The Dirt on Clean - Katherine Ashenburg [31]
Emperor Wenzel (1378–1419) had the margins of his German translation of the Bible decorated with pictures of himself being bathed and his hair washed by comely bath attendants wearing transparent white dresses.
The popularity of public bathing inspired private baths for the prosperous. In earlier times, a guest who had made the arduous journey to a mansion or castle would be greeted with the customary offer of water for washing hands, face and feet. In the later Middle Ages, that hospitable custom extended to a full bath. The grandest of residences, such as the pope’s at Avignon or that of the dukes of Brittany at Suscinio, might have a two-room bathing suite, heated by a hypocaust under the floor or in the wall. One room served as a steam bath, the other held a tub or tubs. Very occasionally, a private residence would be outfitted with a system of pumps and pipes that transported water from a distance. But most private baths depended on servants to carry the water from well or river, as well as to heat it, fill and empty the tub and carry away the waste water. For that reason, the room with a two- or four-seater tub would often be just off the kitchen.
A Swiss bailiff’s leisurely soak in a private tub is interrupted by an angry, uninvited guest—the husband of one of the women. From the Schweizer Chronik of 1586.
Around 1430, John Russell, who worked as steward to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, wrote his Boke of Nurture. Designed as a manual and etiquette book for pages and servants, it provides instructions about everything from touching food (only with the left hand) to picking the nose (do not). For the servant who attends his master in his bedroom, Russell’s advice is detailed. In the morning he must comb his lord’s hair with an ivory comb and provide warm water for him to wash his hands and face. The section titled “A bathe or stewe so called” gives step-by-step instructions for those times when the master wishes “his body to wasche clene.” The servant must enclose the tub by hanging sheets impregnated with sweet herbs and flowers from the ceiling, and bring sponges for the bather to lean or sit on in the bath, as well as a sheet to cover him while in the tub. Using a basinful of hot, fresh herbs, he washes his master with a soft sponge, then rinses him with warm rose-water. Finally, he wipes him dry and takes him to his bed, “his bales there to bete” (to cure his troubles). Although there is no mention of soap (which was used to wash clothing but rarely bodies in fifteenth-century England), this is a washing bath, as distinguished from a medicinal bath. When the latter is called for, the servant boils together what sounds like a vast herbal tea from hollyhock, mallow, veronica, scabious, heyriff, bresewort, wildflax and other herbs. The master sits in the resulting infusion, and Russell promises, “Let him bear it as hot as he can, and whatever disease he has will certainly be cured.”
A fifteenth-century French miniature of a woman bathing outside while her husband bids her farewell. An embrace from a fully armoured knight looks uncomfortable, but no one seems embarrassed by the bather’s nudity.
THE FOURTEENTH-CENTURY CALL OF THE BATH MAN
Calling you to bathe, Messire, And steam yourself without delay. Our water’s hot and that’s no lie.
Even more than in the public baths, nudity among family and friends enjoyed a measure of toleration in the private bath. A story from late medieval Germany underlines this idea. When a servant arrived at a castle one autumn day with a message for the lord, he was told, “Go into the bath chamber, he is inside; the chamber