hygiene
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Well, according to this article we were a lot cleaner than our present-day selves insist on thinking. Our naughty bits weren’t to be scrubbed, for fear of making them even naughtier…but it seems it would have been okay to splash around in a river every day (in the summer, at least). Plus, you could…
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Richard II is (always laughingly) described as having invented the handkerchief. That he was a ridiculous fop is always the implication. Yet we don’t think twice now about using handkerchiefs…the previous disgusting habit of wiping one’s nose on one’s sleeve is long-gone, thank goodness. Yet I’ve now learned another of Richard’s so-called peculiarities. When…
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An article that is further to this … Yes, the illustration above is funny (from our fastidious modern viewpoint) but it is also accurate for toilet facilities from early medieval times, right up into the 20th century. I am now in my seventies, and can remember in my country childhood finding outhouses/privies with up to four ‘facilities’,…
The New Murrey and Blue blog 