WI: Returning Crusaders popularize Islamic hygiene in Europe

Richard V

Inspired by this recollection from Usama ibn Munqidh, a 12th century Arab scholar.

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EnvarKadri

So to put it short, if you can bath often is better to keep your pubic hair but if your bathing habits are medieval then you should shave to avoid lice?
 
Vuu

Vuu

Banned
I thought this was about the fact that Western Europeans bathed only once or twice a year due to the water pollution thing, but no, it's about shaving balls.
 

EnvarKadri

Vuu said:
I thought this was about the fact that Western Europeans bathed only once or twice a year due to the water pollution thing, but no, it's about shaving balls.
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Also bathing was an urban custom and cities fell apart in the medieval period, with power going to the feudal lords in the countryside. Also big public baths were a good place for transmition of the epidemies. In the XII century there was a really influencial paper from the Paris University claming that baths opened the skin pores to disease and so it was best to avoid bathing.
 

RGB

There are medieval baths all over Europe. Didn't help with the diseases at all. Neither did the plagues spare the Sauna belt (Russia, Baltics, Scandinavia).

To be honest, I don't think that pubic shaving fashion (as a narrow subject treated here) could maintain itself absent a commercial bathhouse culture (which in the Islamic world was staffed by a constantly renewed and reassembled underclass, often enslaved. Who would be that underclass in Europe? Slaves in the Mediterranean, sure, but in Frankish lands? You couldn't simply bring in serfs, and free peasants would likely fall under all sorts of moral strictures same as sex workers if they pursued this). And I don't think barbers as they existed would do it. I don't think this service could be offered in either monasteries or road-inns either. Doctors and nurses, who often diagnosed and treated without skin to skin contact, wouldn't either. So, prevent the mass closures of baths that coincided with the first great plagues, find a source of workers, perhaps tweak urban laws a bit, and the pubic shaving might survive.
 
Jape

Jape

RGB said:
Who would be that underclass in Europe? Slaves in the Mediterranean, sure, but in Frankish lands? You couldn't simply bring in serfs, and free peasants would likely fall under all sorts of moral strictures same as sex workers if they pursued this). And I don't think barbers as they existed would do it. I don't think this service could be offered in either monasteries or road-inns either. Doctors and nurses, who often diagnosed and treated without skin to skin contact, wouldn't either. So, prevent the mass closures of baths that coincided with the first great plagues, find a source of workers, perhaps tweak urban laws a bit, and the pubic shaving might survive.
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The Honourable Guild of Pubic Trimsmen obviously.

Really if you can popularise the concept I doubt employees is the issue, you don't need slavery. Circa 1300 trimming noble body hair would probably seem a cushy gig to the average peasant.
 

RGB

Jape said:
The Honourable Guild of Pubic Trimsmen obviously.

Really if you can popularise the concept I doubt employees is the issue, you don't need slavery. Circa 1300 trimming noble body hair would probably seem a cushy gig to the average peasant.
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I don't really know about that. Most domestic servants were paid rather poorly compared to skilled craftsmen, and basically my theory is that they made up for it by taking bribes left and right from those who needed information or access to their master. I guess it might be folded into the duties of chamber servants, possibly? With the accompanying moral hit to being a chamber servant (which was already kind of iffy). And the higher likelihood of attempted assassinations or emasculations of nobles by domestics armed with razors. Even in this best-case scenario for the habit, it would remain the domain of people who could afford servants and perhaps never reach even the growing middle class and one-household gentry.

You're talking falconry level of societal penetration here, i.e. not very much at all.
 
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Jape

Jape

RGB said:
I don't really know about that. Most domestic servants were paid rather poorly compared to skilled craftsmen, and basically my theory is that they made up for it by taking bribes left and right from those who needed information or access to their master. I guess it might be folded into the duties of chamber servants, possibly? With the accompanying moral hit to being a chamber servant (which was already kind of iffy). And the higher likelihood of attempted assassinations or emasculations of nobles by domestics armed with razors. Even in this best-case scenario for the habit, it would remain the domain of people who could afford servants and perhaps never reach even the growing middle class and one-household gentry.

You're talking falconry level of societal penetration here, i.e. not very much at all.
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Oh no I can't imagine it being terribly common but that never stopped an aristocratic habit remaining popular with the aristocracy alone. As to bribes and influence, operating in a bathhouse seems pretty prime territory, while I have no doubt the occassional assault would happen.

I'll be honest though I'm not able to commit 100% seriousness to the topic of medieval pubic fashion trends.
 
water123

water123

Eh, I don't think this is a necropost. Just... damn. I could have gone my whole life without having to look through a thread about Medieval pubic fashion but here we are.
 
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