estates nearly all belonged to the king, tha…

Even this book (which frankly has some Hindutva BS in it) is saying "India" but means "The Ganges valley". The hyperspecific layers of types of farmer by tenancy just wasn't found in the Deccan.

Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#157

Post by culi »

Jataman606 wrote: post #136
culi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's incredibly silly how tied we are to the idea that something was invented once and then spread. Soap is literally just a fatty acid salt with some phytochemicals that have antimicrobial properties (extremely easy to come by considering most secondary metabolites of plants are specifically produced to keep them from succumbing to bacterial/fungal degradation). Soap has probably been "invented" a million ti…

> Soap is literally just a fatty acid salt with some phytochemicals that have antimicrobial properties It sounds literally like: "monad is just monoid in category of endofunctors, what is so hard to understand?"

Ok what if I had said "soap is literally just a fat (e.g. deer fat) combined with a plant that, when placed in water, will kill fish."

It's almost equivalent but told through a different cosmology/epistemology

Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#158

Post by darkerside »

kgeist wrote: post #99

The Old Norse word for Saturday, laugardagr, literally means "washing day". This custom still survives here in countryside Eastern Europe where many people routinely go to sauna (banya) every Saturday (or Sunday like my family). Before the 20th century, a lot of Eastern Europe (especially Russia) still lived like they lived in the middle ages: 95% of the country were serfs on feudal property living in traditional woo…

How is one bathed in an oven?

Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#159

Post by Osmose »

raarts wrote: post #151
Osmose wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're gonna be disappointed in the rest of the internet and a significant amount of the adults in the world if this language is so foul as to bother you. Completely unnecessary callout. Either way, a skim of some google results looking for other articles on medieval bathing references evidence in the form of obituaries mentioning deaths of peasants while bathing in rivers, as well as the existence of bathhouses in s…

- soap is a motherfucking medieval invention - Your peasant ass - Medieval bathhouses were big fucking business. - Sex workers be showing right TF up in the public baths. - clearly, fucking clearly medieval people bathed - they wanted you to not be going down the bath house and getting your fuck on. - Hitting your chest with rocks and sitting in the desert trying not to wank This is completely unnecessary. You forget…

Folks with PhDs (and/or scientists) swear _all the time_, especially on their own blog that has "swearing" in the subheader as the third most important descriptor and that isn't aimed directly at children. This has nothing to do with the credibility of the article except as tone policing.

Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)

#160

Post by goto11 »

klodolph wrote: post #7
phyzome wrote: post #3

Tangential question: Why do humans place emphasis on bathing, when most other animals don't seem to need to do it? (I think in the US we bathe more than we actually need to, but on the other hand I assume that the strong cross-cultural emphasis indicates that we do actually need to do it to some degree to stay healthy.) Maybe something about our unusual skin, and how we sweat to stay cool?

Most other animals? Well, most birds bathe. Elephants shower themselves with their trunks. Cats bathe themselves with their tongues, dogs get in the water and then shake themselves dry, and pigs wallow in the mud. Seems like what makes humans different here is that we use soap.

A lot of animals use sand - rolls in it or throws it at themselves.

I know it is not the same as soap, but it is an interesting parallel.

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