How Filthy Were Medieval People?

Summary

---

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

Episode: "How Filthy Were Medieval People?"

Host: Dr. Kate Lister

Guest: Dr. Eleanor Janega

Date: January 16, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This spirited episode tackles the stubborn myth that people in the medieval period were irredeemably filthy, constantly caked in mud, and indifferent to personal hygiene. Dr. Kate Lister and medieval historian Dr. Eleanor Janega, with their trademark wit and candor, break down where these misconceptions come from and what everyday cleanliness actually looked like in medieval Europe. The conversation delves into bathing culture, teeth cleaning, laundry, toilet habits, women’s periods, and how evolving attitudes to cleanliness reflect changing societies.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of the "Filthy Medieval" Myth

• The prevailing image of medieval people as dirty is rooted more in modern ignorance and later historical slander than in truth.
  • “We think of them...living in a ditch with poo on their head. But is that true? Of course that's not true. That's absolutely untrue.” - Kate Lister [02:00]
  • The myth persists in popular culture, often under the guise of "realism" for dramas and films [05:52]
• Victorians and early modern thinkers perpetuated these ideas as a way of distancing themselves from the “otherness” of the medieval era [41:44]
• Historian Voltaire is blamed for fostering "the age of faith" versus "the age of reason" dichotomy, writing off the entire medieval period as regressive [42:21]

2. Bathing and Personal Hygiene

• Full body immersion baths were a luxury for the wealthy but public and municipal bathhouses were common and accessible, especially in cities.
  • “So for rich people...you will have a dedicated space where you bathe...If you have money, this is one of the first things that you have: scullery maids who will come fill a tub full of hot water and you will go scrub scrub scrub...” - Kate Lister [08:28]
• Bathhouses sometimes doubled as brothels or places for assignations, hence some moral condemnation in sources was aimed at the activities not the washing [10:54]
• Regular people could access bathhouses (often once a week), and Saturday was the favored day to bathe thoroughly in preparation for Sunday church [14:09]
• Rural communities had village bathhouses, and “strip washes” or daily washing with a cloth and small amount of hot water was widespread [18:28]

3. Making Cleanliness Work: Practicalities

• Floors and water management: Carrying and heating water made daily bathing challenging; personal wash was more feasible than full immersion.
  • “You stand in a wooden tub and you just do the smelly...It's like a poor man's shower. Right. And that is incredibly common...” - Kate Lister [18:28]
• Not bathing, especially for the rich, was considered an ascetic practice, a mark of saintly discomfort, evidence that people generally wanted to be clean [19:29]
  • “If you are gunning for sainthood, give it up. Because it’s a form of asceticism...if you want to be a saint and you’re some rich guy, one of the things that you do is...not bathe.” - Kate Lister [19:29]

4. Teeth, Breath, and Bodily Scent

• Clean teeth and fresh breath were standard compliments.
  • “Having white teeth and honeyed breath is absolutely necessary...teeth like snow or like ivory, breath like honey. Yep. And they do brush their teeth...” - Kate Lister [24:27]
• Toothbrushes, chew sticks (like licorice root), and herbal rinses were used.
• Dental health generally better than post-medieval populations due to lack of cheap sugar [25:00]
• Herbal perfumes and scented soap were commonly made (and for sale in places like Marseille), and recipes are found in surviving records.

5. Clothing, Laundry, & Menstruation

• People had far fewer clothes. Underclothes (linens) were changed and washed more frequently than outerwear (wool or heavy fabrics).
  • “You’re going to have more linen...but still, the linen gets washed regularly. There’s usually like a wash day that will happen...” - Kate Lister [29:57]
• Communal washing at streams or village washhouses common; heavy wash work done by women, often with help from neighbors or relatives.
• Laundry involved soaking with lye (and, curiously, eggshells), then rinsing and drying—different strategies in summer and winter.
• Menstrual rags or pads were made from old linens, reused, and secured with belts—a system that persisted through the modern era [33:13]

6. Toilets, Sewage, and Urban Cleanliness

• The notion that people threw waste into the street is largely inaccurate and exaggerated; laws specifically forbade casual disposal of human waste [35:50]
  • “I want to stress right now that the way that it is dealt with is not by throwing it in the road. You absolute madmen.” - Kate Lister [35:50]
• Privies (toilets over cesspits), chamber pots, and regular collection by night soil men—who cleaned out cesspits and sold waste as fertilizer—kept things workable.
  • “If you’re kind of like a young working class guy, being a night soil man is a great way to make some money. And they exist because people are like, we need to get the sewage out of here.” - Kate Lister [37:26]
• Chamber pots were normal and used until the Victorian period; cities did sometimes smell, but population density, not "medieval-ness", was the culprit.
• Industrial recycling of urine for tanning leather was common practice [40:04]

