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

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

#321

Post by coldtea » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 7:59 PM UTC

rajup wrote: post #314

coldtea wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Nordic countries become Christian just in 12th century Which is neither here, nor there, as Christian countries still bathed just fine. > So all these “don’t bath” nonsense promoted by pope was ignored They were ignored in Christian countries, include Rome and Byzantium, anyway. Not to mention, they weren't meant that way anyway. From TFA: "It’s true that we have medieval sources which warn against “excessive”…

Being vegan is holy? Which religion?

Several, though not "holy" in itself, but befitting a holy person (saint-like behavior).

In this particular instances he means in the practice of Christianity, which in the Catholic and Orthodox version (or the unified version before the schism) had strict lent period, with rules about abstaining from meat (and, for those following the stricter rules, dairy products two in most days (and in the traditional versions, a bread+water diet only on some important holy days). Regular christians followed (and follow) those at their own preference/faith/tolerance level, the clergy, monks, and saints, follow them strictly. And there are several stories of saints who followed them year round.

But of course, veganism is also associated with holy behavior in Hinduism, Buddhism, and such.

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

#322

Post by ncmncm » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 8:00 PM UTC

happyopossum wrote: post #293

ncmncm wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, plain old soap bars will not suffice to make a bath last for weeks or months. As I said pretty clearly, and you must have read, you cannot buy the good stuff .

You’re gonna need a lot more evidence than “it was explained to me”… It’s trivially easy to find ancient soap recipes and revert them at hope. Or one can buy Aleppo soap, or Castilian soap from specialty markets. It’s not like there’s some lost secret, or extinct ingredients - it’s soap, and it’s been a pretty simple thing to make for thousands of years.

You may try finding soap that will make a bath "last" for weeks. If you do find somebody claiming that, and actually give them your money, that is on you. I promise you will not get any of it.

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

#323

Post by somedudetbh » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 8:02 PM UTC

rajup wrote: post #314

coldtea wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Nordic countries become Christian just in 12th century Which is neither here, nor there, as Christian countries still bathed just fine. > So all these “don’t bath” nonsense promoted by pope was ignored They were ignored in Christian countries, include Rome and Byzantium, anyway. Not to mention, they weren't meant that way anyway. From TFA: "It’s true that we have medieval sources which warn against “excessive”…

Being vegan is holy? Which religion?

A lot. for example: jainism, zen buddhism (shōjin ryōri), rastafarianism. There are also a lot of religious practices where the religious doctrine doesn't _require_ adherence to a vegan diet, but not eating animal products is considered more holy, and specifically because of the abnegation aspect the post is talking about. Catholics, for instance, have a long and complicated tradition of avoiding animal products for religious reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_and_abstinence_in_the_...

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

#324

Post by mplanchard » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 8:10 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #218

samarthr1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’d imagine this is talking about more of a sponge bath situation than an immersion situation.

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

#325

Post by ch4s3 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 8:11 PM UTC

monetus wrote: post #318

ch4s3 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been a number of genetic studies[1] that can identify caste heredity going back to almost the time of the Vedas showing VERY little genetic mixing between the castes. [1] https://hms.harvard.edu/news/genetic-study-finds-caste-syste...

I think the link through in that article is sadly dead, but I still found it. Wow, that is less intermingling than I would have guessed. I knew that caste had been there for ages, but it is still a bit astonishing to read that.

Oops, I may have chopped off a few characters. Yeah there were essentially only a handful of upper caste men gathering children with lower caste women and virtually no other mixing for thousands of years.

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

#326

Post by bencollier49 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 8:19 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #321

rajup wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being vegan is holy? Which religion?

Several, though not "holy" in itself, but befitting a holy person (saint-like behavior). In this particular instances he means in the practice of Christianity, which in the Catholic and Orthodox version (or the unified version before the schism) had strict lent period, with rules about abstaining from meat (and, for those following the stricter rules, dairy products two in most days (and in the traditional versions,…

To add to the above, early medieval fasting rules in Christianity were brutal, arguably much tougher than comparable rules from other major religions at the same time. Then we got decadent.

"Noon" is at lunchtime now because the ninth hour (Nones, Noon, 3pm) prayers, after which one could eat, got moved inexorably earlier to cater to the whims of impious monks.

