It is said that you are the king, and as a fashion vane in the 17th century, Louis XIV stinks. “How many baths did Louis XIV take in his life?” Throughout the history of bathing in Europe, it turns out that both Greeks and Romans are keen on bathing. After the spread of Christianity, bathing is considered as a hedonic act that corrupts the soul. In the 15th and 17th centuries, the mixed bathing of men and women in public bathhouses brought moral degradation, and the plague spread through bathing, so bathhouses were condemned and closed, and private bathhouses were excluded for fear of disease, and the rules of cleanliness changed. The history of daily life, such as bathing, seems trivial, but it is actually a glimpse of the social attributes of the body and the evolution of the times and cultural concepts.
Since the 1970s and 1980s, the rise of the study on the history of daily life has made the history of eating, dressing, bathing and going to the toilet a topic of common interest for professional historians and the public. For example, as the most prominent monarch in 17th century Europe, did Louis XIV like to take a bath? How many times did he take a bath in his life? Professional historians and history lovers have been entangled and arguing repeatedly. The study of daily life history is trivial and subtle, and every detail of food, clothing, housing and transportation seems unremarkable, but it also reflects the characteristics of the times and the evolution of cultural concepts
According to people’s accounts and existing research, the health concept prevailing in France in the 16th and 17th centuries was indeed hostile to bathing, and the use of the bathtub specially built for Louis XIV in Versailles was indeed limited. Then, by today’s standards, can we regard the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as an unhygienic and filthy era? This view is obviously somewhat arbitrary. The so-called “cleanliness” in modern health concept is a concept from the outside to the inside, not only the appearance should be neat, but also the body itself should maintain good hygiene habits, but this concept is far from the concept of cleanliness in Louis XIV’s era. As anthropologist Dame Marry Douglas said in Cleanliness and Danger, “Our concept of dirt includes two aspects: paying attention to hygiene and respecting tradition. Of course, with the change of our knowledge, the rules of hygiene will also change. “
The cleanliness mentioned here is related to the body itself, both mentally and materially. In the framework of post-modern historiography, the body is often tied to politics and power. Foucault’s “life politics” theory focuses on the governance skills of population factors such as life, health, sanitation, longevity and birth rate, so as to reveal the rational framework of liberal governance since the 18th century. He regards the body more as “the object and goal of power”. George Garello, who is famous for his research on body history, tries to reveal the social attributes of the body. In his view, the history of the body is also a social history. The cleanliness of the body, whether it is concerned with the body itself or the external wear and tear of the body, that is, the external materiality, is first defined by the social field. “All external appearances impose restrictions on the body, outline the appearance and outline of the body, and reveal its internal mechanism.”
When it comes to cleanliness, people naturally think of providing clean water and taking a bath. In Greek and Roman times, bathing was an important part of daily life. Especially for the Romans, bathing is a way of life, a daily entertainment and pastime, and public baths are indispensable social places. Stop and look up at broken walls in Bath, caracalla, outside Rome, which is enough to make travelers marvel at the enthusiasm and persistence of the Romans for bathing.
At that time, Pharisees and some lawyers came to Jesus from Jerusalem.
They saw that some disciples of Jesus didn’t wash their hands before eating.
(It turns out that both Pharisees and Jews abide by the tradition of the ancients, and they don’t eat unless they wash their hands; From the market, don’t eat it without cleaning it first; They also obey many other rules: washing cups, kettles, boiling kettles, dining tables and so on.
The Pharisees and lawyers asked him, “Why don’t your disciples eat with unclean hands according to the tradition of the ancients?”
Jesus said, “Isaiah’s prophecy about you hypocrites is good, just as the scripture says,’ This people respect me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They teach people that they are told the truth, so it is useless to worship me.
In the view of Jesus and his disciples, morally guilty people cannot be purified by physical bathing, and repentance is the way to atone.
Anthropologists have long pointed out that the definitions of holiness and filth in religion do not necessarily correspond to secular cleanliness and filth, and cleanliness in rituals is a symbolic expression. What seems filthy in the secular concept is often regarded as sacred in religious ceremonies. Ritual purification and body cleaning are different in themselves. Although the relationship between belief and body is extremely complicated, Christianity’s emphasis on soul and indifference to body are likely to affect the concern about body cleanliness. Since the third century, there has been obvious opposition to being bathed in Christian thought. Bathing is regarded as a kind of hedonic behavior, which will arouse people’s desires and be harmful to the soul. In the fourth and fifth centuries, filth was even endowed with the sanctity of Christianity. The famous Santapaola (about 347-404) was the director of a convent near Bethlehem Abbey. She once warned her nun: “A clean body and clean clothes mean an unclean soul!” ” Some monasteries allow monks to take a cold bath every Saturday as a sign of repentance, and only those who are sick or old are allowed to take a hot bath.