7. Shifts in Attitude and Misconceptions

• Early modern ideas about bathing shifted, largely due to evolving attitudes about health and the causes of disease, not medieval precedent.
• The belief that "history is just a process of things getting better" is challenged; different periods had different approaches, and the “decline” in cleanliness after the medieval era (especially in the early modern period) is notable.
  • “That’s not how it works because the cities are different and...people will oftentimes look at the fashion for not bathing in the early modern period and think, medieval people did that.” - Kate Lister [43:13]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Medieval Bathhouses and Social Life:
  • “It helps keep the heat in...and also, if you don’t want any hanky panky, then no one’s going to see you naked if you don’t want to. But a lot of people want you to.” - Kate Lister [11:27]
  • “If the breath be stinking, the ladies don’t want it. Right.” - Kate Lister [26:25]
• On Doing Laundry:
  • “Wet clothes...and I’m not talking wet clothes that have just come out of the spin cycle. Yeah, right. It’s like these are sodden.” - Kate Lister [31:39]
• On Medieval Recycling and Urban Smells:
  • “And piss would recycle or they were reused...tanners often use urine in order to treat leather goods.” - Eleanor Jarnegger / Kate Lister [40:04]
• On Historical Chauvinism:
  • “There is just the ordinary chauvinism that we see against the medieval period. I don’t know why people enjoy believing they are somehow better than medieval period people, but they do.” - Kate Lister [41:44]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Misconceptions About Medieval Dirtiness – [02:00] to [06:50]
• Bathing Habits & Bathhouse Culture – [08:23] to [14:44]
• Practicalities: Washing and Water – [17:00] to [18:28]
• Teeth, Perfume & Dental Hygiene – [24:04] to [27:46]
• Clothing & Laundry – [27:46] to [33:13]
• Menstruation Methods – [33:13] to [34:12]
• Toilets & Waste Management – [35:50] to [41:34]
• The Origin & Spread of the Myth – [41:34] to [44:28]
• Historiographical Shifts & Final Reflections – [44:28] to [45:04]

---

Final Thoughts

This episode explodes the myth of the “filthy medieval,” revealing a nuanced picture of medieval cleanliness. Bathhouses were social hubs, people cared deeply about teeth and fresh breath, laundry was hard work but essential, and sophisticated waste management was in place in most communities. Much of the “dirtiness” ascribed to the Middle Ages better fits later, larger, and much more crowded periods. Ultimately, Kate and Eleanor argue, our prejudices against the “grubby peasant” say more about us than about them.

---

For more medieval myth-busting:
Check out Dr. Eleanor Janega on the "Gone Medieval" podcast and her book, "The Once and Future Going Medieval."
For future episodes, follow Betwixt The Sheets wherever you get your podcasts.

---

Transcript

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Why choose a sleep number Smart bed.

[Kate Lister]

Can I make my site softer?

[Reggie]

Can I make my site firmer?

[Friend 1]

Can we sleep cooler?

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting. J.D. power ranks sleep number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and online. And now the more you buy, the more you save on beds, bases and more. Plus, get free premium delivery on any bed with base limited time. For J.D. power 2025 award information, visit jdpower.com awards check it out at a sleep numbers store today.

[Reggie]

Reggie, I just sold my car online.

[Kate Lister]

Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did?

[Reggie]

Yep, on Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame.

[Friend 1]

You don't say.

[Reggie]

Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast.

[Friend 1]

Wow. Way to go.

[Kate Lister]

So, about that picture frame.

[Reggie]

Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Hello, my lovely betwixters, it's me, Kate Lister. You are back listening to Betwixt the Sheets once again. Hello, welcome back. Make some room at the back. And I have to tell you all once again, whether you're new or not, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of subjects. And you should be an adult too. Oh, my God. Do we feel safer? I feel safer. Right, let's crack on. Ah, the fresh scent of medieval streets. Wood smoke, tanneries, stagnant water, animal entrails, rotting food scraps. Poo, chicken poo, human poo. There's just so much poo. That's what we think of when we think of the medieval period, isn't it? Oh, be honest, it is. We think of them all just walking around covered in mud, living in a ditch with poo on their head. But is that true? Of course that's not true. That's absolutely true. Untrue. But how often did they wash? What did they wash with? How did they treat their skin and their hair and their teeth? These are important questions, because if anyone has a reputation for smelling bad, it's the medieval people. And that's not fair. We've been doing them dirty for far too long. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. The widespread misconception that medieval people were really dirty is a proper bugbear for some Historians. And one such historian is the marvelous Eleanor Jarnegger, who is joining us today to get to the bottom of just how dirty people were in the Middle Ages. Were they really covered in fleas? Did they really throw their waste out of windows onto unsuspecting passersby? Well, I'm ready to find out if you are. Well, hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets. It's everyone's favorite. It's Eleanor Jarnega. How are you doing, babes?

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I'm better now that you're here. I missed you.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Oh, thank you so much. I missed you, too. And we're doing your favorite topic today. How mucky were the medieval people? Because we all know that they were absolutely filthy. An absolute dirt fest. They just lived in mud. They had shit on their heads, and they just. It was just gross the whole time.

[Kate Lister]

Like, girl, I swear to you, the way that people will just say this to you, like, with a straight face, as if that's a thing that people would do. Like, it's such a strange thing thing where it's like, but you're a people. Yeah, you're a people, right? Yeah. And you would accept that. Like, you would. You would live that way and feel comfortable, and they'll always be like, oh, no. But, like, I'm a different people. Like, I.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

That's interesting because I think that, like, we can accept that most of history is not as clean as we are today in the fact that we've got, like, antibacterial stuff and we're sanitizing the shower. Everything. Everything would have just been a bit muckier. But there's something about the medieval period where everyone's imagination just goes absolutely insane. And we genuinely think that they would have just been walking around looking like a fucking warlock.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. It's really interesting. And it does tend to come down, I think, just from a place of ignorance, because most people don't know anything about the medieval period. Right. And it's not their fault. We are not taught medieval history in schools, like, at all. And I have heard people teaching schools of young children that the medieval period is particularly gross. And, you know. Yeah. I was once filming in St. Bart's Church, and there was, like, a group that was doing a thing about medieval London there, and they were, you know, repeating the thing about how, like, oh, the streets are full of human feces and there's dead dogs.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Did you, like, charge over to that school trip and start shouting at people?

