Quick question on the dark age

[Samuel]

What about the plows they got that could brake up the thicker soil of Northern Europe? Didn't they invent them during the Dark Ages?

[Kanastrous]

- Every roman citizen bathed at least once a day.

This stood out to me because I have long been puzzled by the post-Roman distaste for bathing and hygiene for which (rightly or wrongly) Europeans seem famous.

Was this the work of the Church? Did Christians dispense with bathing because they associated it with the pagan aspects of Roman culture?

[Samuel]

- Every roman citizen bathed at least once a day.

This stood out to me because I have long been puzzled by the post-Roman distaste for bathing and hygiene for which (rightly or wrongly) Europeans seem famous.

Was this the work of the Church? Did Christians dispense with bathing because they associated it with the pagan aspects of Roman culture?

I think one of the major reasons was how hard it was to warm up water and the danger of sickness from bathing. I'm pretty sure the church contributed though.

[TheLegion]

- Every roman citizen bathed at least once a day.

This stood out to me because I have long been puzzled by the post-Roman distaste for bathing and hygiene for which (rightly or wrongly) Europeans seem famous.

Was this the work of the Church? Did Christians dispense with bathing because they associated it with the pagan aspects of Roman culture?

I think one of the major reasons was how hard it was to warm up water and the danger of sickness from bathing. I'm pretty sure the church contributed though.

It was thought that to disregard the body was the highest ideal, so average people would go without bathing for extended periods of time. That was the least on the scale of bodily denial, the other end being the kinds of things that happen in the Phillipines with people whipping themselves. The ascetic ideal is fueled by the belief that the body is evil and a source of sin, so the person must punish the body to clense it. It may seem bizzare to people today, but that is how it was in many Catholic and even pagan nations.

[Kanastrous]

It was thought that to disregard the body was the highest ideal, so average people would go without bathing for extended periods of time. That was the least on the scale of bodily denial, the other end being the kinds of things that happen in the Phillipines with people whipping themselves. The ascetic ideal is fueled by the belief that the body is evil and a source of sin, so the person must punish the body to clense it. It may seem bizzare to people today, but that is how it was in many Catholic and even pagan nations.

Whipping themselves? Heck, in the PI some people go in for full-on crucifixion. Talk about hardcore...

Hadn't realized that getting stinky was considered a form of mortification, but it seems to make sense.

[Tribble]

As another example, the Romans had the theoretical knowledge required for steam power in the 1st century AD and invented devices which used it (the Aeolipile being one example). However for various reasons it was never really developed, and the knowledge was lost completely after the Empire fell.

Think about it: Roman's knew how to use steam to produce work. We didn't regain that knowledge until what, the 18th century?

[Samuel]

As another example, the Romans had the theoretical knowledge required for steam power in the 1st century AD and invented devices which used it (the Aeolipile being one example). However for various reasons it was never really developed, and the knowledge was lost completely after the Empire fell.

Think about it: Roman's knew how to use steam to produce work. We didn't regain that knowledge until what, the 18th century?

The Greeks had working clockwork computers and the Minoans had printing presses, while the Babylonians had batteries. There is alot of lost tech throughout history- mostly due to the fact they didn't have the gear in widespread use. It is really easy to lose something if no one uses it but a couple people and only for obscure purposes that can easily be eliminated.

[Thanas]

What about the plows they got that could brake up the thicker soil of Northern Europe? Didn't they invent them during the Dark Ages?

You're right, the heavy mouldboard plough was invented around 643. However, it was only widely adopted with the development of the three-field system in the later eighth and early ninth century.

- Every roman citizen bathed at least once a day.

This stood out to me because I have long been puzzled by the post-Roman distaste for bathing and hygiene for which (rightly or wrongly) Europeans seem famous.

Was this the work of the Church? Did Christians dispense with bathing because they associated it with the pagan aspects of Roman culture?

