I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019) • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by ETH_start » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:39 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #21

b112 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks of colonialist attitudes of seeing natives of other lands as some sort of brutes and degenerates living in destitution in poverty. In India, Every village was in the vicinity of a water source. Every village had a temple, with a large pond. Massaging with oil…

This is not true. We have reliable indicators of pre-modern poverty levels [1], and they were indeed brutal. India (in the mythical pre-invasion period) was no exception. [2]

>>Most of the population lived in thatched huts or wood beam supported houses constructed from soil based cement like stuff. I assume this was true all over the world.

This is what extreme poverty (pervasive in pre-modern times, aand still present today in the poorest regions of the world) looks like:

"Official reports for Burgundy between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries are full of 'references to people [sleeping] on straw... with no bed or furniture' who were only separated 'from the pigs by a screen'."

- Civilization & Capitalism [3]

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

[2] https://theunbrokenwindow.com/Development/MADDISON%20The%20W...

[3] https://archive.org/stream/fernand-braudel-the-structure-of-...

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

#32

Post by bolangi » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:39 AM UTC

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?

Cats spend a significant portion of their day grooming themselves, a kind of bathing, that keeps their fur smooth.

A strong reason to bathe is acceptance by others. One of the first things we do for a newborn or someone injured after getting first aid is to clean them up. We want people to respond positively to us, and being clean is a part of that.

I doubt you'll see a dirty newscaster.

ISTR that the Aboriginals in Australia didn't bathe. But what if they encountered a river? Did they wash and then immediately roll in dirt to ward off mosquitos?

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

#33

Post by zeroonetwothree » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:40 AM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #23

kumarvvr wrote: post #12

Its funny that western history distorts the history of the rest of the world. I hear western kids saying no one used to bathe in the ancient times. As an Indian, it was practically mandatory for each and every individual to take a bath at-least two times a day. Additionally the following customs were very prevalent till recent times. 1. Washing legs after coming home from outside. 2. Washing hands, face and legs befo…

Indians definitely still have certain specific hygiene practices that Westerners don't. Anybody who has worked at a large tech company will have taken note of the tooth brushes in the bathrooms. I found this to be very confusing at first, but then I noticed that a good amount of my Indian coworkers would brush their teeth after lunch.

I don’t think this is an Indian thing, western dentists recommend brushing teeth after each meal.

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

#34

Post by kumarvvr » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:40 AM UTC

b112 wrote: post #26

kumarvvr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks of colonialist attitudes of seeing natives of other lands as some sort of brutes and degenerates living in destitution in poverty. In India, Every village was in the vicinity of a water source. Every village had a temple, with a large pond. Massaging with oil…

[flagged]

No post body was provided.

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

#35

Post by kixiQu » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:42 AM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #2

ughh I dislike when pop history takes this smarmy tone and is also not particularly accurate. > In fact soap is a motherfucking medieval invention. Yes. It is. The Romans – whomst I don’t see a bunch of basics going around accusing of being filthy – did not, in fact have soap, in contrast. They usually washed using oil. Medieval people? Oh you better believe that they had soap. Wait a minute, what about Aleppo soap?…

She mentions Aleppo soap in the piece, and cites the influence of a first century AD physician as being meaningful through the medieval period - so a charitable reader might assume that she's talking about widespread use rather than knowledge of the existence of a thing. In place of a charitable reader, this comment seems to be trying to say that "medieval invention" and "adopted technology" are mutually exclusive.

She has a doctorate in medieval history, and I've read her work. It's rather interesting to consider a Google Books link more authoritative.

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

#36

Post by cm2012 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:43 AM UTC

I feel very grateful for reddit.com/r/askhistorians. I feel like they are the only source I can trust on figuring out the best truth we know about history.

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

#37

Post by Frost1x » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:45 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #21

b112 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks of colonialist attitudes of seeing natives of other lands as some sort of brutes and degenerates living in destitution in poverty. In India, Every village was in the vicinity of a water source. Every village had a temple, with a large pond. Massaging with oil…

>Portable water was not an issue, because industrialization did not yet happen and most water sources (and hundreds of wells dug around the country) would have clean, drinking water. Did you think a thousand years ago, people used water filters?

Potable water hasn't been an issue strictly introduced by industrialization, it was exacerbated by increased population density in areas where water sources were more likely to be contaminated. There are plenty of nasty biological contaminates out there that make water non-potable: various bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc. as well as inorganics like lead leaching that led to bad water sources (not to mention droughts). Potable water has always been an issue (to this day), industrialization agreeably added new issues although it also introduced water processing science to make non-potable waters potable in many places.

We should celebrate modern industrialized water processing, not shun it.

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

#38

Post by shakna » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:45 AM UTC

culi wrote: post #8

simonsarris wrote: post #2

ughh I dislike when pop history takes this smarmy tone and is also not particularly accurate. > In fact soap is a motherfucking medieval invention. Yes. It is. The Romans – whomst I don’t see a bunch of basics going around accusing of being filthy – did not, in fact have soap, in contrast. They usually washed using oil. Medieval people? Oh you better believe that they had soap. Wait a minute, what about Aleppo soap?…

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 was likely "invented" and even forgotten over and over again by whoever needed and stopped needing it

At least with the Sapindus family, and probably a few other plants (like lepisanthes) that produce naturally surfactant properties, nature itself provides something akin to "soap", and has been used in bathing for long enough that we're not even sure when it even began.

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

#39

Post by wizofaus » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:48 AM UTC

culi wrote: post #8

simonsarris wrote: post #2

ughh I dislike when pop history takes this smarmy tone and is also not particularly accurate. > In fact soap is a motherfucking medieval invention. Yes. It is. The Romans – whomst I don’t see a bunch of basics going around accusing of being filthy – did not, in fact have soap, in contrast. They usually washed using oil. Medieval people? Oh you better believe that they had soap. Wait a minute, what about Aleppo soap?…

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 can just imagine the reaction of a stone-ager being berated because they hadn't come up with "literally just a fatty acid salt with some phytochemicals that have antimicrobial properties". I suspect you could pick just about any tech invented in the last decade and describe it as "literally just a pick-your-adjective noun with some other random nouns that have something-or-another properties"...

Explain again why anyone would stop needing soap? (other than having departed this world...)

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

#40

Post by kumarvvr » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 3:48 AM UTC

ETH_start wrote: post #31

kumarvvr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ancient times, right until the attacks by Islamist marauders and "civilized" Britishers, none of what you have mentioned were an issue. Your statement reeks of colonialist attitudes of seeing natives of other lands as some sort of brutes and degenerates living in destitution in poverty. In India, Every village was in the vicinity of a water source. Every village had a temple, with a large pond. Massaging with oil…

This is not true. We have reliable indicators of pre-modern poverty levels [1], and they were indeed brutal. India (in the mythical pre-invasion period) was no exception. [2] >>Most of the population lived in thatched huts or wood beam supported houses constructed from soil based cement like stuff. I assume this was true all over the world. This is what extreme poverty (pervasive in pre-modern times, aand still prese…

Depends on what you mean by poverty. I mean, how does one even measure it a 1000 years ago.

I am suspicious of these reports.

Every country has a history of good times and bad times. However, the culture of India is unique in the sense that the most strongest unit was the collective society and cultural practices (food donation being held as the highest ideal, practical prohibition of sale of food, a multitude of rituals for householders wherein donation of money, clothes, grain, etc was part of the ritual, societal support for disabled persons, etc). This led to a fairly decent life and times.

Were there not people in extreme poverty, sure. Was the whole country in poverty, surely not.