Old but funny...

This happened a fair few years ago, but I just remembered it.

Location: Well established, multi-group cross period re-enactment event in the South East of England.

Man walks up to friend in medieval encampment and asks various sensible questions.
Friend explains answers.
Man asks if he can take a photo.
Friend agrees.
Man asks "So how did they take photos in your time?".
Friend just was too thrown to do more than stare.
Man shocked that Medievals didn't have cameras

;)

It was people like this gentleman though that set me off studying history formally. How? Well both re-enactors and audiences have this sort of perception of the Middle Ages, and would ask questions which I could only answer with research. Biggest example of this was "But wasn't everyone dirty in the medieval period?"... cue 8 year (and counting) project on personal hygiene and the perception and interpretation of cleanliness in the past.

Exposing the Truth about cleanliness in the Middle Ages

This is my original premise regarding Hygiene in the Middle Ages. It has evolved since it was written back in about 2005, but it is useful (for me at least!) to see where I started from.

It was originally inspired by a comment in a book about the history of cookery, Food and Drink in Britain from the Stone Age to Recent Times by C. Anne Wilson. Wilson decided to deal with each food type separately, rather than giving an overview of, say, Roman food then 'Dark Ages' food. I was intrigued by a mention of problems with wood meaning that less was available for non-essential uses to preserve it for more important functions like cooking. 

This sparked the question in my head as I thought back to studying Latin Culture at school and remembered visiting villas like Fishbourne and Bignor, and later studying Brading. Each of these sites had highly developed hypocaust systems and bath houses. This just sat in the back of my head until I was taking part in a re-enactment event with friends, and a member of the public commented that "well, everyone knows medieval people were smelly". I'm not good at just accepting assumptions, and started digging around for evidence to either corroborate or deny this. More on this later.

To investigate the role of personal hygiene and cleanliness in the Middle Ages – from the departure of the Romans to the coming of the Tudors


Limits:

Britain -> England 410 – 1485 = over 1000 years Bathing; toilets and teeth Gentry and nobility

1. Hygiene in literature
   1. Chaucer; Pizan; de Troyes etc.
   2. Romances
   3. Salacious tales / Satirical / Aesop-esque
   4. Manuscript illustration?
2. Hygiene and religion
   1. Ancrene wisse
   2. Hagiography for saintly lives
   3. Papal edicts – any mention / lack of mention?
   4. Monastic rules
   5. Contemporary satire and criticism?
   6. Knighting ceremonies?
3. Royal hygiene
   1. E.g. Last days of Queen Isabella contains bath details – look for similar records
   2. Architecture of royal palaces => contemporary accounts, maps, plans etc.
4. Architecture and hygiene (castles and manors)
   1. Toilets and garderobes
   2. Bath houses
   3. Maps and plans (as for Royal palaces)
5. Archaeological evidence
   1. Toothbrushes and other oral hygiene equipment
   2. Hygiene and personal care objects recovered
6. Other mentions in contemporary documentation.

IMC Monday - Session 1

This is more a write up for me to remember what I saw that to tell anyone who wasn't there what happened, mostly because I didn't take notes properly and so I've probably forgotten much more than I would like to admit. For most of my friends who won't know anything about the IMC, the running theme of the Congress this year is "Rules". Will add links later when not on a tablet which hates cut and paste!

Session 1: 113 - Getting clean and being dirty: Rules to follow for hygiene.