Well, to be honest, despite any ideological reasons, there was no way they could bathe. Let me just give you a quick overview about the difficulties in keeping a Therme running. Not only do you need enormous amounts of water (see the above quoted figures for that), but you also need an enormous amount of wood. There are some theories out there that argue that due to the need of the Thermae of the cities of the province germania, said province was deforested to the extent of the romans being unable to find quality wood for the limes. You need to heat a Therme constantly, otherwise it is worth nothing. All of that involves thousands of slaves, which are not around anymore either.

And now we come to the most precious resource of them all: glass. It was the glass window that allowed for the construction of the Thermae in the first place - and try to find a glass manufacturer in post-roman western europe. There are none until the venetians.

[Kanastrous]

Well, to be honest, despite any ideological reasons, there was no way they could bathe. Let me just give you a quick overview about the difficulties in keeping a Therme running. Not only do you need enormous amounts of water (see the above quoted figures for that), but you also need an enormous amount of wood. There are some theories out there that argue that due to the need of the Thermae of the cities of the province germania, said province was deforested to the extent of the romans being unable to find quality wood for the limes. You need to heat a Therme constantly, otherwise it is worth nothing. All of that involves thousands of slaves, which are not around anymore either.

And now we come to the most precious resource of them all: glass. It was the glass window that allowed for the construction of the Thermae in the first place - and try to find a glass manufacturer in post-roman western europe. There are none until the venetians.

This all makes sense in terms of bathing being performed at large public bath houses with heated water, glazed windows, etc - sure, post-Roman collapse that infrastructure falls apart.

It doesn't appear to explain a refusal to take a dip in the nearest stream, river, or lake, or to make the comparatively minimal investment in some water vessels with which one could at least douse one's self every so often.

It's sometimes claimed that European Jews' ritually-motivated bathing habits (mikvehs, etc) helped them stay healthier than the general population during outbreaks of disease (being separated from that population to some degree or another by law probably helped, too). If medieval Jews found themselves capable of washing at least occasionally, it seems reasonable to suppose that the unpopularity of bathing in the larger population might have had reasons beyond immediate practical ones...

[Thanas]

It doesn't appear to explain a refusal to take a dip in the nearest stream, river, or lake, or to make the comparatively minimal investment in some water vessels with which one could at least douse one's self every so often.

Well, bathing in the rivers was not a good idea. Same if you live in a city due to no canalisation. I would like a source for the europeans abandoning bathing and washing altogether though.

It's sometimes claimed that European Jews' ritually-motivated bathing habits (mikvehs, etc) helped them stay healthier than the general population during outbreaks of disease (being separated from that population to some degree or another by law probably helped, too). If medieval Jews found themselves capable of washing at least occasionally, it seems reasonable to suppose that the unpopularity of bathing in the larger population might have had reasons beyond immediate practical ones...

The Jews also had larger resources available than the general population, so I am not sure how much is applicable to the fact.

[Samuel]

Well, bathing in the rivers was not a good idea. Same if you live in a city due to no canalization. I would like a source for the Europeans abandoning bathing and washing altogether though.

Not to mention that it is a bad idea to bathe in the same rivers your sewage runs into.

[Thanas]

Well, bathing in the rivers was not a good idea. Same if you live in a city due to no canalization. I would like a source for the Europeans abandoning bathing and washing altogether though.

Not to mention that it is a bad idea to bathe in the same rivers your sewage runs into.

That's what I meant with the Rivers comment.

[Kanastrous]

It doesn't appear to explain a refusal to take a dip in the nearest stream, river, or lake, or to make the comparatively minimal investment in some water vessels with which one could at least douse one's self every so often.

Well, bathing in the rivers was not a good idea. Same if you live in a city due to no canalisation.

I suppose that one could draw water upstream...if one has the mobility and time to do it. Plus, with the Germ Theory so far in the future, do we know that medieval bathers worried about getting sick from the water? Wasn't the prevalent thinking of the period that 'miasmas' (and of course Jews) were the cause of illness?