[Kate Lister]

I managed not to.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Well done, Ellen.

[Kate Lister]

But I was like, but I Was like, glaring at the lady, like, I see you. And it is this particularly interesting thing. It's received wisdom and indeed it is pejorative alert. Common sense. Right. You know, the common sense. Now, people tend to think that means. Well, everybody knows it, but actually common sense is meant to mean people all think that it's obviously true, but it's not. Yeah, Right. And it's. That is just not how things work. And indeed, it's never how things work. And you would probably find medieval London less offensive from a pollution and smelling standpoint than Victorian London. Victoria in London's the one. You don't wanna go there.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

And this myth is still with us. I don't know if you caught. We need to be very careful you don't get on a side quest about this one because it could be easily done. But did you catch any of that recent drama series about William the Conqueror and Harold Godwinson? Like, Harold Godwinson was filthy. He looked like he'd just come back from playing rugby and he was being crowned king in one scene. Like he wasn't like a little bit musky, you know, like he wasn't like, missing a face scrub and some antibodies. Like, his fingernails were a bit mucky. He was like. He looked like visibly. If somebody wor. Walked in, you'd be like, what the fuck have you been doing? It's like the myth is still with us.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. And I think that there is a thing because of that myth, people confuse it with realism.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

So, you know, if there are gritty people. It's gritty. It's gritty. It's the same thing that you see, you know, whenever there's a drama. And the minute they go to the Middle east or they go to Mexico or something, they put like a brown filter on the lens. And that's how, you know, you're in Mexico. And it's how we think of the.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Medieval through a brown lens. Everything was brown.

[Kate Lister]

And it's just a ridiculous thing because if people now wouldn't do it, people then wouldn't do it. And again, as you say, I'm. I'm not saying that it is a level of cleanliness that I would like today. And indeed, like, it's not until the 20th century onwards in Europe that we attained the levels of cleanliness that we have now. You know, it took us until after World War II to put fluoride in our toothpaste. And up until that point, all toothpaste did was make your breath smell good. You know, it didn't. It didn't prevent you from having cavities. You know, it was not common in the Victorian period to have your own bathroom where you could go take a bath or a shower. You know, you were sharing it with a lot of people. That's why London is full of public baths that we use as swimming pools now. But they were, they were bath houses. So it wasn't common to get to shower or bathe every day. And you know, like, I'm a spoiled person in the 21st century and my ideal number of showers per day is.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Two to your two shower person.

[Kate Lister]

If I've got enough time, baby. Like I gotta get. You gotta get your sleep smell off.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

So you shower in the morning and.

[Kate Lister]

Then at night, then ideally at night, ideally at night. You know, there's plenty of days when I have to choose one or the other. But if I've got time.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

See, I'm a morning shower person, but if I've done anything that involves even mild perspiration throughout the day, then that will be another shower.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, exactly. So it's just like I'm trying to, like, I'm cozy, maxing, I'm bed pilled and I'm getting in there as clean as possible. So, you know, there wouldn't have been that clean.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

But everyday bathing is, would that have been accessible to a medieval person?

[Kate Lister]

So full body immersion bath. You're gonna need some money for that.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Bubbles and.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, and all of that. Right, so for rich people. Yeah, for the bloody King of England. Yeah. Okay, 100%. You will have like a dedicated space where you bathe. It might not necessarily be a bathroom, it might just be that you've got like a really nice tub they bring in and put in front of the fire in your bedroom. And if you have money, this is one of the first things that you, you have scullery maids who will come fill a tub full of hot water and you will go scrub, scrub, scrub. I'm next to the fire in this.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

As well, isn't it? It's a flex. It's like, look, and it still is today, looking clean and impeccably groomed is you saying, check me out. So it's. Of course rich people would have done this.

[Kate Lister]

Now if you're rich in a city, if you're rich in a city, you will probably have money to bathe every day if you want. Now either in your own house or you'll go down to the bath house, the bathhouse. And this is one of the things that I find really interesting because everyone goes, oh, well, Romans are not gross and mucky because, you know, they go to the bathhouse. So did medieval people.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

And, and, and something that I learned when I was in Pompeii is their baths were not that fucking clean. It didn't have plumbing. It was the same water being reused.

[Kate Lister]

It was the same water. Yeah, yeah. All day long. And like the medieval one, you're kind of like moving it in and out of there because it's more likely that you kind of have smaller tubs for maybe like a two people or so and you move that water through.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Oh, I see. So it's like individual tubs that people are sitting in. See, that is cleaner. That's cleaner than the Romans. You heard it here.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. So that is super, super common. And medieval people love that. They love that there will be whole areas of town. You know, here in London, the Stews in Southwark now, are some of those brothels. Yes. But some of them are also just bath houses and it leads to this really kind of ambivalent space about bathing. And also, this is something people get confused by when they aren't medieval historians sometimes when they're presented by particular complaints about bathing in the medieval period. Because it is something that will get leveled as an accusation against people that they bathe too much and then people will go, oh, yeah, see, because medieval people are gross and they don't want you to bathe. But it's a comment on are you in the bath houses? Not a comment on are you bathing too much. The idea here is if you're in the bath houses, that could be a brothel. And also it is a place where people will just like go to get some action.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Still is like. I mean, it's mostly confined to gay culture today in Europe, but, like, the gay bath houses are still very much with us.

