A lot of us think of the Dark Ages as not only being “dark” but also dirty – and with their personal hygiene practices, we’re not wrong. Though interestingly, our medieval ancestors did use soap. Of course, it’s not the same as what modern people call soap. Typical ingredients for soap were wood ash and animal fat.
Like modern soap, they were also fragranced with different sweet-smelling herbs like sage and thyme. The use of soap goes back right to the 9th century in Europe, so once people exited the darkest of the Dark Ages (Early Medieval Period), they came up with a basic form of soap and started practicing the most fundamental forms of personal hygiene.
Soup to Stop Spoiling Food
While none of us would like to travel back in time to the Middle Ages, there is one life hack we can borrow from our medieval counterparts. Since the first “true” fridges were made in the early 20th century, medieval people didn’t have many ways to preserve food. Common food preservation practices included using salt to dry out meat or to dunk things in vinegar and syrup to stop them from spoiling.
Another common practice was soup. When vegetables, bread, and meat were going off, these folk boiled them in water to save them before they went completely rancid. As weird as it sounds, everything that could spoil could go into a pot, meaning there were plenty of interesting recipes around but probably few we’d dare taste.
Unappetizing Love Potions
In the 21st century, we have dating apps and aromatic fragrances to combat the single blues. In the Middle Ages, they had love potions, sweaty cakes, and an obvious lack of personal hygiene by today’s standards. Of course, there was not just one love potion recipe back then, but a common one was sweaty cakes.
As unromantic as it sounds, if a person back then were vying to capture the attention of their one true love, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see them baking a cake using ingredients like blood, sweat, and other bodily fluids. The rationale behind these “sweaty cakes” was that once the intended sweetheart munched on these “bodily” ingredients, they’d fall madly in love with the owner of the ingredients. It’s probably safer to skip these.
Handwashing
A recent phenomenon has reminded us of the importance of keeping our hands clean. In the Middle Ages, people mostly washed their hands out of good manners and to remove external dirt and grime. That said, not all were on board for this. The English King, James I, tended only to wash his fingers, while Louis XIV, a.k.a. “The Sun King,” would have his valet lightly douse his hands with wine.
Only centuries later, in the 19th century, the Hungarian physician and scientist Ignaz Semmelweis worked out the true utility of washing hands. Before that, it was just good manners to keep your digits less grimy, especially if you were tucking into a meal.
Boiling Fruit and Vegetables
Eating raw fruit and vegetables was a no-no during the Middle Ages. These folks believed that raw fruit or vegetables were the cause of disease, so they gave them a good douse of piping hot water. It’s hard not to see where the medieval folk were coming from as they often lived in squalor, so they probably believed anything raw was unclean.
“The Boke of Kervynge” (The Book of Carving), written in 1508, explains medieval thinking stating, “Beware of green salads and raw fruits, for they will make your master sick” (Bovey, 2015). Sadly, the medieval folk got it wrong, as boiling robs veggies and fruit of all their nutrients like Vitamin C. In fact, it has led some historians to think that this practice caused scurvy to be so prevalent.