The myth of the unwashed Middle Ages
A popular image holds that medieval people never bathed and that the whole age was filthy. The evidence points the other way. Medieval people washed, and many cared about cleanliness, although their methods, standards and facilities differed from ours and depended on wealth, region and period. The idea of a uniquely dirty “dark” era owes more to later writers, who contrasted themselves with the past, than to medieval records.
Everyday washing
For most people, daily washing meant hands and face, using a basin or a nearby stream or well. Washing hands before meals was a common courtesy, and etiquette books written for wealthier households urged diners to keep their hands and nails clean. Large households sometimes passed around a basin and towel at the table.
Full-body washing took more effort. Heating enough water meant carrying it and burning fuel, so a full bath was a bigger undertaking than it is today. Wooden tubs were used in homes of all kinds, sometimes lined with cloth. Wealthier households could draw baths for guests, and bathing was treated as a courtesy of hospitality in noble settings. Many ordinary people probably washed in rivers, ponds or the sea in warm weather, and reached for the tub less often.
Clean linen
Cleanliness was often judged by what a person wore next to the skin. Linen shirts and undergarments absorbed sweat and body oils and could be changed and laundered far more easily than heavy woolen outer clothing. Looking clean meant having white, fresh linen, and wealthier people owned more changes of it. Laundry was commonly done by women, either at home or as paid work, using water, wooden tools and soap or ash-based lye. Clothing was hung to dry on lines, hedges or bushes.
Soap and other aids
Soap in medieval Europe was typically made from animal fat or oil combined with alkali from wood ash. Some places produced it on a commercial scale, and it was both a household item and a trade good. Pleasant scents were also used, including herbs strewn on floors and kept among linens. People also cleaned teeth with cloths or twigs and used toothpicks, though the extent of such practice is hard to measure.
Public bathhouses
Many towns had public bathhouses, sometimes called stews or bathhouses. Visitors could pay for a hot bath, a steam room, or both, and some establishments also offered services such as barbering or bloodletting. Bathhouses were social places where people ate and drank as well as bathed. Because some bathkeepers were associated with illicit activity, and because the authorities worried about moral behavior, a number of towns regulated them, restricted hours or tried to limit mixed bathing. These rules suggest that bathhouses were common enough to need regulating, not that they were unusual.
Bathing traditions also differed across regions. In Muslim Spain, the heritage of Roman and Islamic bathing culture meant that bathhouses were an established part of urban life. Elsewhere, some Roman bath buildings fell out of use, but the habit of bathing did not disappear. In northern and eastern Europe, steam bathing was customary in some regions.
Monasteries and the church
Monastic rules did not ban washing, though they often encouraged moderation. The Rule of Saint Benedict, for example, allowed baths for the sick more freely than for the healthy, treating comfort as something to be controlled rather than forbidden. Monasteries commonly had washing places, such as lavers near the refectory, and arranged for laundering of habits. Ideas about the body in Christian writing were mixed: some writers worried that bathing for pleasure encouraged vanity, while others stressed cleanliness as appropriate for health and for worship.
Toilets and waste
Sanitation was a real challenge. Castles and monasteries often had latrines (called garderobes in castles) that emptied into pits, moats or drains. Houses in towns might share cesspits that required periodic emptying by workers, and many towns passed rules about dumping waste in streets or rivers. Compliance was uneven, and it is clear from complaints and fines that streets could be foul. Medieval towns were often smelly and unpleasant by modern standards, although this was not the same as having no concept of hygiene.
Health beliefs
Medieval medical theory did not rely on germs. Under humoral theory, health came from a balance of bodily fluids, and writers connected disease to bad air, diet and imbalance. Bathing could be seen as helpful in some situations and risky in others. During epidemics such as the Black Death, some authorities advised avoiding hot baths because they were thought to open the pores to harmful air, and some writers on plague recommended caution. This advice varied, and a late-medieval and early modern shift toward distrusting public baths is often linked to this thinking, although historians debate how much it mattered compared with other factors such as fuel costs, moral concerns and changing fashions.
Putting it in perspective
Medieval standards of cleanliness were not the same as modern ones. Most people had no running hot water, no bathrooms and no understanding of how microbes spread disease. Even so, there is good evidence that many people washed regularly, that bathhouses and laundries were part of town life, and that cleanliness was valued as a sign of respectability. The sweeping claim that people “bathed once a year” is not supported by solid evidence, and where such a statement appears, it is best treated with skepticism.