[Kate Lister]

Exactly. And for example, now swingers clubs oftentimes will have like, swimming pools and things like that. And it is kind of a place.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

That they clean that out regularly. Let's hope that the water is clean and fresh. Fresh in there.

[Kate Lister]

I am begging. But it is one of these things where it's a place that you go, it's warm, you're taking all your clothes off, there are often kind of curtains around your private bathtub, which do a couple things. It helps keep the heat in.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

That's.

[Kate Lister]

That's one thing that's nice. And also, if you don't want any hanky panky, then no one's going to see you naked if you don't want to. But a lot of people Want you to. So it is a place where you can hook up. It's a place for assignations. If you live with your parents still, as a lot of unmarried folks do, it's a place where you can go shag your boyfriend.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Right.

[Kate Lister]

Or it is a place where you can just, like, meet people in a sexy way. So that is one thing that's happening. And so when you see condemnations about people who bathe too often, it's actually a condemnation about. Yeah. Being a hot little slut.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

I see. Okay. It must have been. It must have been awful if, like, you just wanted a bath. Like, if you just wanted. Just like I'm. I just want to be clean. That's. And now I'm surrounded by these perverts.

[Kate Lister]

I mean, there's bathhouses and bathhouses. It's probably a little bit easier. Like, say you're a resident of Paris and that's all you want to do is just go to the no hanky panky bathhouse. You're going to know which one that is.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

I do remember now reading a notice somewhere. It was in France. The medieval bathhouse had to put up notices going, we're not that kind of bathhouse. I'm paraphrasing. But they had to repeatedly put signage up to go, no, we're not that. So, yeah, maybe that. Maybe people just knew where to go. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And it is kind of one of those things where you just sort of know and you know, we have a really similar situation now, for example, with massage parlors, where it's not always abundantly clear if you were someone who just wants a massage.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah. Late at night on a Friday, Whether.

[Kate Lister]

That place is for you can happen. Listen, I have a lot of needs.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Fate. So that must happen all the time. People getting that one messed up.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Right. And so that is a really similar sort of vibe is the way to think about it. So if you got a lot of money, you can go to the bathhouse as much as you want. Especially in urban context. In a rural context, they often have like a village bathhouse, too. It's especially common. You know, it's a really big kind of. In Eastern European cultures, for example, they really, like, they'll have the village bathhouse. And that's similarly like, you can go get your flirt on.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Oh, it's interesting. I wonder if we could bring that back. Just like local bathing with your mates. I don't know. Maybe we're past all of that. No, maybe we could never bring that back.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, I. Listen, all you got to do is go to Hungary or go to Japan. I know you, you know, it is there. It's. It's all happening. Like, I'm like, girlies, let's go. We're gonna have a sauna. It's gonna be great. But like, you could afford that all the time if you're wealthy in the city, if you're less wealthy in these contexts. So, I mean, like, the village bathhouse is, you know, a little bit more inexpensive, but you'll probably go once a week and give yourself a good scrub down.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Okay.

[Kate Lister]

You know, Saturday, that's a big. That's a big day for it because you want to look nice on Sunday.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

So like, Saturday is the big day, but people kind of will go whenever. So it's just sort of like one of those things where, like, when can you afford it?

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

How much would it cost?

[Kate Lister]

Just it really kind of depends on where you're going. So obviously it's more expensive in Paris, because everything's expensive in Paris. But we do know, for example, in Budapest, prices are pretty reasonable. And you know, it's going to be kind of like the equivalent of like maybe like an hour's worth of work for the average laborer. So that's not so bad. It's not terrible.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Okay.

[Kate Lister]

You know, but it is something where you're going, you know, and kind of like kids go free, right? Like bring your. You can bring your kids.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Not to the weird ones, though.

[Kate Lister]

They wouldn't be going in. They are like, you cannot bring those guys.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Cannot bring them in there.

[Kate Lister]

I guess that's a good test. Like bring your kid with and see if they're like, no.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Something. Because what I'm imagining here is like a Roman bath house or like a modern day sauna. But it doesn't sound like it would be like that. This is more like a room with loads of bathrooms, baths in it. That people are sat in with a curtain.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Like, a lot of them are private. A lot of them are private. And so, you know, even in Paris, there's like a guild, there's a bathhouse guild where you need to be a part of it. And it's really interesting because this is like a big industry for women. Women run bathhouses a lot of the time.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Interesting.

[Kate Lister]

But then of course there's like a glass ceiling in the Parisian bathhouse guild where you can join as a woman, but you can never run it.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Thanks for that. That's great. Cheers. Patriarchy.

[Kate Lister]

So we tend to have a lot of those. And that's just something that an enterprising person can do. There are places that have municipal baths. So it is oftentimes a project of kind of like urban revivification or something that a lot of times queens will do as a form of charity. So, again, in Budapest, the municipal baths are set up by a queen who comes over from Constantinople, where the municipal baths are a big thing. And she's like, well, here's what I'm gonna do.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Okay.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, we're setting up. We're setting up soon.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Makes it sound quite respectable then. Like, if the queen setting up, the queen wouldn't be set. Well, I mean, maybe some would, but I can't imagine she's setting up a brothel. Just. There you go. How about it?

