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#Post#: 15365--------------------------------------------------
Re: Friendly WARNING!
By: NealC Date: May 11, 2019, 5:40 am
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How did we get from eating Marmot kidneys to discussing German
bath houses in the Middle Ages?
God Bless EGP!
#Post#: 15372--------------------------------------------------
Re: Friendly WARNING!
By: Alharacas Date: May 11, 2019, 8:09 am
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[quote author=NealC link=topic=1033.msg15365#msg15365
date=1557571244]
How did we get from eating Marmot kidneys to discussing German
bath houses in the Middle Ages?
God Bless EGP!
[/quote]
Well, in this case I'd say we actually kept to the topic, since
the OP was about the Bubonic Plague, but I agree with the
sentiment. :D
[quote author=NealC link=topic=1033.msg15364#msg15364
date=1557571155]
You have what we can call "The Black Death", which is definitely
an event around 1347. Various epidemics, including plague,
occurred at various times thereafter - that could be the dates
in the article.
Just to give an arbitrary date, the end of the Middle Ages and
beginning of the Renaissance is 1453. The Fall of
Constantinople that year brought a ton of knowledge in the
refugees that fled into the rest of Europe, continuing the
"lighting of the lamp" that started in the Crusades.
I like the street evidence, that is really interesting. While
you have a city called "Bath" in England that was a place to
take the waters - mineral springs. I don't think the rest of
Europe were as clean as Germany then. The English thought it
was things like baths that made you sick and they marveled at
American Indians who actually SWAM. South American Indians
remarked on the stench of the Conquistadors. True they were
soldiers, not society but still. And France. Better left
unsaid.
I wonder if the German bath houses were a reaction to the Black
Death, or if they came back with the Crusaders a century or two
earlier.
[/quote]
Mm, depending on who you're talking to, they'll tell you that
the Renaissance is about art history, not, er, history-history.
That would mean you'd go from the (late) Middle Ages right into
the modern age.
Goody, I've found another article, according to which
Charlemagne did not only frequently take a bath, he was also a
strong swimmer. However, according to an ambassador of Kalif
Al-Hakam in 973, there was not much emphasis on personal hygiene
in Central Europe at the time: "You won't see anything as dirty
as them! They only wash and clean themselves once or twice a
year, in cold water. Their clothes, however, they will not take
off, once they've put them on, until they fall apart."
Bits of the rest of the article on bathing:
"Since most of the Iberian peninsula was conquered by the Moors
in the 8th century, the Islamic bathing culture spread there.
[....] In the Christian countries, on the other hand, the
teachings of asceticism, which rejected bathing as softening and
and a luxury, became increasingly important. Non-bathing was
elevated to the rank of a virtue as important as fasting. The
influential Church Father Augustinus said that one bath a month
was just compatible with the Christian faith. For monks, it
would be best to get into the tub before Easter and Christmas
only.
In Central Europe, public baths were built in the aftermath of
the Crusades in the High Middle Ages [...]."
Building public baths became a trend again in the 19th century,
so personal hygiene had intermittently gone out of fashion in
Central Europe as well, and for the same reasons bathing was
considered unhealthy in England: water was supposed to enter
through the pores of the skin, diluting bodily fluids and
weakening the body.
I don't really think swimming's got that much to do with the
custom of peacefully sitting in a tub of hot water, do you?
Going really off topic now - thanks for making me look up the
history of swimming! Do have a look at the contraption used for
learning swimming movements on dry land, it's brilliant:
HTML https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwimmen#Geschichte_des_Schwimmens
Apparently, learning how to swim became obligatory in the
military schools of the German Reich in 1810 - who'd have
thought it?
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