The Dung Ages: Difference between revisions
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== Real Life ==
* The perception then was bathing was sinful. In Roman Empire times, bathing was a social activity when people would go to public bathhouses and gymnasiums not just to keep clean, but also to relax, socialize with peers, and engage in prostitution. These places were seen as places of decadences (opponents claiming they were essentially swinger clubs or brothels in all but name), together with the gladiatorial games. Hence, Queen Isabella and some saints got the "holy" credit for not bathing.
** People in the middle ages weren't necessarily worse for the wear for missing out on the public baths. As the vast majority of Roman baths were un-chlorinated bodies of rarely-changed, standing water frequented by large groups of people with questionable hygiene, the cleanliness they offered was only skin deep. Especially since [https://web.archive.org/web/20190921040751/http://www.innominatesociety.com/Articles/Death%20and%20Disease%20in%20Ancient%20Rome.htm sick people were encouraged] to visit them.
* After the fall of the Roman Empire, bringing in the [[Dark Age Europe|so-called Dark Ages]], Rome might as well have been known as Malaria City.
** There were plenty of disease outbreaks during the era of the Roman Empire. They didn't call July, August, September, and October [https://web.archive.org/web/20190921040751/http://www.innominatesociety.com/Articles/Death%20and%20Disease%20in%20Ancient%20Rome.htm "sickly"] for nothing. Residents were told to go somewhere else, if at all possible, those months. 30,000 Roman residents died ''every year''. Bathhouses and aqueducts didn't protect against malaria: it is estimated that over half of all Roman children became infected during summers when the Roman Empire was at the height of its power.
* Even better, up until the late 1400s and early 1500s, there were still a few public baths in operation in major European cities and [[Medieval Stasis|the collective memory of the people drove them to still practice the Roman custom of bathing]], infrequently as they could afford to, and supposedly not knowing ''why'' would they do it in the first place. It can be said The Dung Ages come [[Did Not Do the Research|immediately ''after'' the end of the Middle Ages]] proper.
** [http://www4.gvsu.edu/wrightd/Honors%20216/GreatFamineandBlackDeath.htm Quote]: ''The conversion of forest into arable land had reduced the supply of wood, however, and the bath houses began to shut down because of the expense of heating the water. They tried using coal, but decided that burning coal gave off unhealthy fumes and abandoned the use of the stuff. By the mid-fourteenth century, only the rich could afford to bathe during the cold Winter months, and most of the population was dirty most of the time.''
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