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, the municipal ones are just. Not that. It's not that kind of party. Yeah, the municipal ones, those are the ones where you're kind of gonna go down with your family. They're actually going to wash. Yeah. And the cost is usually incredibly defrayed, so. And that is where you're going to get, like, the big. Okay, here's a huge. Like, a pool. Here are these things. They're big on steam rooms. They really like that. So, yeah, they will often kind of like make a steamy room. That's something that they do. And, you know, so there is this. This civic thing if you are in a village, you know, because, like, everyone's going to have to get together if you have a bathhouse and kind of like, do that. Which. Which people will do. But you also still might scrub at least once a week in a tub in your own home.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Okay.

[Kate Lister]

The reason you only do it once a week is it's an absolute bol ache. Water is heavy.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yes. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And that's the thing. Everyone forgets. Right. You know, so now it's difficult. Yeah. I just, like, turn on a pipe. A plumber has figured this out for me. And my bath fills with hot water, and it's brill, you know, but if you want a bath in the medieval period, you need to go get the water, heat the water. You then need to heat up the water, and then you got to put the water into the tub, and then you got to get it into the tub. That is a lot of moving water around. So you're only kind of gonna do it as much as.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

A couple of years ago, my hot water went off, and I love a bath, and I thought, oh, I'll heat the water up on the stove and fill the bathtub up. No, I gave up. Like, before it was even halfway through. It was such A massive pain in the ass. And the water didn't stay very hot in the tub either, because by the time I'm, like, filling it up, the water that's in there, it was just a disaster.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. And that's the thing to keep in mind, is that you're doing this in a wooden tub. So oftentimes people have their tub in front of the fire because it's not that warm. And so. Yeah, it's just like a whole thing. Right. So that. That is part of the reason why they're only going to have a limited number of baths. But I hasten to stress here that that's true until everyone.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Until very recently, my grandma used to tell stories about, you know, the aluminium bathtub that came out on a Sunday evening that the kids were washed in.

[Kate Lister]

Exactly. It is as common in the modern period as it is in the medieval period. There isn't a huge difference here at all whatsoever. And then what you do instead for the rest of the week is you just kind of do a daily wash and for this, a lot easier. That's what they call. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you know, you just heat up enough water, you stand in a wooden tub and you just do the smelly. How to give it a. What? You get yourself wet, you soap everything down, and then you pour. It's like a shower. It's like a poor man's shower. Right. And that is incredibly common and what people are doing all the time. And it's very much something that is considered necessary to participate in society. Like, they really. They really do enjoy being clean. And one of the reasons that you can kind of tell that they enjoy being clean is you sometimes, if you are gunning for sainthood, give it up.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Okay.

[Kate Lister]

Because it's a form of asceticism.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Oh, being dirty.

[Kate Lister]

So, like, if you want to be. So if you want to be a saint, and granted, this is only open to rich people. Like, if poor people want to do this, everyone's just going to be like, ew, a starving, dirty, poor person. Right. But if you want to be a saint and you're some rich guy, one of the things that you do is you, like, go vegan and you wear rough clothing. So hair shirts, which are shirts that, like, intentionally rub on your body so that you are constantly, like, you give up sex, obviously. You give up wanking, obviously. And some people take it to this other extreme where they also don't bathe.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Wow. Okay.

[Kate Lister]

And now we know that that is considered uncomfortable because that's why they're doing It.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Which. That's the point.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah. Which establishes the fact that they really do want to do it. They're giving up something important.

[Kate Lister]

So if you're like Saint Simeon the stylite, for example, the dude who, like, goes and hangs out on top of the pillar, like, obviously you're not getting a bath in.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

You're on top of a pillar. You just gotta wait for it to rain or whatever. You know that that's what's going down. And the discomfort is the point. So it's seen as uncomfortable. It's also seen as something that is going to keep people at arm's length. You know, they're not going to be winning friends and influencing people in those situations.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And so that is incredibly helpful. So it's also meaning there's no way that I can go back on my vows. I'm not going to be out partying. I'm definitely not going to be hooking up with anyone because no one wants to be around me.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Right. I'll be back with Eleanor after this short break.

[Blue Apron Advertiser]

Mom, I like to propose a dinner optimization plan for 2026. Soccer practice every week. Get back late and you're stressed out about making something fast but actually nutritious for dinner. When Ashley's mom picked me up, I noticed that she made Blue Apron. It came like a little kit. And by the time it was ready, I still had shin guards on and it was real food. Fresh veggies, protein, actual flavor. Take her from the younger generation. We're innovators. Giving a couple Blue Apron meals around. Not the worst idea. Get $50 off your first two orders.

[Kate Lister]

Plus free shipping with code STIR50.

[Blue Apron Advertiser]

Terms and conditions apply. Visit blue apron.com terms for more.

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Why choose a sleep number Smart bed.

[Kate Lister]

Can I make my site softer?

[Reggie]

Can I make my site firmer?

[Friend 1]

Can we sleep cooler?

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting. J.D. power ranks sleep number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and online. And now, the more you buy, the more you save on bed beds, bases and more. Plus, get free premium delivery on any bed with base limited time. For J.D. power 2025 award information, visit J.D. power.com awards check it out at Asleep Number store today.

[Reggie]

Reggie, I just sold my car online.

[Kate Lister]

Let's go, grandpa.

[Friend 1]

Wait, you did?

[Reggie]

Yep. On Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame. You don't Say yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast.

[Friend 1]

Wow, Way to go.

