Myths about the Middle Ages

[Curufea]

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[gojira]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

I didn't see "no one bathed" on there, but I'm pretty sure that's a myth as well. If you didn't clean yourself somehow, you'd get a rash that could kill you. No, they didn't all have showers and in-door plumbing, but you gotta get clean some how.

[Curufea]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

I think you could find more on Snopes - but they don't have it organised by time period.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Cool list. This phrase bothers me, though:

The facts are that the Greeks knew the earth was spherical from about 500 BC, and all but a tiny number of educated persons have known it in all times since.

Shouldn't that be "UNeducated persons"?

 

I didn't know that Droit de Signor was a myth, but it makes sense.

 

Keith "Thanks" Curtis

[Eosin]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

I didn't see "no one bathed" on there' date=' but I'm pretty sure that's a myth as well. If you didn't clean yourself somehow, you'd get a rash that could kill you. No, they didn't all have showers and in-door plumbing, but you gotta get clean some how.[/quote']

 

There is a sited document in Elenor of Aquatine by Alison Wier that talks about the stir King John created by bathing an "inordinate" number of times --- IIRC it was 4 times in 6 months. The source was the royal house expenditures.

[Phil]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Cool list. This phrase bothers me, though:

 

Shouldn't that be "UNeducated persons"?

 

I didn't know that Droit de Signor was a myth, but it makes sense.

 

Keith "Thanks" Curtis

 

Droit de seigneur was not a myth, ius primae noctis was a myth. Droit de seigneur covered all of the rights due to a lord because of his position. In early medieval England, for example, this included the rights of infangantheof - the right of a lord to deal summarily with any thieves caught red-handed - and others that I can't remember right now

[Markdoc]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

There is a sited document in Elenor of Aquatine by Alison Wier that talks about the stir King John created by bathing an "inordinate" number of times --- IIRC it was 4 times in 6 months. The source was the royal house expenditures.

 

I'd want to see a cite on that - given the time and energy invested in building bathing facilities at the time, it'd be a bit strange if they were rarely used.

 

At Leeds Castle, from 1291, there was a 23ft by 17ft bathing chamber, with a ledge for accessories, a recess for the bath, and a changing room located right above the bathroom. Some castle bathrooms from the same era had piped-in hot and cold water. Some lords even had bath mats to protect their feet from the cold.

 

We also know that his brother Richard took a gilded wooden bath, heating apparatus and windshields with him on campaign.

 

Georges Duby, in an article in A History of Private Life, writes "In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Cluniac monasteries and houses of the lay nobility continued to set aside space for baths...At Cluny the custom required the monks to take a full bath twice a year, at the holidays of renewal, Christmas and Easter; but they were exhorted not to uncover their pudenda." - and yet contemporaries regarded monks as filthy and unwashed - commentaries on their smelliness are legion, so it is clear that twice a year was considered a bit gross even in the 1200's.

 

This, despite the fact that much earlier Gregory the Great, himself a monk before he became pope, allowed baths every sunday to his monks and even commended them, so long as they didn't become a 'time-wasting luxury'. Contemporary writers also inveigh against the sinfulness of too much bathing - which would be odd if people weren't bathing very often. It's not just nobles - most large medieval towns had public baths - some of them very ornate - even though wealthier people preferred to bath at home.

 

In later periods, recent excavations at Hampton court showed Henry the VIII a sunken tub next to a hearth in his privy appartments, and his daughter Elizabeth not only had special bathing rooms in her various places but the one at at Whitehall reputedy had a mirrored ceiling.

 

In between those two, many medieval writers commented on baths (or the lack of) and they were described as necessary and healthy. Constantinus Africanus, in Opera Domestica, from 1536 does so, while the unknown writer of de Balneus (1420) not only extolls bathing, but gives instructions on how best to set up your bath.

 

That's all England and France, but in Janssen's History of the German People there are many details concerning the popular use of baths in Germany during the Middle Ages. He writes that men bathed several times each day - and from the 20th of May to the 9th of June, 1511, Lucas Rem bathed one hundred and twenty-seven times, as recorded in his diary (OK, that's getting a bit obsessive )

 

Further East, in Slavonia, Wroclawia had a law in the 13th to 15th centuries which ordered every citizen to visit a public bath once a week. If someone didn't they could be imprisoned or fined.

 

For some (religious) folks like Monks and the militay orders, it was true - but in their case washing only a few times a year was a penance and a casting off of vanity. If it was the general rule, they would not have mude such a big deal out of it in the rules of their order.

 

Add that to many medieval finds of combs, mirrors, soap scrapers, oil bottles, perfume, baths, etc plus all the paintings, tapestries, etchings and woodcuts of people bathing, and I think we can safely lay the medieval myth of very infrequent bathing to rest.

