THE (not so) STINKY MIDDLE AGES

In the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), two minor characters spot King Arthur. They know who he is because, as one of them points out: “He must be a king… he hasn’t got shit all over him.” The scene encapsulates an enduring belief about the Middle Ages: medieval people, and especially medieval peasants, were dirty and smelly.

This impression is bolstered by examples of real medieval people who rarely washed, such as Queen Isabella of Castile. She supposedly boasted that she had bathed only twice in her life: on the day she was born, and on the day she married Ferdinand of Aragon. And it is undoubtedly true that, like everyone who lived before domestic plumbing and electricity became the norm, medieval people would have struggled to abide by modern standards of hygiene, even if they had wanted to. Nevertheless, we should not assume that pre-modern people were indifferent to personal hygiene, because we know that many people – including Isabella’s own daughter – made significant efforts to keep clean. Juana of Castile bathed and washed her hair so often that her husband feared she would make herself ill.

Archduke Philip’s concerns for his wife were