I would like a source for the europeans abandoning bathing and washing altogether though.

I'll look around. I have to admit that ideas regarding the awfulness of Medieval hygiene are something that I have picked up from non-scholarly sources.

The Jews also had larger resources available than the general population, so I am not sure how much is applicable to the fact.

I'd like to learn more, about that. It seems counter-intuitive that an oppressed, ghettoized population with handicaps written into the laws of many (most?) European nations where they lived, would have had - as a community - greater access to resources than members of the larger population bent upon oppressing them. Money-lending as a profession would account for making individual Jews wealthy, but was more than a small proportion of the Medieval Jewish population really made up of moneylenders?

The communal nature of ritual baths in Jewish communities, plus a cultural directive to make use of them, seems more likely to play there, than greater wealth. And leads me back to wondering why Christians who were masters of their own nations, couldn't accomplish something so seemingly simple, that their ghettoized and handicapped Jewish populations did.

[Tribble]

The Greeks had working clockwork computers and the Minoans had printing presses, while the Babylonians had batteries. There is alot of lost tech throughout history- mostly due to the fact they didn't have the gear in widespread use. It is really easy to lose something if no one uses it but a couple people and only for obscure purposes that can easily be eliminated.

Naturally, though I suppose the sheer scale of knowledge lost after the Roman Empire collapsed is what makes it interesting.

On a related note, one could view the post-Roman Europe as the "Dark Ages" due to the steep decline in European military capacity. The Romans at their height were able to field a well trained and equipped army that numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

This capacity was well beyond the capabilities of the nations that arose after it fell, and even today there are not many standing armies that approach that size.

[Samuel]

This capacity was well beyond the capabilities of the nations that arose after it fell, and even today there are not many standing armies that approach that size.

The army of Iraq was larger- it is mostly that people don't need to have such large standing armies.

I suppose that one could draw water upstream...if one has the mobility and time to do it. Plus, with the Germ Theory so far in the future, do we know that medieval bathers worried about getting sick from the water? Wasn't the prevalent thinking of the period that 'miasmas' (and of course Jews) were the cause of illness?

Jews were blamed for the plague, not all disease.

Also I am pretty sure that people have an aversion to bathing in water with... stuff in it. You don't need germ theory to know that it is a bad idea. And most of the population didn't live by the source of rivers.

The communal nature of ritual baths in Jewish communities, plus a cultural directive to make use of them, seems more likely to play there, than greater wealth. And leads me back to wondering why Christians who were masters of their own nations, couldn't accomplish something so seemingly simple, that their ghettoized and handicapped Jewish populations did.

Because if they did it they would be acting Jewish. And that is just something that isn't done.

[Kanastrous]

Also I am pretty sure that people have an aversion to bathing in water with... stuff in it. You don't need germ theory to know that it is a bad idea. And most of the population didn't live by the source of rivers.

The number of people who bathe daily in the Ganges (or what's left of it) seem to kind of contradict that. I mean, hell, that's bathing with the occasional corpse floating by...

The communal nature of ritual baths in Jewish communities, plus a cultural directive to make use of them, seems more likely to play there, than greater wealth. And leads me back to wondering why Christians who were masters of their own nations, couldn't accomplish something so seemingly simple, that their ghettoized and handicapped Jewish populations did.

Because if they did it they would be acting Jewish. And that is just something that isn't done.

Yeah. There is that.

[Tribble]

The army of Iraq was larger- it is mostly that people don't need to have such large standing armies.

That's true. And actually, come to think of it, the Roman army was not that large given the massive area under its control, as it relied more on military training and superior equipment as supposed to brute numbers. Many of the armies that the Romans defeated had numerical superiority, in some cases to almost ridiculous degrees: the slaughter of Boudica's forces in England come to mind.

Which leads to my next question: did the quality of training and equipment available to European armies significantly decline after the Roman Empire fell? If so, it could be seen as a "dark age" of sorts in that sense.

