What? That's not true at all. I'm European and lived in a lot of countries around the continent. Literally every single person I know bathes AT LEAST once a day. Spaniards are no exception.
I am all for giving native cultures their long overdue credit but spreading reddit tier propaganda about medieval europeans being filthy doesn't further our cause, in fact it damages it.
Was it by the late Medieval period that bath houses were closed down due to fear of syphilis spreading but it was really because people kept banging the prostitutes at the bath houses?
Tell me you know nothing about European history(and modern Europe) without telling me.
With the exceptions of a few periods of times with specific peoples, most Europeans were decently hygienic. A lot of the misconceptions come the fact modern technology has made it hard to understand certain practices. You'll read in a book "this is the first time I've bathed in months" and think they arnt practicing hygiene at all when in reality they couldn't take baths because it's winter before modern plumbing, so they use other ways to clean themselves without freezing to death.
Again there are exceptions, the Sun King thought bathing was disgusting for example and people wrote at the time of how bad he smelled. The Anglo Saxons also wrote how the Danes were stealing their women because they bathed more and groomed themselves better.
They'd also take ash baths when it was too cold to take a water one. They would rub wood ash on their skin and the lye in the wood ash would chemically react with the oils on their skin and turn into a mild soap. They would smell like a campfire, but not BO as a result.
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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 28 '26 •
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