The interruption of urban water supply system made most public bathrooms in western Europe abandoned in the early Middle Ages. However, in the Iberian peninsula ruled by the Moors, the bathing tradition began to revive in the eighth century. This can be traced back to the Arabian Nights in the 10th century or even earlier. There are countless bathing scenes, and there are several stories directly related to the bathhouse, such as the story of the dyer and the barber. Cleaning the body is undoubtedly one of the most important rituals for Muslims. When Christians occupied Cordoba in 1236, the city had more than 300 public and private bathrooms. Therefore, for a long time in the Middle Ages, Christians in Iberian Peninsula associated bathing with the heresy of Moors, and regarded the dirty body as a symbol of Christians.
It was during the Crusade that Hamam, known as the “Hamam”, was introduced to Europe, and the Europeans in the Middle Ages really returned to the bathroom and enjoyed bathing. Harman was actually influenced by the early Byzantine bathing culture that continued from Rome. Bathrooms or hot springs abandoned in Roman times were renovated, and some were changed into bathrooms with steam baths. By the 13th and 14th centuries, public bathrooms had been built in some big European cities. In 1292, 26 taxpayers running bathhouses were registered in the Paris tax book, and shopkeepers also set up a bathhouse trade association to supervise the operation, pricing and safety of public bathhouses together with Paris municipal officials. The public bathrooms in Toulouse are concentrated on the Tunibridge Road on the Garonne River today, which was called “Dalbad Bathhouse Road” in the 13th century. There were at least 18 public bathhouses in 14th century London. Public bathrooms are particularly popular in Germany. Before the Crusade, steam baths were introduced into Germany through the north. In addition, private bathrooms were common in the Middle Ages. Archaeological findings have confirmed that medieval bishops, nobles and even wealthy businessmen built gorgeous bathrooms in their palaces. In the 13th century, Alday Blondin, a doctor in Siena, Italy, pointed out in his medical treatise that both warm water bath and cold water bath are beneficial to health, especially hot water bath “helps to expel the filth hidden in human body by nature”.
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However, since the 16th century, public bathhouses in cities have gradually disappeared, and private bathing behavior in families has also decreased. Francois ordered the closure of French bathhouses in 1538; In 1566, the third level meeting in Orleans called for the closure of all music and entertainment venues in France, including bathhouses. Bathhouses in Dijon, Beauvais, Anjou and Sans were basically closed in the second half of the 16th century. By 1692, some public bathhouses were reserved in Paris, most of which were used for recuperation.
One of the reasons for the disappearance of public bathhouses is that bathhouses play the role of destroyers of social order and ethics. The phenomenon of mixed bathing between men and women was very common in medieval bathhouses. Coupled with prostitution and deception, bathhouses are often regarded as places of corruption and crime by moralists. In the sermon of the 15th century, bathhouses were juxtaposed with brothels and pubs, and became the object of criticism. In view of this, some cities explicitly prohibit mixed bathing of men and women in public bathhouses and stagger the opening hours. In addition, the bathhouse is a public place where people gather, which is prone to conflicts or riots, making the bathhouse a place that disturbs social order and affects social security. A famous example is that Jehannotte Saignant, the female boss of Dijon City, was sentenced to drowning in 1466 for running a bathhouse on suspicion of poisoning, organizing prostitution and disturbing public order in the city. The emphasis on moral concepts and urban public order, coupled with the fear of crime and sexually transmitted diseases, especially the spread of syphilis in Europe in the 16th century, made public bathrooms increasingly restricted or even banned by the royal family and municipal administrators.
The more important reason for the disappearance of public bathhouses is related to the fear that “contact” may spread diseases during the plague period. After the massive Black Death in the 14th century, the plague epidemic in Europe almost never stopped. According to the statistics of French historian Joel Koster, from the late Middle Ages to 1536, there was a local intermittent plague outbreak every eleven years on average, which generally lasted for one to five years. After 1536, it appeared once every fifteen years on average. Especially in big cities like Paris and Lyon, the plague was almost continuous from the 15th century to the 17th century. The plague in Paris in 1562 claimed as many as 25,000 lives. Lyon, as the traffic artery between the north and the south of France, suffered at least 13 plagues during the 100 years from 1544 to 1643. According to the French Courier in 1631, the death toll of plague in Lyon in 1628 was as high as 60,000 from August to December alone.