[Elfdart]

- Every roman citizen bathed at least once a day.

This stood out to me because I have long been puzzled by the post-Roman distaste for bathing and hygiene for which (rightly or wrongly) Europeans seem famous.

Was this the work of the Church? Did Christians dispense with bathing because they associated it with the pagan aspects of Roman culture?

The Church was the major factor, along with the economic reasons described above. The pagan Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons bathed on a regular basis and were quite fussy about grooming and hygiene. Burial finds from that era feature not only the weapons and armor and treasure for the afterlife, but personal grooming items like scissors, tweezers, combs, small razors, brushes and so on attached to the fighting man's belt harness.

[hongi]

On a related note, one could view the post-Roman Europe as the "Dark Ages" due to the steep decline in European military capacity. The Romans at their height were able to field a well trained and equipped army that numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

Aside from the total size of the army, the Roman Republic or early Principate could quite easily field armies of 30,000 on the battlefield. The numbers dropped significantly in Western Europe after the fall of the WRE. An army of 10,000 was very impressive, mainly because it was so hard to support large armies logistically. Bigger forces such as the Norman invasion of England or even the First Crusade, needed lots and lots of forage and plenty of money for transport.

- a steep decline in population, the effects of which Western Europe had not recovered of until the 18th century (only then was any economy able to support a city with a million inhabitants; for those who are guessing, it was London who broke the barrier at the end of the 18th century. Yeah, that's right, it took 13 centuries and industrialization to achieve a feat the romans managed to do, and even then it was only focused in one city and not in five or six as the romans managed).

John H. Pryor in Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusade suggests (although I've been looking up his sources and I can't find his reference) that there were about 70 million people in 200 AD Roman Europe, falling to 30 million in the eighth century and only rebounding to Roman figures in the 13th century.

You just have to compare the 1 million figure of ancient Rome with the largest Christian cities such as Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan or Cologne that barely pushed 50,000 in the 11th century. It's pretty shocking. Contrast this to the East, where there were cities pushing over half a million such as Constantinople or Baghdad.

[Elfdart]

This site is very interesting:

http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/herbs/baths.html

Information and opinions about pre-seventeenth century attitudes toward washing and bathing are quite mixed in the historical community. The general consensus seems to be that bathing as a social ritual was quite popular; in fact, any church regulations on bathing were designed to combat excessive indulgence in the habit. The Roman baths were a daily social activity, in the same way that modern teenagers frequent the local swimming pool, and adults the exercise club. Deprived of sophisticated Roman plumbing, most medieval and renaissance people appear to have bathed less often, but with the same social enjoyment. Most modern authors suggest that bathing was more a matter of social mores than hygiene. Whether oft-repeated injunctions in the period manners books to wash hands and face every day and avoid having noisome breath, etc. support that allegation or not is a question for debate.

Like the nonsensical idea that spices were used to disguise the taste of rotten meat, the idea that bathing was forbidden and/or wiped out between the fall of Rome and the Enlightenment has been touted by many gullible writers, including Smithsonian magazine. However, even the Smithsonian in the person of Jay Stuller has to admit that "Gregory the Great, the first monk to become pope, allowed Sunday baths and even commended them, so long as they didn't become a 'time-wasting luxury' . . . medieval nobility routinely washed their hands before and after meals. Etiquette guides of the age insisted that teeth, face and hands be cleaned each morning. Shallow basins and water jugs for washing hair were found in most manor houses, as was the occasional communal tub..."

[Kanastrous]

Thanks Elfdart.

[Broomstick]

I wonder how clean the water is, given that there is no modern sanitation that can make a swimming pool clean.

Clean enough that Rome was very well populated, disease was manageable and could support large populations that no city in Europe could achieve again for hundreds of years, with the exception of cities in the East like Constantinople.