And incidentally, because it's interesting, fasting and veganism without corresponding prayer was/is seen as Satanic, "The fast of the devils", because "fallen angels neither eat nor pray".

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

#327

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 8:20 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #321

rajup wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being vegan is holy? Which religion?

Several, though not "holy" in itself, but befitting a holy person (saint-like behavior). In this particular instances he means in the practice of Christianity, which in the Catholic and Orthodox version (or the unified version before the schism) had strict lent period, with rules about abstaining from meat (and, for those following the stricter rules, dairy products two in most days (and in the traditional versions,…

[deleted]

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

#328

Post by palmetieri2000 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 8:30 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #204

palmetieri2000 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where has this 'pride in their past' narrative come from except for the comment that lists those topics? The comment I appreciated kumarvvr posting makes no proclamations about pride or India or Hinduism, it talks about cleaning practices and traditional herbs almost exclusively.

> Where has this 'pride in their past' narrative come from except for the comment that lists those topics? Nowhere, but that's the thread we're in. I was just pointing out you perhaps misread what it was a list of, because it seemed to me perfectly consistent with the rest of the comment. > The comment I appreciated kumarvvr posting makes no proclamations about pride or India or Hinduism, it talks about cleaning prac…

Thanks for explaining!

>I appreciated it too - and still do - just perhaps more so before reading some of the others.

I think we are on the same page.

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

#329

Post by ninefathom » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 8:46 PM UTC

This article is peppered with factual errors. While none of them detract from the core idea, they do lead one to question Dr. Janega's scholarship. Here's a modest sampling:

- Soap is given as a medieval invention, but this is stretching to the extreme both the idea of "inventing soap" and the idea of "medieval." In reality it was widely made and used at least as a hair wash by the waning days of the Western Roman empire.

- The ingredients list for soap contains a number of equivalent or derived ingredients listed as though totally separate, as if the author weren't aware of the relationships and went copy-pasta crazy from mixed sources.

- Aleppo soap is described as if made exclusively from laurel oil (rather than the correct mixture of laurel and olive oils).

- The photo shown of a light brown bar of soap with a caption seeming to suggest that it's Castille soap is in all likelihood actually Aleppo soap (cf. the text of the Arabic seal, which is rather humorously shown upside-down).

- The description of a deodorant made using "salvia and sage" is rather perplexing, as salvia is the Latin word for sage... and the name of the modern genus of plants containing common sage. A reference to salvia in the colloquial modern sense of Salvia divinorum seems unlikely in the extreme.

All told, while this is an interesting read, and does contain some useful information, from a scholarly perspective it seems to be, at best, slipshod.

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

#330

Post by palmetieri2000 » Sat, Aug 06, 2022, 8:46 PM UTC

pedrosorio wrote: post #303

palmetieri2000 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where has this 'pride in their past' narrative come from except for the comment that lists those topics? The comment I appreciated kumarvvr posting makes no proclamations about pride or India or Hinduism, it talks about cleaning practices and traditional herbs almost exclusively.

Selected excerpts from comments of the user you mentioned, in this thread: > The highest ideal in Hinduism is "Sarve jana, sukhino bhavanthu" (All living things should be happy) > Spiritually, It is special, in the sense that Hinduism is not a religion but a philosophical way of life, that encourages debate, discussion, logical analysis and introspection. Historically, the only gift for questioning ones religion was…

It is strange to believe that my comment must remain accurate in perpetuity.

At the time of my writing, the user had two comments in this thread, one about cleaning practices and traditional herbs (that almost no one took issue with).

>In response to someone claiming that there were (like in medieval Europe, the topic of this post) many poor people in India in the same time period:

That is not at all what was claimed by that comment.

"No. You are the peasant. No lands for you, you aren't a lord or lady, you're a peon like 99.999% of people. Almost no middle class, and you aren't upper! You're lower class." is an ignorant statement.

>No one said India was not "self-sufficient", we're talking about peasants in those times, having a low quality of life.

You don't dictate what 'we are talking about'.

What you seem to struggle to comprehend is the linearity of time. When Kumavvr made their first and second comments, the topic was about medieval bathing. Now it has changed as the conversation developed yet you think the comments made before the topic changed are expected to also cover the topic which did not exist at the time of their writing.