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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