Throughout history, urine has played a surprisingly versatile role in cleaning practices. Due to its high pH level and ammonia content, this bodily fluid has been used as a cleaning agent since ancient Rome. In fact, the affluent aristocracy went so far as to employ urine as a facial exfoliator, directly applying it to their skin. It was considered comparable to lye, an alkaline substance for general cleaning purposes.
Even wound cleaning involved the use of urine. However, its most common application was in the realm of laundry, where it served as a spotter to effectively eliminate stains. Medieval laundry soap often featured ingredients such as ash, lye, green grapes, and urine.
Taking a Bath in the Middle Ages
Some monks were only allowed one bath per year, while kings bathed often in personal tubs filled with hot water and aromas of flowers and fresh herbs like chamomile, mallow or brown fellow. The common peasant would have loved such luxury, but they were relegated to public bathhouses that some church leaders prohibited, thinking group nakedness leads to illicit sex. They had a point; some bathhouses were mere fronts for brothels. But Medieval bathhouses were popular, some offering a meal with a warm wash.
People liked to bathe at least once a week. After the Black Death, bathhouses went into decline. Erasmus explained in 1526, “Twenty-five years ago, nothing was more fashionable in Brabant than the public baths. Today there are none, the new plague has taught us to avoid them.”
Medieval Surgery Was Often Fatal
Hospitals in the Dark Ages were reserved for the sick or dying. More like hospice care than modern hospitals, the blind, the desperate, and those with spiritual needs stayed in hospitals. If surgery was required, people went under the knife at the barbershop, where a barber (or a butcher!) would try to allay ailments like ulcers, kidney stones, and eye cataracts.
As an interesting tidbit, the signature striped poles outside of barbershops represent the color of blood and the white of bandages characteristic of medieval surgery. Again, anesthetics were not used, and instruments were not sterilized. Unsterilized tools would cause fatal infections.
Shaving Was Not a Thing in the Middle Ages
Short of mirrors and razors, most peasants did not shave. Some were shaved once a week at the barber, although that wasn’t free, and peasants lived in poverty. Besides, beards were trending in the Middle Ages. A full face, of course, hair was a sign of virility. Shaving was very inconvenient. Mirrors were made of polished metal or blackened glass, which was not conducive to shaving. Maybe that’s one of the reasons monks would shave each other.
Modernity challenges everything. Now that beards are back in vogue, a 2016 study found that clean-shaven men are three times more likely to be harboring the harmful bacteria methicillin-resistant staph aureus on their cheeks than bearded men. It even suggests new penicillin might be made from beard bacteria!
Most Medieval Europeans Slept in Squalor
Those of the wealthy aristocracy owned splendid beds with protective canopies stuffed with feathers and covered with fine linens. Landowners also slept in clean peace. Peasants knew no such indulgence. Recall the flooring made of straw and infested by pests. The bedding was also made of straw, piled up into a mattress, which was sometimes woven tightly into a bed. Not all beds lay flat. Medieval commoners often slept on a sloping bed, like a recliner.
It sounds comfy enough at first glance, but the mattress—which was only changed and replaced yearly—was teeming with fleas, lice, and bed bugs. Fur covers, and feather bedding, while warm, also attracted parasitic pests like fleas.