Earlier quoted context omitted.
But surely by that definition Europe was also a unified entity in the medieval period.
Quoted post unavailable.
All the people who died in the Thirty Years' War would like to have a word with you.
I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
211–220 of 360 posts
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#212Had me right up until the last paragraph. One does not have to be a colonialist or carry bias to have misconceptions about the midevil period. Ignorance is a fine reason. I myself am a huge fan of history but mostly ignorant about that time period. It's just never been my jam. I'll admit I'd probably think the "bring out your dead" and "oh Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here" sketches in Monty Python's Holy G…
Ironically, the depiction of the middle ages in Holy Grail is satirizing the popular misconceptions about the middle ages as a place of filth and stupidity. Terry Jones, the director of the movie, studied medieval history at Oxford before becoming part of Monty Python, so he knew better, but they had a lot of fun with the caricature.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#213Clicking through here led me down a medieval rabbit hole and I reading about medieval math education, it seems music was an integral part of mathematics at the time with arithmetic (numbers as abstract concepts), geometry (numbers in space), music (numbers in time) and astronomy (numbers in space and time).
These days using music or sound as an aid in mathematics is very uncommon. These days we only use graphs, diagrams, geometrical figures and. We have stopped using one of our senses for math. When did this happen?
I imagine sound could be useful for alternative ways of experiencing mathematical object as not just geometry, but also as ways to explore concepts in higher dimensions by using audio for some dimensions. In complex analysis, colors are used to visualize four dimensions but audio remains very niche.
A bunch of numbers in a table is often difficult to make sense of by looking at the numbers but can give many intuitive insights when visualized. I imagine there are probably things that are easier to make sense of if your hear it than visualize it. Maybe music should be put back in math education.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#214Quoted post unavailable.
> The writer presents little numbers on prevalence.
It is probably impossible to provide such numbers. The best we can do is study the sources, which suggest bathing was a common occurrence.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#215[deleted]
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#216Not sure how true it is, but my HS European history teacher blamed the Catholic Church and nobility for misinformation regarding the so-called Dark Ages. Apparently, they weren't too happy about widespread atheism or peasants burning the tax and accounting records.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate you explaining this. I'm not an expert on the history of baths. I may be wrong but I still think the tubes you're describing are the exception and not the rule.
So you think there were better quality ones and bathrooms or that the peasants just washed in the river or with snow?
I meant baths were not constructed the same way all over the world. You described a specific soft kind of wood and a particular construction method.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Sesame oil is the most commonly used oil in traditional cooking. It likely was a staple. A family of four needs about half a days with of cooking oil to have a bath with oil.
Could you put some mL estimates on those two measures? It would seem to me that I'd need 50x as much oil to bathe in than I'd need to cook for a half a day, making me think I'm clearly thinking about either the bathing or the cooking quite a bit wrongly.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is one bathed in an oven?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_stove "As well as warming and cooking, Russian stoves were used for bathing. Once the stove became hot the burning wood was removed, and cast iron containers were put into the stove and filled with water. That allowed people to bathe inside of the stove. A grown man can easily fit inside, and during World War II some people escaped the Nazis by hiding in the stoves."
Okay, but can I get a schematic of how that's supposed to work? The opening on the pechka is on the side—what, you slide inside like in an MRI and then somehow chuck water onto yourself?
Pretty sure just filling a proper wooden tub with the hot water is a lot simpler.
For the context, back in my childhood I spent several summers in a house with a pechka (it's still there), and visited a couple others. Those could only fit a child at best, but the principle is the same: you shove the pots from the side into the tunnel above the fire.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_stove "As well as warming and cooking, Russian stoves were used for bathing. Once the stove became hot the burning wood was removed, and cast iron containers were put into the stove and filled with water. That allowed people to bathe inside of the stove. A grown man can easily fit inside, and during World War II some people escaped the Nazis by hiding in the stoves."
> escaped the Nazis by hiding in the stoves If I understand, the iron containers myst have been extremely hot, how do you walk in? Did the nazis dismiss the possibility of hiding there because it was already hot like an oven?
I'm guessing people were hiding in cold stoves.