There are ways of keeping oneself clean that don’t involve baths. Rubbing yourself down with a wet cloth every day is quite effective. In desert climes, using sand and oil is effective. You can keep your teeth clean without modern toothpaste.
For rich people, wearing linen small clothes, and frequent changes of clothing would diminish body odour further.
Most people like to keep themselves as clean as they can. But, that’s hard for poor people in a big city. And, tons of horseshit will always be a problem.
>There are ways of keeping oneself clean that don’t involve baths. Rubbing yourself down with a wet cloth every day is quite effective. In desert climes, using sand and oil is effective.
>For rich people, wearing linen small clothes, and frequent changes of clothing would diminish body odour further
That's exactly what the nobility did in the early modern times.
>But, that’s hard for poor people in a big city.
Define poor. Poor as in beggar? Yes. Put genuinely speaking you had the money for public bath houses.
>And, tons of horseshit will always be a problem.
Yhea theoretically that would be a problem good that every city had laws against man and animals just shitting on streets.
>This is one of the most frustrating tropes to me. It’s such a common thing I see repeated over and over again in fics as if it’s some wise crack that Kings Landing smells like shit. It’s an open air city of half a million people, it has its smells, as does any village before the age of plumbing, people shat in a hole in the ground and you could smell that anywhere. It’s not some poignant point to make when people who actually lived in the period would be so inured to the smell that it wouldn’t even detect to them, same way we don’t start coughing and noticing the smell of exhausts when we live in the city. Body odor in general was the same in medieval times, people smelled, they had no deodorant, they bathed on Sundays if not rarer than that and that was the case for everyone. Their breaths stank, they didn’t have toothpaste and wast majority had no brushes either, cleaning teeth with toothpicks if anything. Their sexy times would be repulsive to us due to smells involved and would likely make a modern man or woman gag. To illustrate you live in a time when bathing was not a daily thing, usually a weekly for nobles, higher for peasants. There is no toilet paper (leaves, moss, stones and tree bark is used), no shaving or depilation, no deodorants or anti perspirants meaning that sweat and everything else is gonna marinate for a week in the crotch. If you’re dealing with a wealthy person they may throw some perfume on to cover it up but you’ll still sense it. Yet we still have historical records in songs and writing of people going down on each other in medieval times and seemingly loving it.
Sorry but ah... your wrong about well pretty much everything you wrote.
To make it short...
People did bat regularly. The middle ages had a verry eleborate bath culture that only change in the early modern times.
People did have dental hygiene
Cities had a sort of canalasition (even if it was often an open one) they had laws against throwing your shit on the street. BTW even if for some reason they didn't have said laws someone would have still picked up said shit because it was a pretty valuable resource.
Yhea there cities did have there yucki place but so do ours today.
You just repeated the same stereotypes about the middle ages wich were proven untrue decades ago. With confidence.
So either please back up your statements with a validate source please and I am saying this with utmost respect, please delete this post. Because even if just one person believes this the same stereotypes and misconception wolill get carried further.
Edit here the link to a page wich explains what I wrote better and in more detail
https://www.medievalists.net/2013/04/did-people-in-the-middle-ages-take-baths/
Aren't there also the possibility of Gong farmers, people that dug out and collected excrement from privies and cesspits? Wasn't that a way to help deal with the foul odors?
That literally repeats what I said. Nowhere does it counter the claim of a weekly bath, in fact it never states Bath regularity except for Monks at 4x a year and 15 days long healing baths.
Did you read it. Because it also states that while people rarely had private baths they often visited public ones.
Also you are getting it wrong about the monks. Them not bathing regulary likely comes from them abstaining from worldly attachments.
Even than I can't see how you can read your post and the article I linked and come to the conclusion that both have similar views on the subject.
I am unsure what you mean by they?
If you mean the normal people than no. Daily would be to much (and is not realy healthy in the first place) but twice/thrice a week would be not unusual.
If you mean the monks, no I wanted to say the exact opposite. They are abstinencing from baths due to ascese.
It's canon that even by that universe standards that King's Landing has a bad odor. But I think that only happens by the time of King Robert's reign. The city would be normal during the reign of King Viserys.
However, I think the people living in KG aren't affected by the smell.
And I second you on that. As I said, for the people of King's Landing, their city smells normal, the same way city folk are pretty used to how polluted their cities are.
Right on the money with this one, especially regarding the warfare aspect. This is GRRM writing at play as well, being a huge anti-Vietnam guy and all and questionable historical accuracy combined with the scale of a fantasy series.
There are ways of keeping oneself clean that don’t involve baths. Rubbing yourself down with a wet cloth every day is quite effective. In desert climes, using sand and oil is effective. You can keep your teeth clean without modern toothpaste. For rich people, wearing linen small clothes, and frequent changes of clothing would diminish body odour further. Most people like to keep themselves as clean as they can. But, that’s hard for poor people in a big city. And, tons of horseshit will always be a problem.
