Nothing escapes the changes that make up history. Even so basic an activity as bathing has ebbed and flowed with the whims of time, interweaving as it does with religion, magic, cleanliness, sensuality, socializing, relaxation, and healing.
It all began with people living close to lakes and rivers and occasionally taking a dip. In ancient Egypt, this was done mostly for ritualistic purposes. Then Crete, as far back as 1700 B.C. and the starting point for European civilization, made giant strides in bathing, providing modern-style plumbing, drainage, and even hot water. This opened the way for bathing on a grand scale, which the ancient Greeks employed in their gymnasia. Men pumped iron, then plunged into pools of varying temperatures. The Romans stole the notion from the Greeks and brought public baths--and bathing--to their apotheosis, combining plumbing with luxury to the point of decadence.
Stadium-size bath houses were heavily marbled, gold leafed, and heated. Here, in separate chambers, men and women laid about for four to five hours gossiping, eating, drinking, and allowing themselves to be oiled down and massaged by slaves. Occasionally, they climbed into a pool and out again. The emphasis was on culture, not sex or hygiene. Some women bathed in crushed raspberries. Nero's wife preferred asses' milk. When the empire fell, the barbarians threw out bathing with the bath water, and Europe plunged into the dark--and dirty--Middle Ages.
From this point until the 1800s, water had to be carried in buckets to the tub, then drained back out again, for whatever infrequent bathing was done. Monasteries remained the major repositories of bathing, preserving this practice along with other, gentler pursuits. The water was cold, and bathing was probably done as much to quell passions as to conquer "ring around the collar." Nevertheless, this is no doubt a key reason why so many of the clergy were spared the Black Death in 1349.
Some of the more outrageous examples of non-bathing took place during this time. King John of England was said to have bathed at least once every three weeks, a lot for royalty then. Queen Isabella of Castile claimed she only had two baths in her life, when she was born and when she got married. St. Agnes died at the age of 13 without ever having bathed. A sixteenth century axiom warned: Wash your hands often, your feet seldom, your head never. With the invention of forks, hands stopped being washed, too.
When bathing was done, there was no thought of privacy, and some even had their portraits painted while soaking. Civil wars and epidemics frightened people even further away from facing a bath.
Came the 1700s, supposedly the Age of Reason, and it was decided that bathing was good for the health but should be done only on a doctor's prescription. Nakedness was held a sin. People went around wearing laces and linens, covering up with powder, makeup, perfumes, and wigs. Sweat being considered an aphrodisiac then, no doubt there was not the same repugnance to the appalling body odors that a twentieth-century person would have felt on meeting those elegant but underwashed folk.
At the same time, luxury spas broke out for the elite and centered on medicinal mineral springs bubbling out of the ground. Some sly
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