Also, Romans baths featured several pools of water, ideally a hot pool (which was artificiality heated), a tepid pool, and a cold plunge. They utilized various cleaning tools and preparations. So not only did the ideal Roman bath daily (which fact alone would have helped with sanitation) but would go through a series of pools/scrubbings which probably did result in some very clean people. Roman plumbing tended to be flowing - toilets, for example, didn't flush but rather had water continuously running through them, washing waste away so it never accumulated. Likewise, the water for the baths could be and was changed/drained on a regular basis. They probably would have found our swimming pools, with the water sitting in them for weeks or months, quite disgusting.

[Broomstick]

The communal nature of ritual baths in Jewish communities, plus a cultural directive to make use of them, seems more likely to play there, than greater wealth. And leads me back to wondering why Christians who were masters of their own nations, couldn't accomplish something so seemingly simple, that their ghettoized and handicapped Jewish populations did.

I don't recall exactly, but I seem to remember something about mikvahs being required to be filled with either rainwater or water from a clear, pure running flow. That would go a long way to making Jews bathing in a mikvah much healthier than peasants bathing in a river downstream of a settlement.

[Adrian Laguna]

I think it is a fair comparison WRT to the technological prowess of a nation.

You said modern society is "unable" to match Roman water usage, if that is true it's because there is not enough water for the much larger population, and I do not believe this so much a case of "unable" as "unwilling" in any case. Just as we and everyone else are unwilling to build gigantic piles of rock like the Pyramids of Giza.

[Thanas]

Which leads to my next question: did the quality of training and equipment available to European armies significantly decline after the Roman Empire fell? If so, it could be seen as a "dark age" of sorts in that sense.

Yes it did, to the point that when Karl Martell reintroduced heavy cavalry en masse it was viewed as a great innovation, even though the numbers he was able to field was less than 1/15th of what the late roman army fielded and of dubious quality and training.

Aside from the total size of the army, the Roman Republic or early Principate could quite easily field armies of 30,000 on the battlefield. The numbers dropped significantly in Western Europe after the fall of the WRE. An army of 10,000 was very impressive, mainly because it was so hard to support large armies logistically. Bigger forces such as the Norman invasion of England or even the First Crusade, needed lots and lots of forage and plenty of money for transport.

In addition to that - if the ERE hadn't agreed to supply and support the crusades, it is quite likely they wouldn't even have reached the Holy Land.

John H. Pryor in Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusade suggests (although I've been looking up his sources and I can't find his reference) that there were about 70 million people in 200 AD Roman Europe, falling to 30 million in the eighth century and only rebounding to Roman figures in the 13th century.

Well, the figure of 70 million Romans sounds quite conservative, but the 30 million sounds about right.

Like the nonsensical idea that spices were used to disguise the taste of rotten meat, the idea that bathing was forbidden and/or wiped out between the fall of Rome and the Enlightenment has been touted by many gullible writers, including Smithsonian magazine. However, even the Smithsonian in the person of Jay Stuller has to admit that "Gregory the Great, the first monk to become pope, allowed Sunday baths and even commended them, so long as they didn't become a 'time-wasting luxury' . . . medieval nobility routinely washed their hands before and after meals. Etiquette guides of the age insisted that teeth, face and hands be cleaned each morning. Shallow basins and water jugs for washing hair were found in most manor houses, as was the occasional communal tub..."

Well, considering that Gregory the great was a member of the roman aristocracy and lived under roman rule of Italy, that is not surprising. He probably still bathed in a Therme.

I think it is a fair comparison WRT to the technological prowess of a nation.

You said modern society is "unable" to match Roman water usage, if that is true it's because there is not enough water for the much larger population, and I do not believe this so much a case of "unable" as "unwilling" in any case. Just as we and everyone else are unwilling to build gigantic piles of rock like the Pyramids of Giza.

Whatever the reasons (and I would argue that if it would simply be due to economic concerns, that would still make modern society unable in comparison to the romans), the general point was that unlike the romans, we do not live in such a state of technological superiority to our neighbours.