[Kate Lister]

So, about that picture frame.

[Reggie]

Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

[Kate Lister]

Lunch was great, but this traffic is awful. Um, can we stop at a bathroom? Are you alright? I keep having stomach issues after eating.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Like diarrhea, gas and bloating, abdominal pain and sometimes oily stools.

[Kate Lister]

Sound familiar? Those stomach issues may actually be a pancreas issue called exocrine pancreatic insufficiency or epi. CRE pancrelipase may help manage epi. Creon is a prescription medicine used to treat people who can't digest food normally because their pancreas doesn't make enough enzymes.

[Creon Advertiser]

Creon may increase your chance of fibrosing colonopathy, a rare bowel disorder. Tell your doctor if you have a history of intestinal blockage or scarring or thickening of your bowel wall. If you are allergic to pork or if you have gout, kidney problems or worsening of painful swollen joints. Call your doctor if you have any unusual or severe gastrointestinal symptoms or allergic reactions. Take Creon as directed by your doctor and always with food. Do not chew capsules as this may cause mouth irritation. Other side effects may include blood sugar changes, gas, dizziness, sore throat and cough. These are not all the side effects of Creon. 800-633-9110 or visit creoninfo.com to learn more. That's C R E O-N info.com I'm.

[Kate Lister]

Asking my doctor about EPI and if Creon could help. The other way.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

I think that you can tell it's really important to them is that when you read descriptions at the time of when somebody's complimenting somebody, they almost always talk about their breath. It's almost teeth is usually in there. Oh, that might be a later thing but normally like teeth turn up a lot.

[Kate Lister]

Oh yeah, they have nice teeth.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Teeth and sweet breath and that they smell nice. That is repeated again and again and again.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, we absolutely see. There is a guide for poets that is written in the 12th century called the Ars versifactoria. Rolls off the tongue. Basically it is a guide that tells poets. Here's how you write poetry of all sorts and within it they talk about you say a chick is hot. Obviously like how do you. How do you write a beautiful woman? And having white teeth and honeyed breath is absolutely necessary. And it is like teeth like snow or like Ivory. Yeah. Breath like honey. Yep. And they do brush their teeth, so they. They have toothbrushes or they will use kind of like things like licorice root, kind of like, give it. Give it a go. And they usually have better teeth than their modern counterparts. So, again, if you're comparing dental conditions between people in the medieval with, for example, people in, say, I don't know, the 18th century, when sugar is much more easy to get hold of, you will find better dental conditions among medieval folks, because you can get sugar. You can, but it's like massively, massively expensive. And you can get honey for sure. But, like, the things that ruin your tooth enamel are wildly, wildly expensive. And so they're just completely out of reach. You know, nobody. Nobody is chowing down on chocolate bars. Right. Like, no one is able to get hold of these things because they just do not exist yet. So you're going to have better dental hygiene just by default than is like your average Georgian, for example, a group of people that no one ever insults the cleanliness.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

No, no, they would have been absolutely stinkier. I think Georgian scholars can come at us for that one. You do. If I remember the Canterbury Tales correctly, in the Miller's Tale, there's this kind of fawning fop called Absalom, and we're told quite specifically that he keeps his breath fresh by chewing herbs and he does that to try and get close to women.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, well, you know, that's the thing is, like, if the breath be stinking, the ladies don't want it. Right. And so, yeah, you absolutely will chew on herbs. A lot of people wear perfume, they'll make their own perfume. And, you know, a lot of people also make their own perfumed soap. We find lots and lots of recipes for perfumed soap. Soap for, you know, those babes who are balling on a budget. Right. If you're making your own soap at home, they're like, oh, you could add herbs to this, you could add lavender, you can add rose, if you've got it. You know, it's just sort of like, what do you have around the shop? Obviously, there is also professionally made soap, especially in places like France, so Marseille, they were already making soap in the medieval period. That's how long they've been making industrial quantities of soap. So fancy people like the nobility, or indeed, if you are, I don't know, say, a cloth maker in Bruges, you might have professionally made soap, but most people are making their own and we have all of the stacks of recipes for what it is. That people are doing. And again, that remains common into the modern periods. You know, if you go to the countryside of England in the 18th century, people are still making their own soap. They're not buying it, you know, so it's not something that changes really at all.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

What about clothing then? Because that's one of the other ideas about that. It's kind of difficult for us to comprehend today because fast fashion is such a thing. And if people go to their wardrobes, like everyone has so many garments of clothing, like some people, ludicrous amounts. But to a medieval person looking at our wardrobe, they would be stunned by how much stuff we've actually got. We live in this real throwaway, fast fashion era. But you don't have to go back that far again for people to be talking about Sunday best clothes.

[Kate Lister]

And yet. So people do have Sunday best clothes. So they'll, they will have things that they specifically wear to church or things that they wear on holidays. You know, things that you wear to the local fair. You know, you're gonna have like something nicer, nice stuff to put on. But you know, a day to day, like. Yeah, for sure. Like you maybe will have of your main stuff that you wear. And so that is going to be sort of underwear that you wear, which is usually linen. And so that is going to be. You're going to have a slip. You might have a kind of like bloomer situation that is going on. And then over that you're then going to wear woolen clothing. So that is all breathable. And this is the thing. There's no such thing as unnatural fibers in the medieval period. Right. And so things stay a little bit cleaner and also they smell a little bit less because, you know, polyester. Yeah.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Once it starts stinking, it stinks, doesn't it? And you can never quite get it out, the smell of it.