When a plague breaks out, contact is often regarded as the primary threat. In order to cut off the chain of plague transmission, prohibiting people in epidemic areas from contacting with the outside world naturally becomes the main means of prevention and control. At the same time, various social health restrictions will be issued in cities where plagues occur to limit the contact between people; There will also be “suggestions” on personal hygiene, such as canceling all social activities and reducing behaviors that may expose the body to the air. For the same reason, schools, churches, bathhouses and bathrooms will be closed. As early as 1348, when the Black Death spread to northern France, King Philip VI of France ordered the Medical College of Paris University to investigate the source of the plague. According to the strategy submitted by the medical college, due to the operation of astrology, toxic steam with bad smell emitted from the surface and water will pollute the air and enter the human body through breathing, making people sick; It is also mentioned that a hot bath can relax people, and toxic gases are more likely to invade. These views have far-reaching influence throughout Europe.
The explanation of plague and disease also involves medical knowledge at that time. Before the birth of modern medicine, the ancient Greek medical theory represented by Hippocrates and Galen was regarded as a classic in western medical theory and practice since the Middle Ages, and it was a compulsory course for medical students. According to the theory of body fluids advocated by Galen, the human body contains four kinds of body fluids: blood, mucus, yellow bile and black bile. The health of the body depends on the balance of these four body fluids. In Galen’s view, the plague originated from the air disorder in both nature and human body. If the air is polluted by stench, those who lead to imbalance of body fluids in uncontrolled life are more likely to be infected by harmful air and get sick. Generally, bathing is considered to destroy the balance of body fluids and make people sick.
Since the 15th century, whenever a plague broke out, doctors condemned bathhouses and bathrooms, while officials forced them to close. This is based on the logic of isolating and blocking contact, but this concept may directly touch and in turn affect people’s imagination of body function. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, bathing was increasingly regarded as a bad behavior that might make people weak and disease invade. Humbois Paré, a famous surgeon of the Wang family, warned: “You should avoid going to the bathhouse or bathroom, because when people come out of it, their muscles and bodies are soft and their pores are open. The steam polluted by plague will quickly invade people’s bodies and even cause sudden death. “Around the plague and epidemic, make similar ideas and taboos to promote. In the 17th century, a book called “Bref Discours de la Conservation et Cure de la Peste” wrote that warming the body “is like opening a door and letting toxic air invade the human body immediately”.
With the deepening of people’s understanding of plague and disease, the fear of water has become more and more common, which has led to the rejection of private bathing in families. Some people even think that the best way to resist the plague is to cover the pores with dirty things instead of taking a bath to avoid the invasion of harmful gases. What we see here is a deeper biological imagination of the body. What is hidden in similar concepts is no longer the close contact between people, but the harm or even fatal danger caused by the contact and infiltration between human body and harmful substances behind the principle of pore relaxation.
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In view of the great risk of taking a bath, a new way to keep clean-“toilet sèche” has gradually become a trend since the 16th century. The so-called dry cleaning is to wipe your face and hands with a towel without direct contact with water. The main way to clean the body is to “wipe”, as long as the exposed part of the body looks clean. From this point of view, it seems right to say that people in the Louis XIV era did not take a bath and did not like cleanliness. However, as Veigar Mayor deliberately emphasized, the disappearance of bathing behavior does not mean the degradation of health concept. This change does not mean that people don’t like cleaning, but the standard of cleaning has changed.
In fact, the plague affected people’s imagination of body function and fear of water in a tortuous way, and derived a new concept of cleanliness, which penetrated into people’s daily life and health habits. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the so-called “clean” means “it looks clean, but it doesn’t smell so bad”, that is, it looks clean. Therefore, the most direct manifestation of cleanliness is not whether the body hair itself is clean, but whether the clothes worn on the body are neat and clean. Underwear, which is between human body and coat and close to skin, has become the object of people’s attention. Underwear here mainly refers to white shirts. In the eyes of people at that time, “a white shirt can purify the body, remove the dirt on its surface, and facilitate the discharge of secretions and grease in the body and attach to the white shirt.” Therefore, changing underwear is to clean the body. Underwear can reflect whether a person pays attention to health, and the frequency of changing underwear becomes a new standard of cleanliness. This change was clearly reflected in the records of clothes in the list of property after death in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the early 16th century, aristocratic families did not spend much on shirts.