At Versailles the clothing women wore to social events at the palace
was so complex that during a ball there were servants with chamber
pots covered with towels, who would pass through the ballroom, catch
a signal from a lady, and thrust the chamber pot up under their gown
so they could urinate. There are accounts of this happening while the
lady in question continued to participate in an ongoing conversation.
-- Stephan
On 16 May 2008, at 23:44, Lyle E. Browning wrote:
> On May 16, 2008, at 10:44 PM, Elizabeth Whitaker wrote:
>
>> Even at the highest ranks of European society, personal
>> cleanliness as we define it was somewhat lacking. For instance,
>> the royal palace at Versailles had no ...ah... restrooms as such.
>> There must have been chamberpots in the bedrooms, but the hordes
>> of nobles, servants, etc. at the palace couldn't and didn't spend
>> all their time in and near their sleeping places.
> Queen Elizabeth I was reckoned in her time a clean freak because
> she bathed 2x/year.
>
> Versailles has, from the tour I had and from other folks who had
> the tour in different years, a remarkable oral history to be
> related. There were no restrooms as that concept was a couple of
> hundred years in the future. What they did have was chamberpots,
> which were placed behind doors that were open, creating a small
> triangular space. That was where all did their business and it was
> judged quite normal. So, apparently there was a protocol for
> determining if the space was occupied or not. Probably not on the
> order of "Yo, Louis, you back there" but something a bit more
> refined. A chamber pot with the lid on is not exactly an airtight
> container so the combined pong at the end of the day must have been
> amazing. No wonder perfume was invented by those worthies. And no
> wonder the handkerchief was the first gas mask, doused in perfume
> and held close to mask said pong.
>
> As an oral history, this one would at least be verifiable. If the
> original floorboards, skirting boards, or frames are still in
> place, then testing for uric acid would find spatter patterns
> merging into one pungent disk of material.
>
> That was done on soil samples for a tavern for which, if memory
> serves, had been reduced to rubble in a plowed field. Soil tests
> showed high concentrations of phosphates at the front corners of
> the buildings, corresponding to recorded practice of gents
> relieving themselves around the corners on the walls. The modern
> concept of privacy while performing natural functions is definitely
> not the historic mode. In the medieval period, it was apparently
> considered perfectly normal for gents to turn to a wall along a
> busy street, or at least there are illustrations of the top 2%
> doing that (of course those folks are aberrations anyway so who
> knows;)
>>
>>
>> I'm a member of that age cohort who hit the teen years in the
>> early '70s. I remember how odd our parents thought we were for
>> washing our hair _every_ day! "Older ladies," for instance,
>> usually had their hair washed and set once a week at the local
>> "beauty parlor."
> I got the same thing in Britain in the 70's because I took a daily
> bath. The Brits thought that was odd. They also did not wear
> deodorant, nor did about half the ladies shave their armpits, nor
> did they shave their legs. Now all that is commonplace (daily
> baths, deodorants and shaved pits and legs). Most of the time, one
> simply did not notice anyway as only a few folks were decidedly off
> in their personal hygiene. We did have kids who'd grown up so poor
> that they were allowed baths once a fortnight (2 weeks) due to the
> cost of heating water and who did laundry once a month. Those we
> set straight as to what was expected, but politely. Personal habits
> in group dynamics were an interesting conflict to watch and to have
> to deal with.
>
> Lyle Browning, RPA
>
>
>>
>>
>> Elizabeth Whitaker
>>
>> Melinda Skinner wrote:
>>>> From my readings and research about colonial Virginia and 16th
>>>> and 17th-century England,
>>> most people were pretty filthy and smelly. I would think that
>>> any household slaves/servants
>>> would be about as clean as their employers/masters.
>>> --
>>> Melinda C. P. Skinner
>>> Richmond, VA
>>
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