bunnyjadwiga

In the morning the bath-keeper gives a horn blow, that everything is ready. Then the members of the lower classes [and] polite citizens undressed in the house and walked naked across the public road to the bath-house... Yes, how often the father runs naked from the house with a single shirt together with his equally naked wife and naked children to the bath. How often can I see (that is why I do not go through the town) little girls of 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 years, completely undressed, except for a short linen bath-coat (badehr) often torn. . . They run along the roads at lunchtime, to the baths. And beside them the totally naked 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 year old boys, accompanying these respectable young women.

--Guarinonius, 1610 quoted in Virginia Smith, Clean, p. 172

by Christian Pizan, quoted in Clean, by Virginia Smith:

... fine white cloth, tablecloths, napkins, and other linen made... she will have very fine linen-- delicate, generously embroidered and well made... will keep it white and sweet-smelling; neatly folded into a chest.

(sarah lawson translation, 148)

Ok, it is 7:51 on December 31, and I have a lot of stuff in my CA-- 60 pages single-spaced and 157 footnotes and I'm STOPPING for tonight. There's still stuff to be done, but the basics are in there, I think. So, if you're bored, here it is published via GoogleDocs:
http://docs.google.com/View?docID=dc2f3xb4_38464jm5g6&revision=_latest
I'll be looking for readers... commenters... etc.
Thud.

John G. Bourke, Scatalogic Rites of all Nations (Washington, DC: W.H. Lowdermilk & Co, 1891) includes, among other things, a interesting survey of "Ordure and Urine in Medicine" concentrating largely on the pre-modern age which also covers human sweat, milk, ear-wax, etc. The chapter on Latrines is not very helpful for our period.

Reproduced from Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia fo Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs and Customs Carl Lindahl, John McNamara, and John Lindow, eds. (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2000), p. 869-871.

This is from the Russian Primary Chronicle (c. 1040-1118), on Novgorod saunas:

I noticed their wooden bathhouses (bani dreveni). They warm themselves to extreme heat, then undress, and after anointing themselves with tallow, take young reeds and lash their bodies. They actually lash themselves so violently that they barely escape alive. Then they drench themselves with cold water, and thus are revived. They think nothing of doing this every day, and actualy inflict such voluntary torture upon themselves. They make the act not a mere washing but a veritable torment.

On Scandanavian saunas (this from the article author, Thomas A. DuBois)

Sauna was customary on Saturdays (the day of washing) and in connection with both holidays and markets. Descriptions such as that of Eyrbyggja Saga (ch. 28) describe the Scandanavian sauna as a small room, partly dug in the ground for insulation and often equipped with an antechamber. Water could be poured in from the outside. Saga accounts also mention special clothing worn during bathing, such as hats and robes, items absent from the Slavic and Balto-Finnic traditions. Saga details closely match archaeological evidence from Iceland and Greenland, where medieval saunas have been excavated. By the fourteenth century, however, the decimation of the Icelandic birch forests had led to the decline of the custom on the island, where plentiful hot springs, warmed by volcanic heat, replaced the wood-burning sauna. Archaeological evidence indicates the marginal development of a sauna tradition in northern Ireland, possibly introduced or influence by Viking settlers. The steam baths constructed there were conical stone structures in which slightly different means of heating and producing steam were used.

David Eveleigh on close-stools:( Read more... )

(I'm going to probably take some time away from the pursuit of hygenic history soon, as I promised a class on Food Preservation for Pennsic, so expect a sudden turn of subject soon.)

Bogs, Baths and Basins: The Story of Domestic Sanitation, David J. Eveleigh (Thrupp, Great Britain: Sutton, 2002) has only a limited amount of material on medieval hygiene, but as a source for the 19th and 20th century development of what is now called the toilet or the water closet, it's pretty much unparalleled. In particular, I was fascinated to learn about the great variety of water closet designs (and I do mean engineering designs, not merely decorative) that flourished in the late 19th century-- such that the city and country houses of the gentry might involve 4 or more types installed at the same time! The Earth Closet, especially that designed by Moule (where earth was used to deodorize, dry out and compost excrement, to be used for fertilizer later) and its facinating variations and failures (such as the 'pail closet') were a surprise to me. While Clean and Decent does a better job on the types of basins and baths and their development, the question of plumbing is here much better explicated. There is a clear explanation of the terrifying 'geyser' for heating bath water, which explains the need to have one's servants draw a bath for one in early 20th century literature. In particular, the various expedients used to save water (such as the tipper closet, which used greywater for flushing) may be of interest to modern reductionists. There are also interesting sidelights into the history of the 'sanitaryware' industry and its designers and magnates.

One quick quote from Bogs, Baths and Basins:

Hampton Court, for example, begun by Cardinal Wolsey (c. 1473-1530) in 1515 , and subsequently occupied by Henry VIII (b. 1491 r. 1509-1547), contained bathrooms supplied with piped water. The French architect, Savot, included designs for bathrooms in plans for large houses published in 1624. (p. 84).

Also, Eveleigh claims "Bidets- for 'baths of a special nature' -- had appeared in France by the early eighteenth century" possibly putting it out of our time period, though the sitz bath may not be. He does cite Clean and Decent for this fact however.
A frew more useful quotes will follow soon.

From A Sociological History of Excretory Experience, by David Inglis, p. 105:

A story from the collection of tales known as the Heptameron (c. 1558), and usually attributed to the authorship of Marguerite, Queen of Navarre . . . A certain lady, on a visit to a Franciscan monastery, wished to go to the privy. 'For company she asked a girl called La Mothe to go with her, but for the sake of privacy and modesty she left her in a room nearby, and went on her own to the privy' (Navarre, 1984:156)
... The story goes on to relate that the lady gets covered in excrement due to the privy being covered in the stuff. Her shame at being discovered in such a besmirched state is related partly as being a function of being covered in that particular material, and partly because male members of her party discover her thus . . .

(Guaranteed Zombie-free)

Herbs and spices are usually well represented in their remains in sewage, such as poppy, mustard, mallow, linseed, coriander, caraway, dill and fennel. Somewhat surprisingly some herbs, grown for their leaves like savory and parsley, are represented by their seeds, perhaps from herbs gathered in autumn and dried. Exotic imports from the tropics have taken place at least since Classical times, according to documentary sourdces, but the biological evidence of this, in the form of peppercords found in pits at Tauton and by Mark Robinson from the privy of the Provost of Oriel College, Oxford are post-medieval in date, perhaps a sign of a high class diet. Some of the most interesting plant remains are only present in sewage in very small numbers, so large samples need to be examined before they have much chance of being found.
Drink also seems likely to leave identifiable traces, such as remains of plants used in brewing like hops and bog myrtle. . . Some plants whose flowers were consumed, like borage and mallow, are also detectable by pollen analysis." p. 50-51

- James Greig, "Garderobes, Sewers, Cesspits and Latrines," Current Archaeology 8:2, 49-52.