Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Nobody said you were. You’d know this, if you read the full comment :-)
I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
51–60 of 360 posts
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#52I 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.
> I feel like they are the only source I can trust on figuring out the best truth we know about history.
I hope this isn't a widespread belief. If it is, then this concerns me.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#53Its 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…
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Wow, you went right ahead and did the thing.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#54Tangential 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?
A lot of animals and birds have a quick dip and groom. There's a water lily pond outside our family home, where in the evening, magpie robins drink and have a dip - sometimes, multiple times.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#55ughh 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.…
Yeah, inventing a thing in one time period is mutually exclusive with adopting it from people who invented it in an earlier time period.
The author of the book to which the Google Books link linked also had a doctorate, in chemistry; WP describes him as "a key figure in the fields of history of science and chemistry in the beginning half of the 20th century" and "the first president of the Society for History of Alchemy and Early Chemistry". He probably knew more about the history of soap than Dr. Janega, but she might know things about it that hadn't been discovered when he died, and probably knows more about the social context of its medieval use than he did. Is your mention of Google Books intended to suggest that Google Books might be falsifying the text?
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#56Tangential 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?
A lot of animals bathe/groom. Birds, other primates, cats. Tons of mammals swim as well. Deer, bears, etc (what other animals are there??) I've noticed that the more I exercise, the cleaner + healthier my skin is. Showers only get me partly there - I need to sweat through a full rinse cycle to get all the funk out.
> I've noticed that the more I exercise, the cleaner + healthier my skin is. Showers only get me partly there
Define "cleaner"? What is not clean about your skin that requires exercise to get clean? After every shower, my skin is just "clean"?
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#57Tangential 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?
Humans are pretty unique in being (relatively) hairless and sweating as our primary method of keeping cool. Sweat invited bacteria and traps dirt. I’m no anthropologist but I’d guess manual bathing became a regular thing when early humans developed these traits.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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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…
If it was a cultural value to feed people outside of the home before yourself and food donation was a cultural promoted ideology then that means there were lots of people to feed..
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#59ughh 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?…
> ... and Wikipedia alleges the same in their article:
>> Although it has been claimed that soap-making was introduced to the West from the Levant after the First Crusades, in fact, soap was known to the Romans in the first century AD and Zosimos of Panopolis described soap and soapmaking in c. 300 AD.
... and the article on "Soap" has a lot more to say about the history of soap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap#History
> That's not a big deal I guess, but if you're going to make a rant about historical accuracies, what else isn't exactly accurate here? It seems the effort is put into the berating imaginary enemies rather than the writing
I would say, it is a big deal. Accuracy is the supreme virtue of a historian. A student who would submit such a poorly researched essay in my 101 course would get it back for factual (and stylistic) improvement.
Re: I assure you, medieval people bathed (2019)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of animals bathe/groom. Birds, other primates, cats. Tons of mammals swim as well. Deer, bears, etc (what other animals are there??) I've noticed that the more I exercise, the cleaner + healthier my skin is. Showers only get me partly there - I need to sweat through a full rinse cycle to get all the funk out.
The only reason our sweat even stinks is because of the way it's metabolized by our skin's microbiome. It turns out if you have AOB (ammonia oxidizing bacteria) they can oxidize our sweat and prevent us from stinking AOBs are found in soils pretty much everywhere. But they're extremely sensitive and can easily be washed away. In contrast, the particular microbes that have closely evolved alongside us to adapt to our…
How many mammals actually sweat? I was surprised to learn that dogs don’t sweat, which seems obvious after the fact