Paper 1: To bathe or not to bathe, Elizabeth Archibald. This paper was awesome for me and was the fundamental reason for me kicking myself to make sure I actually attended instead of just wishing. Dr Archibald is in the early stage of a project studying bathing and hygiene in the medieval period and seems to have noticed similar things to where I was before I kinda stopped working on hygiene.^[1] Her handout had a lot of sources I'd either been looking for (primary sources where I had secondary references) or matched things I had noticed too. I found it really inspiring and I am now determined to spend at least part of my summer break getting my head and notes in order on the subject as it remains totally chaotic and mostly in my head.
Paper 2: When to 'go' in Frankish monastic texts, Belle Tuten. This paper was about explicit and implied evidence of when monks were able to visit the latrines. She mentioned areas I wasn't consciously aware of, such as fears held over monks using the latrines for lascivious purposes. I wasn't clear whether this referred to masturbation, homosexual relations, or both so is something I shall find out about another time... Lots of rules on what and when could happen and some interesting thoughts for me regarding cleanliness.
Paper 3: Why hold a drinking party in a latrine?: Women's impurity in two Anglo-Saxon texts, Martha Bayless This paper was a fun one which began with an account of an actual party held by some women inside a latrine! Comments about private and public space were very interesting and thought provoking, and I enjoyed the section on riddles even if it's not one of 'my' areas.

Closing Thought: "Filth Studies"! I like.

Sessions 2-4, Tuesday and Wednesday tomorrow if I get time. I MUST go to sleep now since I have to get the 06:30 train back across the Pennines if I'm to get back to Leeds in time for the 09:00 session tomorrow morning (I'm commuting in as it's cheaper than staying).

~~~

[1] No I don't know quite why I paused/stopped researching, and I hope that listening to this will have been the kick up the proverbial for me to Get On With It! I would like to write to Dr Archibald although I'm really not sure how to phrase it - "Hi, your research is something I've been fiddling with for the last 7 years or so and I'd love to share." sounds incredibly arrogant, clumsy and ingratiating, and is totally the opposite of what I mean to say! To stop me from sitting worrying and then just doing jack again, I promise myself to contact Dr Archibald IF I can think of a way to do it that sounds neither creepy, arrogant nor generally 'off'. I'd love the opportunity to really talk about it with someone who understands! :D to get

1. Hygiene

The Middle Ages, were not, overall, stinky, smelly, unsanitary and dirty. Yes, people viewed personal hygiene differently from modern people, but that does not mean a total absence... For many years, this has been my 'hobby horse' subject, and I freely admit I can bore people into several repeated deaths over it! It all started at a re-enactment show, when a member of the public said flippantly, "Well they were all dirty and smelly weren't they!". I felt this to be untrue, but having no evidence either way left me with a question mark in my head wouldn't let me alone. Be it known here and now, that the question mark is the single most inspirational thing for me - I can't let them alone. I hate not knowing or not understanding, and if something sparks me off, I can't let go until all the questions are gone. Which is never of course...!

Where am I now?

So where am I now with regards to research? What has changed?

Current topics

• The history of personal hygiene in the wider Middle Ages
• Medievalism and the modern perception of the Medieval period
• Rosaries
• The source of the concept of the filthy Middle Ages

Future (near and distant)
This covers areas which interest me, but which either I don't have the time or skill (yet?) to research, or which I am looking into incidentally to other research

• National and social insults - "Filthy viking marauders", "effete Italians", "impassive Germans" and so on...
• Links between Muscovy/Rus and the British Isles - mostly interested in the elite and trading links
• The Varangarians
• Women's roles in borderlands - especially looking at the Welsh Marches, how women interacted across the borders in times of peace and war, cross border relationships etc.
• The daughters of Yaroslav the Wise.
• The place and role of women in medieval court life.
• Pre-modern Royal ladies-in-waiting - who were they, what did they actually do, what happened to them once their mistresses moved on, either through marriage, political deposition of their husband, or death?
• Women in Russian folklore - Rusalka, Baba Yaga, Vasilissa Prekrasnaia - roles, actions and importance
• Folklore and historicity, e.g. Continuing from my BA thesis and looking at the links between Russian folklore and real historical periods (i.e. Do folk tales represent an era, an idealised era, etc.)

Some posts will be a short series outlining my thinking on each of these. My intention is that these will serve as indexes to thinking each subject, although I will use tags for indexing as well (The Librarian in me goes deep ;D)