[Kate Lister]

This is a thing that I always kind of joke about with my friends where it's like, if you go back in time to the medieval period, the major thing they're going to be like is like, what are you wearing in terms of cloth?

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yes.

[Kate Lister]

They're going to be like, I don't understand what this is. Because they understand wool and they understand linen and derivations thereof, they understand silk, but they're not wearing poly blends, babe. Yeah, like that, that's, that's not going to make a whole lot.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

How do you keep your clothes clean? I mean, if you've got it. Because I sort of imagine that they would be largely, especially the poorer people wearing kind of the same thing day in, day out. Because clothing is also expensive. Most people would be buying second hand rather than something that was made for them. How do you keep it clean if you've only got one or two shirts?

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. So you oftentimes are going to be more likely to be changing your inn clothes than your outer clothes. So that's the major thing. So you'll maybe only have a couple of woolen things that you wear on the outside, but you're going to have more linen.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

But still the linen gets washed regularly. There's usually like a wash day that will happen depending on the season. It happens in different ways. So you might have a wash day in the winter, maybe once a week, because you have fewer things to do. You know, if you're a peasant, like, you don't need to plow in the middle of January, nor can you. Right. And also it's going to be more difficult to wash clothing outside, which is where it usually gets washed. So you will either go down to a river or a stream or wherever. A lot of villages and cities also have just dedicated wash houses, places where this is where you take the laundry. And they will be by a water source. And you take everything down there. But what you do first is you soak all of the clothes in a combination of usually eggshells and lye. And you let them lye. Yeah. And water eggshells. Yeah. I don't know why the eggshells, but I'm just. For sure.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Okay, fair enough. All right.

[Kate Lister]

Don't know why I should probably figure that out. But listen, I'm too cute to have to know why.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

That just might be one of those random things that somebody did once. And now we're gonna do it forever.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. So now we're doing it forever.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

This is just what we do now. Eggshells.

[Kate Lister]

And so then you're probably gonna lug that. You'll then drain it off, and then you're gonna lug that down to the wash house. Right. And now usually the women, because let's be so real, it's women who are doing this. Usually the women all kind same day to help each other with the laundry. Because this is incredibly heavy work, you know, Wet clothes.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

You know, it's like. And I'm not talking wet clothes that have just come out of the spin cycle. Yeah, right. It's like these are soden and so you got to take them down there. And then, you know, in the summer or whatever, you then wash it up. You use. They have like laundry soaps. And then you rinse it in the river, and then you usually lay it out to dry, and then you kind of take it back home. And this will be like your bed sheets, all of your. Whatever it is that you have. In the winter, when it's going to be too cold to be in the wash house or something, you're going to do it a little bit more piecemeal in your own house. And you'll probably use kind of like the same tubs that you use in order to bathe. So that might be a chore that you even do every day where you're like, yeah, just throw it in.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah, okay.

[Kate Lister]

Like, let's get through it really quickly. Like in the winter, when you have fewer things to do. So depending on the season, you approach laundry differently. And of course, if you're wealthy, you have someone who does that for you.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Of course you do.

[Kate Lister]

You know, like, you have a. A washer woman. And we have, like, named records of washer women. So, for example, at the. The Tower of London, we know the names of, like, the king's household's washerwoman. Yeah, yeah. And actually treated pretty well, like, given retirement sums.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Really? Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

So that's nice.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

That's all right. Yeah. Eleanor, what about periods? This is something that I get asked a lot. The students always wanted to know this one. Like, you're a 14th century girl. You've. You've got one outfit for. For the week, maybe another one for Sunday best, and some linen every month. What's. What's going on here?

[Kate Lister]

Rags.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Rags. There we go.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, yeah. So basically, you know, like, your linen eventually is going to wear out, especially from, you know, being washed in lye and eggshells, then, like, scrunched across a board, you know, like, that'll wear down. And so you put that to one side, and you make pads out of the rags, and then you fasten them around your waist with a belt, which, again, those period belts were common up into the 20th century. So that's what you do. So it's just basically a constant reusing of things. So, you know, much in the way where, you know, like now when you do dishes, like, you know, event, if like a sponge or something gets a little bit more manky, it kind of like gets downgraded from, like, counter sponge to, like, whatever. It's kind of the same thing with cloths. So you'll just always kind of have a little stack to the side that you use for that.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

I'll be back with Elena after this short break.

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Why choose a Sleep number Smart bed.

[Kate Lister]

Can I make my site softer?

[Reggie]

Can I make my site firmer?

[Friend 1]

Can we sleep cooler?

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side your sleep number setting. J.D. power ranks sleep number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and online. And now the more you buy, the more you save on beds, bases and more. Plus, get free premium delivery on any bed with bass limited time. For J.D. power 2025 award information, visit J.D. power.com awards check it out at the Sleep number store today. Hey, Sal.

[Reggie]

Hank. What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years.

[Kate Lister]

I just bought my car at Carvana.

[Sleep Number Announcer]

And it was so easy.

[Kate Lister]

Too easy.

[Reggie]

Think something's up? You tell me.

[Kate Lister]

They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price and it got delivered the next day.

[Reggie]

It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank.

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Yeah, you're right.

[Reggie]

Case closed.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Buy your car today.

[Sleep Number Announcer]

On Carvana.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Delivery fees may apply. What about toilets? That again, because that's the history of the toilet is often not fully appreciated for its role in maintaining civilizations. But that's a huge issue. Wherever you've got people, you've got shit. And we have to deal with it somehow.

