When you think of Europe, what comes to mind? Luxurious and majestic Louvre, developed economy or beautiful Aegean Sea? In short, everything that emerges before our eyes is so elegant and luxurious and romantic.
But the situation in Europe in the Middle Ages was a world apart from the situation in Europe today. Europe of that period was by no means a dark word to describe. Unlike dynastic succession in Chinese history, European history spent the middle ages in chaotic wars.
The first thing to explain here is that in fact, the so-called medieval period in Europe, the general process is that the last emperors of Western Rome made Christianity the state religion, and soon the Germans overthrew the empire; but although the Germans seized power, their rule was not long, and it was not long before they were ruled by Christian thought. Since then, the minds of the people throughout Europe have been imprisoned in the ideological imprisonment of Christianity and later its branch, catholicism.
For more than 1,000 years, European society has been almost at a standstill, both in terms of technology and productivity. Not only that, but there are some things that happened in Europe during that period that are very difficult for people to imagine today.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > hygiene</h1>
The environment in medieval Europe was very bad. For example, Queen Elizabeth I of England has been criticized for her extravagant life, but Elizabeth I has been criticized for unbelievable reasons: she bathes once a month. It seems puzzling why medieval Europeans were so unclean; but it also shows the other side, when the country's supreme ruler still bathes once a month, let alone ordinary people, and some people don't even bathe for the rest of their lives.
In fact, at that time, the British society was still developing well, so why did they take a bath for so long? In fact, the thinking of the people in the Middle Ages was different from that of our present.
In our current view, bathing is a very important part of every day, especially after sweating after exercise, if you do not take a bath in time, you may be disliked by the people around you. But the personal hygiene we took for granted was considered a heinous sin in medieval Europe. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the Victorian era, christian slogans were: Worship God, first defile.
William Leckie, in his book A History of European Morality, put it this way: "The cleanliness of the flesh is the blasphemy of the soul, and the most admired sages are the filthy garments whose clothes are made of hard pieces." "For example: St. Abraham's hermit did not wash his face or feet for 50 years; a famous virgin named Sylvia was very ill at the age of 60, but she was unwilling to wash any part of her body except to wash her fingers; St. Simmons Dilet's wounds festered, allowing worms to squirm on his inflamed and festering wounds but refusing to clean them; and even some people were sick to their stomachs when they heard the word "bath"...
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > about toilets</h1>
In medieval Europe, if a person's wealth was to be measured, in addition to the size of the chariot he used, another symbol of wealth was the number of potties he owned. Isn't it hard to imagine? But a man named Mark Anthony convinces you that his potty potties are made of pure gold, and if they weren't made of pure gold, he wouldn't use them.
This is still relatively acceptable, and the following content is very difficult to accept.
We all know that France is known for its romance, but france during the Renaissance was not at all romantic. If you're going to get into the king's field of vision, sometimes you have to smell the king's ass first... Don't think it's incredible, it's true!
Put it this way, there is a festival in France called enema day, and on this day, King Louis XIV will hold an hour-long event, which is very grand, and the princes and ministers will participate. But entering that room was also an adventure. Why?
One person who asked the state to build public toilets said: "Near the Louvre, inside and out of the palace, behind the corridors and doorways everywhere, and almost everywhere, people can see thousands of piles of 'feces', and people will smell the foul smell, which is caused by the natural needs of those who live in the Louvre, and those who go to the court every day..."
For example, in the ceremony celebrating Anna Pauling's becoming Empress of Henry VIII, two maids have been squatting at the bottom of the table, and all they have to do is to dispose of the queen's excrement, one with a potty, the other with a tissue, and then imagine for themselves.
The streets of medieval Europe were stinking, and there was a small town called LaVacola, which meant "washing your ass.".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > parasite problem</h1>
People's living environment is so poor, parasites will definitely breed in large quantities. Indeed, the people of medieval Europe were plagued by parasites.
University of London historian Catherine Harvey, in her book Food, Drink and Bishops in Medieval England, writes that due to the many new discoveries made by archaeologists in recent years, it has revealed the poor hygiene of the Middle Ages. For example, in the ruins of the toilet, archaeologists have found a large number of intestinal parasite eggs. A recent excavation in the German port city of Lübeck also revealed a large number of medieval roundworms and tapeworms.
What was even more shocking was that even the king's corpse was covered with parasite eggs! In 2012, the bones of King Richard III were found, and his remains were covered with roundworm eggs. And another king, King Ferdinand II of Naples, who died in 1496, because the body was mummified, basically retained the information at the time of burial, and after archaeologists examined, his hair was full of lice.
Before the seventeenth century, due to the backward level of medical treatment, it was generally believed that parasites such as lice were self-generated by the human body. Paradoxically, even doctors agree with this view.
Because the understanding of parasites was not deep enough, the methods of treating parasites at that time were also more bizarre. For example, washing hair with seawater, using wormwood treatment, etc. However, they did not treat wormwood with the same moxibustion as ours, but directly swallowed raw, which caused the patient to have severe diarrhea. However, compared to the harm caused by insect teeth or parasites, Europeans at that time were not afraid of diarrhea.
The reason for the serious parasites in the European Middle Ages is not only that people themselves do not pay attention to personal hygiene, but also because of the beliefs preached by the Church.
In fact, shampoos and other toiletries had already appeared in the European Middle Ages, but the church was very disgusted with such items, believing that the use of these toiletries was disrespectful to God; and the church's influence at that time was very large, even greater than the influence of the king, and it is conceivable that this unhygienic situation was caused.