Exposed: Until Recently Europeans Bathed only Once a Year

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Through great periods of European and much of U.S. history cleanliness was considered inconvenient, religiously restricted, or even out of fashion. Research shows that Europeans and European Americans lived in wretched filth for much of their history, and many died young from associated diseases. Living unwashed was a normal part of the daily lives of European saints, the masses, and even monarchs. Ashenburg (2007) gives a detailed look at the hygienic practices of Medieval and Renaissance Europeans. She describes European nobles of the 16th century who considered face washing so unusual that they documented it in letters.

Soap, which was a common household item in the Islamic world, took centuries to catch on in Europe, as frequent bathing was considered unhealthy (Mihm, 1999; Stuller, 1991). As late as the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I was considered unusual for her ''frequent'' -- that is, monthly -- baths. While King James I is said to have only washed his fingers! One head of a convent in the fourth century is reported to have warned her nuns that “a clean body and a clean dress meant an unclean soul” (Ashenburg, 2007). There are also records that "St. Agnes was never washed throughout her lifetime....and a fourth century pilgrim boasted that she had not washed her face for eighteen years so as not to disturb the holy water used at her baptism" (McLaughlin, 1971 p. 11).

Indeed, during the Spanish Inquisition, Spanish confessors would often not absolve those who washed regularly. They believed they were on the right track if an accused person was known to bathe (Ashenburg, 2007). It was not until the late 1900s that frequent bathing became widely practiced by Europeans. Europeans in the middle Ages up until that time believed that bathing was an indulgence, an invitation to illness, or even a sin (Ashenburg, 2007; McLaughlin, 1971; Mihm, 1999; Karlen, 1995; Stuller, 1991)!

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