this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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I hate that trend, but the reverse is sometimes even more infuriating. No, medieval peasants didn't look like dirty, sickness ridden pigs covered in mud and horseshit!
They looked lile normal people without makeup. If they got dirt on their skin, they cleaned it up and despite not taking baths and showers all the time most people had a daily cleaning routine where they would comb their hair, clean themselves with cold water and a cloth and just generally take care of themselves. Rotten teeth did exist, but unless removed, they would often lead to death. So people did their best to avoid having them.
Bruh, the Norse are condemned by English chroniclers for having the lewdness and vanity to comb their hair regularly and bathe once a week; something which was regarded as making them appealing even to noblewomen.
Much of Medieval Europe was in a pretty degraded state.
Yeah, they overcorrected from "all historic people were gorgeous and healthy unless the opposite serves the story" all the way to "even the huddled masses were fastidious about personal hygiene before the very concept was widely known" 😄
Again difference between "cleaning" and "bathing" and the difference in the combing is that the norseMEN were combing their hair. Combing is absolutely unnecessary when you have short hair and no beard, which was the style for most central European peasants, but not the style of the norsemen. So yes, peasant women did absolutely conb their long hair, peasant men not so much. Which was the perfect source for idiotic bias that chroniclers needed to condemn the invading norsemen.
Chroniclers writings cannot be taken at face value entirely. Not saying it's entirely false, however it cannot be taken as generalization of medieval culture.
Also people outside of certain trades werent exposed to a myriad of toxic chemicals.
People forget that often. Sometimes I wash my hands not because of microbes, but because even my own cells wouldn’t survive what’s on them.