 

cheers, Mark

[Eosin]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Alright ya bastadiche, I looked it up.

 

Source - I think it is from... Guillamune le Breton; Chronicles des eglises d'Anjou, if I read the citations correctly.

 

Exact Quote (I'd miss remembered a hare)

Allison Wier regarding the chronicles.

"King John prompted astonished reactions when in 1209 when he had eight baths in six months."

 

I'd caution both our assumptions in this matter as it specifically related to the travelling courts of the time. Henry II, who also carried his bath, maybe the same one, was known to have logged 3,500 miles in a single year. Breaking out the tub, finding a stream, and bathing in an itenerant court could not have been an easy thing. In fact, I'd guess that it might take half a day off travel.

 

My assumption with the John quote is that he didn't just jump in the river and swipe off. It is certainly possible that he did but that these facts aren't recorded.

 

Things in the English court become a whole lot less itenerant in the immediate times after John (actually after Henry II and Richard). It could be a situational thing to England at the time but judging from the lifestyles of Elenor, Henry, and John (Richard sucked and I never cared to read much into him) a bath once a week is coming in on the strong side.

[Markdoc]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Alright ya bastadiche, I looked it up.

 

Source - I think it is from... Guillamune le Breton; Chronicles des eglises d'Anjou, if I read the citations correctly.

 

Exact Quote (I'd miss remembered a hare)

Allison Wier regarding the chronicles.

"King John prompted astonished reactions when in 1209 when he had eight baths in six months."

 

I'd caution both our assumptions in this matter as it specifically related to the travelling courts of the time. Henry II, who also carried his bath, maybe the same one, was known to have logged 3,500 miles in a single year. Breaking out the tub, finding a stream, and bathing in an itenerant court could not have been an easy thing. In fact, I'd guess that it might take half a day off travel.

 

OK - cool. Thanks for the cite - and I suspect your guess about bathing while travelling might be on the money. John was pretty itinerant, even by the standard of the times and other commentators have made similar comments. Anna Commnena, for one comments on how stinky the crusaders were: but then they had been travelling through Greece in summer, en masse. Water was probably reserved for drinking: and sweating, not washing and being around horses stinks you up pretty good. But then she was pleasantly surprised at how nicely Bohemond cleaned up - even if he was a big pink freakish norman.

 

cheers, Mark

[LoresLost]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

I didn't see "no one bathed" on there' date=' but I'm pretty sure that's a myth as well. If you didn't clean yourself somehow, you'd get a rash that could kill you. No, they didn't all have showers and in-door plumbing, but you gotta get clean some how.[/quote']

 

Well, Marcdoc has the more detailed quotes on this I would add that I remember a quote to the effect that a french men of the mid 12th century bathed more offten then the modren french. (I believe the quote was either the early or mid 20th century)

 

If I have time I will find a citation for this and added it to the post.

[Basil]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Another myth that the site missed: "They used a lot of spices to hide the taste of the spoiled meat."

 

In fact, spices will not hide that taste; not unless you use enough spices to "burn" the tongue. They used spices to preserve meat.

 

Also, "The Divine Right Of Kings" is a post-medieval idea.

[Kristopher]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

I need to visit the FH forum more often. Always at least one good thread here.

[Markdoc]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Another myth that the site missed: "They used a lot of spices to hide the taste of the spoiled meat."

 

In fact, spices will not hide that taste; not unless you use enough spices to "burn" the tongue. They used spices to preserve meat.

 

And - more to the point, for the same reason that we do today: to add flavour. Since the upper classes ate a *lot* of meat, and cooking tools were a bit more basic, spices made it a bit less boring: especially in the late winter and early spring when for less wealthy types, salted or dried meat was on the menu.

 

This is nothing new - I was on Santorini last week and the 3500 years old frescos from Akrotiri (a city there) show people harvesting saffron. Saffron won't preserve anything, but it will colour and flavor food, and exporting it was big business, even back then.

 

cheers, Mark

[Curufea]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

My only problem with medieval food is I'm not that partial to turnip

[Curufea]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

More on Vikings-

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0752435876/ref=pd_ys_ir_all_9/102-1720710-3796916?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/medmyths.html

 

Great link Curufea. I remember all the brouhaha I ran into when I tried explaining to some folks that no, medieval weapons weren't "so heavy no modern man could lift them" and that "if knights in plate mail fell down, they couldn't get back up."

 

The Victorians left us an awful lot of nonsense in our history books.

