Before the Advent of the Black Moors of Africa who ruled parts of Spain
for 700 years there was Medieval Europe a classic rat hole. Until the Blacks
came in from Africa and cleaned it up.
In this installment, we present to our readers an article from Pravda
describing all that had been achieved in European history just before the
advent of the Black Moors of Africa. The Black Moors of Africa gave the
Europeans, African sciences (now falsely termed as western science), African
commerce, African architecture, African culture, African governance, African
libraries and African hygiene.
Other installment will do a comparison of the state of development
attained by the medieval age Black Moors of Africa who built Granada, Cordoba,
Toledo, and other cities of Southern Europe.
Don Jaide
………………………………..
The stench of medieval Europe still echoes today
22.01.2008
People normally associate different epochs with different smells. The
Middle Ages smell of sewage and decaying bodies. German writer Patrick Suskind,
the author of a well-known novel “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer,†wrote
in his book that the stench of European cities in the late Middle Ages period
was unbearable. His work conveys the terrible smell of human faeces and urine
in the streets, decaying wood and rat dung, spoiled coal and animal fat, mouldy
dust and chamber pots.
Stench used to be an inseparable part of all human activities,
constructive or destructive. The Queen of Spain Isabel of Castle (the end of
the 15th century) confessed that she had taken a bath only twice in a lifetime
– when born and married. A daughter of one of French kings died of lice.
Dysentery and scab caused fatal terminations to Popes Clement V and Clement VII
correspondingly. Duke Norfolk neglected bathing for religious reasons. As a
result of such disregard numerous abscesses dotted his body.
A billet-doux sent by the inveterate Don Juan Henry of Navarre to his
sweetheart Gabrielle d’ Estrées became an anecdote. Its contents conveyed the
following meaning: “Do not wash yourself, my sweetheart, I’ll visit you in
three weeksâ€. The king himself took a bath only thrice in a lifetime, twice
coercively.
Russian ambassadors at Louis XIV court wrote that His Majesty stunk like
a wild animal. Europeans considered Russians perverts because it was a
tradition for the latter to take steam baths once a month.
European cities were buried in sewage. Town residents splashed the
contents of garbage pails and washtubs out into the street on the heads of
carefree passers-by. Stagnated slops made stinking pools; and a great number of
town pigs crowned the whole picture. People emptied chamber pots right out of
their windows making streets look like cesspools. Bathrooms were the rarest
luxury. Fleas, lice and bugs swarmed in rich and poor houses of London and
Paris.
Unsanitary conditions, diseases and starvation personify medieval Europe
as it was. Even the noble class could not afford to eat their fill. Noble
families were happy if at best two or three of ten children survived. Delivery
was quite an undertaking for women: a third part of them died in labor. Street
illumination also was poor – oil lamps, splinters or wax candles at best.
Hunger, smallpox, leprosy and syphilis disfigured people’s faces.
There were not any cleaning agents or the notion of personal hygiene in
Europe up to the middle of the 19th century. One Italian nobleman said in his
memoirs that in the 16th century it was impossible to walk along the streets
that resembled a fetid stream of turbid water. He had to hold a scented
handkerchief or a small bouquet to his nose not to vomit. But not only faeces
poisoned the air. Butchers slaughtered and disembowel cattle right in the
streets. They would scatter guts around and pour blood out onto the pavement.
In late Middle Ages people learned to process wastes and faeces. Urine,
for example, was used to tan leather and bleach cloth, animals’ bones – to
produce flour. In days of old painters placed barrels for urine near the farms,
they used it to knead paints. In Ancient Rome they sold even the urine from
latrines to wool dyers and leather tanners. What could not be processed was
left in the street.
Rain was the only street cleaner in those times. And still,
notwithstanding its sanitary function, rain was considered a providential
punishment. Rains washed dirt out of all cracks, and raging sewage streams
rushed through the streets. Just like this there appeared a small river
Merderon in France (from French “merde†– shit).
If there were stinking funds in the country, in cities people defecated
in narrow side streets and yards. Only after the ‘hydraulic revolution’
aqueducts and gutters appeared; they provided houses with water and removed the
sewage.
People were not cleaner than the streets where they lived. “Water
baths warm the body, but weaken the organism and widen pores. That’s why they
can be dangerous and cause different diseases, even deathâ€, a medical treaty
of the 16th century runs. Medieval doctors thought that infectious air could
penetrate through the cleaned pores. Owing to this cause all social bathhouses
were abolished. In 15-16th centuries rich citizens had a bath at least twice a
year, in the 17-18th centuries they decidedly stopped to wash themselves. The
French king Louis XIV had a bath only twice in his life on doctors’ advice.
But the procedure shocked the sovereign so, that he made a vow not to do it
anymore.
All hygienic arrangements included only hands and mouth rinsing, but not
the whole face. “By no means you should wash your face, – wrote medics in the
16th century, – as it can cause catarrh or weaken the eyesight.†As for
women, they had a bath only two or three times a year.
The majority of aristocrats used scented rags to rub the body. It was
recommended to moisten armpits and groin with rose water. Men wore small bags
with fragrant herbs between the shirt and waistcoat. Women used only fragrant
powder.
Medieval ‘neat’ persons often changed their clothes. They considered
that it absorbs all dirt and cleans the body. But our ancestors were rather
selective on this issue. Clean starched shirt for every day was a privilege for
rich people only. That is why white crimped collars and cuffs that were the
evidence of wealth and cleanliness of their owners became fashionable. Poor men
neither washed nor changed their clothing. Most of them had only one shirt. No
wonder – clothes were extremely expensive. The cheapest canvas shirt and one
milk cow, for example, had the same price.
Source: Pravda.Ru URL:
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/103574-stench-0
Translated by Ksenia Sedyakina
Pravda.ru
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