Clean Aztecs, Dirty Spaniards

[Happy Hoosier]

14. I'm not as familiar with Spain in the Middle Ages, but...

But in England, France, and Germany (and my guess in many other places too), people bathed as often as they could. For poorer people, that might include relatively infrequent baths (every few weeks), but for better-off people, weekly baths were common, and the very well off could afford to bath several times a week. Most people wore clean inner garments every few days. Outer garments were washed on an as-needed basis.

The main issue in Medieval cities was poor sewage control, and thus why cholera outbreaks were frequent in cities. The record is full of efforts of city officials trying to avoid public random dumping of feces, but the infrastructure to support it was.... poor. Never-the-less, there is plenty of evidence (archaeological and documentary) of public privies and bathhouses. Laundry services were a common business even in very small towns. In the country, however, even poorer houses would have their own outhouses and/or cesspits.

Medieval people's oral hygeine was better than you might expect. They didn't eat much sugar, and suffered less tooth decay than their descendants. They frequently chewed mint and other herbs to freshen their breath.