[Curufea]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

You can blame them for Le Morte De Arthur as well

[Phil]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Also' date=' "The Divine Right Of Kings" is a post-medieval idea.[/quote']

 

Hmm, does this perhaps depend on your definition of medieval? I certainly believe it this was a concept which was pushed by the Capetian kings of France, who came to the throne, and that fairly reliable source Wikipedia suggests "The notion of divine right of kings was certainly in existence in the mediæval period. However it was in the early modern era, under the ancien régime, that the notion became extensively used as a primarily political mechanism"

[Markdoc]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Hmm' date=' does this perhaps depend on your definition of medieval? I certainly believe it this was a concept which was pushed by the Capetian kings of France, who came to the throne, and that fairly reliable source Wikipedia suggests "The notion of divine right of kings was certainly in existence in the mediæval period. However it was in the early modern era, under the ancien régime, that the notion became extensively used as a primarily political mechanism"[/quote']

 

Both of you are (sort of) right - the concept of divine right goes right back to christian apologists in Byzantium in the 5th century, but the specific doctrine of the divine right of kings dates from the collapse of the Fronde and the reign of Louis XIV (1600's). This is definately post-medieval and is usually chosen as the start of Absolutism in Western European history.

 

Under this theory, the king was the Divinely constituted vicegerent of Jesus Christ on earth; he was responsible to God alone for his acts; in the name of God he governed his subjects in both spiritual and temporal matters. The theory united the spiritual and the temporal power in one subject.

 

Prior that, the church promoted the theory of the divine origin of civil obedience, which (very loosely, 'cos it's kind of complicated) held that the ruler (whoever he was, king, prince, whatever) held secular power, but that only the pope held his post by divine right - he could however "deputise" a ruler, who then was effectively acting in the name of god. Hence the involvement of the Pope or his agent in most crowning ceremonies in the early middle ages as signifying God's blessing on the Monarch.

 

This theory was first formulated by Christodoulos around 490 in Constantinople (IIRC), as far as we know, and was formalised by St Thomas, in the high medieval period. For what it's worth, the Catholic and Orthodox churches have never accepted the divine right of kings, only that of civil obedience.

 

This is the origin of the various battles between Popes and Kings/Emperors that raged from about 800 AD up to the birth of Absolutism - whether a king needed the Pope's blessing to have a divine mandate and whether the Pope, once having given the mandate could take it away again.

 

cheers, Mark

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

From what I've read about the fighting between Popes and kings, it was the kings and emperors who usually came out on top, especially when they brought their army to the gates of Rome. It was a rare medieval Pope who died peacefully of old age.

[Roland]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

The divine right of kings, per se, was a European Christian idea. Its pagan predecessor was the idea that kings were themselves divine - i.e., that they were descended from the gods.

 

The right of the (divine) king to sleep with the bride before her husband is found in Gilgamesh, but even there it is depicted as a custom no longer embraced enthusiastically by the populace. It was almost certainly practiced in some ancient cultures, but since it was, for obvious reasons, not popular, it would often be replaced by a token payment of some sort to the king to buy off his exercise of the right. A weak king who was more greedy than lusty would happily accept this arrangement, and then his descendants would find it impossible to resume exercise of the former right.

[Lucius]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Perhaps not a widely repeated one, but one misconception that gets my goat:

 

That there was no horsemanship in the middle ages.

 

Given that to this day they Royal Lipizan Stallions demonstrate the same manuevers that were once part of the repertoire of the chivalric warhorse, I don't know HOW anyone can support such a foolish notion as to think fighting knights were anything other than competent equestrians, but some people do. It took skill to train a horse for jousting and combat, and skill to ride one and to fight from horseback.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that the horse can SEE that lance the knight is holding, does NOT understand what it is, does NOT like having an object that close in that part of its field of vision, and for that matter doesn't care for charging headlong AT another horse coming this way - and is only going to co-operate if it respects and TRUSTS the rider and has been taught what to do.

[Curufea]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

That might have grown out of the Roman army - who through most of their history didn't have good cavalry.

[Korvar]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

Perhaps not a widely repeated one, but one misconception that gets my goat:

 

That there was no horsemanship in the middle ages.

 

Wow. I hadn't even yeard that.

 

The palindromedary notes that the horse can SEE that lance the knight is holding' date=' does NOT understand what it is, does NOT like having an object that close in that part of its field of vision, and for that matter doesn't care for charging headlong AT another horse coming this way - and is only going to co-operate if it respects and TRUSTS the rider and has been taught what to do.[/quote']

 

Plus, as the rider is using both his hands, the horse has to know what to do without having his head yanked one way or the other ("go that way").

[Basil]

Re: Myths about the Middle Ages

 

That might have grown out of the Roman army - who through most of their history didn't have good cavalry.

Actually, the Roman army had good cavalry. However, through must of Rome's history, the cavalry was made up of auxiliaries; i.e., "A buncha furriners." Native Roman cavalry was usually very poor.