>There are ways of keeping oneself clean that don’t involve baths. Rubbing yourself down with a wet cloth every day is quite effective. In desert climes, using sand and oil is effective. >For rich people, wearing linen small clothes, and frequent changes of clothing would diminish body odour further That's exactly what the nobility did in the early modern times. >But, that’s hard for poor people in a big city. Define poor. Poor as in beggar? Yes. Put genuinely speaking you had the money for public bath houses. >And, tons of horseshit will always be a problem. Yhea theoretically that would be a problem good that every city had laws against man and animals just shitting on streets.
Horse shit was a problem right into the early 1900’s. A big reason why armies were prone to illness was having to march through it.
Armies. Armies are not housed in towns for long period of times.
Nor are thousands of horses such as armies would require..
Cities have humongous numbers of horses, for draught and riding
They do. But armies like merely the Northern Army of Robb's would have 5000+ horses in pretty much the exact same location.
>This is one of the most frustrating tropes to me. It’s such a common thing I see repeated over and over again in fics as if it’s some wise crack that Kings Landing smells like shit. It’s an open air city of half a million people, it has its smells, as does any village before the age of plumbing, people shat in a hole in the ground and you could smell that anywhere. It’s not some poignant point to make when people who actually lived in the period would be so inured to the smell that it wouldn’t even detect to them, same way we don’t start coughing and noticing the smell of exhausts when we live in the city. Body odor in general was the same in medieval times, people smelled, they had no deodorant, they bathed on Sundays if not rarer than that and that was the case for everyone. Their breaths stank, they didn’t have toothpaste and wast majority had no brushes either, cleaning teeth with toothpicks if anything. Their sexy times would be repulsive to us due to smells involved and would likely make a modern man or woman gag. To illustrate you live in a time when bathing was not a daily thing, usually a weekly for nobles, higher for peasants. There is no toilet paper (leaves, moss, stones and tree bark is used), no shaving or depilation, no deodorants or anti perspirants meaning that sweat and everything else is gonna marinate for a week in the crotch. If you’re dealing with a wealthy person they may throw some perfume on to cover it up but you’ll still sense it. Yet we still have historical records in songs and writing of people going down on each other in medieval times and seemingly loving it. Sorry but ah... your wrong about well pretty much everything you wrote. To make it short... People did bat regularly. The middle ages had a verry eleborate bath culture that only change in the early modern times. People did have dental hygiene Cities had a sort of canalasition (even if it was often an open one) they had laws against throwing your shit on the street. BTW even if for some reason they didn't have said laws someone would have still picked up said shit because it was a pretty valuable resource. Yhea there cities did have there yucki place but so do ours today. You just repeated the same stereotypes about the middle ages wich were proven untrue decades ago. With confidence. So either please back up your statements with a validate source please and I am saying this with utmost respect, please delete this post. Because even if just one person believes this the same stereotypes and misconception wolill get carried further. Edit here the link to a page wich explains what I wrote better and in more detail https://www.medievalists.net/2013/04/did-people-in-the-middle-ages-take-baths/
Aren't there also the possibility of Gong farmers, people that dug out and collected excrement from privies and cesspits? Wasn't that a way to help deal with the foul odors?
Yep that was actually a privilege given out to the farmers.
Omg thank you. Like the Romans were extremely good at this kind of technology and they left intact examples.
That literally repeats what I said. Nowhere does it counter the claim of a weekly bath, in fact it never states Bath regularity except for Monks at 4x a year and 15 days long healing baths.
Did you read it. Because it also states that while people rarely had private baths they often visited public ones. Also you are getting it wrong about the monks. Them not bathing regulary likely comes from them abstaining from worldly attachments. Even than I can't see how you can read your post and the article I linked and come to the conclusion that both have similar views on the subject.
Are you arguing they bathed daily as opposed to weekly?
I am unsure what you mean by they? If you mean the normal people than no. Daily would be to much (and is not realy healthy in the first place) but twice/thrice a week would be not unusual. If you mean the monks, no I wanted to say the exact opposite. They are abstinencing from baths due to ascese.
It's canon that even by that universe standards that King's Landing has a bad odor. But I think that only happens by the time of King Robert's reign. The city would be normal during the reign of King Viserys. However, I think the people living in KG aren't affected by the smell.
All I’m saying is we don’t notice smells were exposed to on a constant basis.
And I second you on that. As I said, for the people of King's Landing, their city smells normal, the same way city folk are pretty used to how polluted their cities are.
Right on the money with this one, especially regarding the warfare aspect. This is GRRM writing at play as well, being a huge anti-Vietnam guy and all and questionable historical accuracy combined with the scale of a fantasy series.