[Kate Lister]

And I want to stress right now that the way that it is dealt with is not by throwing it in the road. You absolute mad men.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Sorry about that. I just felt that that was what I had to do.

[Kate Lister]

I don't know where that came from. Like, this idea that people are my.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

That's not true. That you just flung it out and went alone.

[Kate Lister]

There are laws about that. Like, there are. There are laws on the books in London where people are like, I swear to God, you know, like, because of course there are. Because you can't just throw. Yeah.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

When you actually say that out loud. Yeah. That doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Kate Lister]

Just think about it for like two seconds. Like, you know, here in London, one of the richest places in the entire world. Like, yeah, no, it's fine. Just throw it out the window. I mean, just. I'd say Garteloo.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yes.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Like, what are you talking about? Like, obviously, obviously you can't do that. Like, obviously rich people are not going to accept that. Like, please calm down. Right, so now do I love the toilet situation in the medieval period? Obviously I do not. Obviously I'm a spoiled 21st century person and I want like a nice toilet very close to my bed. But that's not what always happens. You will of course see privies anytime you go to a castle or, you know, and there's like, yo, like we've carved a hole. Yeah, there you go.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Feel convenient.

[Kate Lister]

And so that is really common in like monasteries, big places like that where you have like a lot of people that will usually drop to what is called a cesspit outside and then that will happen. Now in municipal buildings you might have a certain common situation like that. We see this, for example, in the Erfurt latrine disaster. I don't know if you're aware of this.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

I have heard that, but please go over it once more.

[Kate Lister]

In the late medieval period, everyone gets together in the Erfurt town hall and the floor collapses and everybody falls into the settlement pit that is underneath the floorboards and they all drown. You know, not good, not good, not good. And the, the thing that usually would happen with those sorts of things is there's people, God bless them, some of the best people who ever lived. The night soil men. And the night soil men will, whether it is a pit where everyone in the city goes and throws their things, or if it is a pit that is built into a municipal building, they'll go muck that out a couple times a month and they will cart it all away. Is often used as fertilizer in the countryside, but as a general rule of thumb it is taken away. It's a terrible job that kind of nobody wants, but it's remunerated pretty well, right? Obviously. So if you're kind of like a young working class guy, being a night soil man is a great way to make some money. And they exist because people are like, we need to get the sewage out of here. Yeah, right. Because there is a way of sewage management in the medieval period. Now in a village you often have kind of like toilet houses or something like an outhouse kind of situation where, you know, you probably need to do it yourself. Like the mucking out is probably something that you need to do, you know, I don't know how many times a month they'll do. It depends on the size of the pit that they have in the meantime. And what most people do have is chamber pots as well. So say it is January in a world without central heat and you just need to wee in the middle of the night. You are not getting up and going outside in like 3 below. That's not going to happen. So you just have a dedicated pot that is under your bed. You have a quick whiz and then you deal with it in the morning.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And again that will hold true into the Victorian period. You know, this is a very normal thing to do, but for some reason, anytime you're talking about chamber pots, anytime you're talking about a world with no plumbing, everyone goes straight to medieval people. And, like, medieval people are all nasty and they're the ones who are, like, throwing it out the window. And it's like, what? Everyone is doing this. You know, like, everybody. Everybody is doing this. And indeed, we do tend to see that it gets worse over time. So as populations increase in cities, this becomes more and more of a problem. So, like, again, Georgian London is going to be nastier.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

It's going to be worse.

[Kate Lister]

Medieval London.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

So they were quite industrious, the medieval people, when it came to recycling as well, weren't they? Because, like, and piss would recycle or they were reused.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. So it's kind of like, okay, yeah, you get that out of here. And now, sometimes in certain industries as well, people will actually, like, use urine. So, for example, tanners often use urine in order to treat leather goods, which is why I also like tanneries. It's like, you know, like leatherlane here in London, everyone always kind of talks about how leatherlane smells. Yeah, right. Because, like, the. The tanning process is gross. But if they're talking about how leatherlane smells, that's because it's unusual. Yeah, right. It's unusual that it smells that bad. Like, people wouldn't ordinarily notice it.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And it is true that cities smell more than the countryside. And it's something that medieval people remark upon where they're like, it gets a bit whippy in the city. But of course it does because there's just, like, more people around. It isn't because they are any grosser or any weirder with their sewage than modern people are. It's just that, yeah, listen, medieval London, like, especially by the 14th century, it's about 80,000 people. People within the square mile or whatever. And so, yeah, like, there. That's got to go somewhere. And all you've got to do is go to a really big city nowadays and be near a drain in the summer. Like, baby, when I lived in Tokyo, if you got too close to the sewage trains in July, you know, you would suddenly be like, oh, I am in the largest city in the world, aren't I? You know, it just becomes clear, Right. And I don't think that any of us would accuse the 21st century Japanese of being a particularly gross bunch of people.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

No, we would not. So as a final question, then, where do you think this idea that the medieval period was particularly stinky and dirty come from?

[Kate Lister]

Well, I think that there is just the ordinary chauvinism that we see against the medieval period. I don't know why people enjoy believing that they are somehow better than medieval period people, but they do. They really do.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

I mean, a lot of the Victorian stuff, again, because they went bananas for the medieval period period, but it was very much about othering themselves against it.

[Kate Lister]

Exactly. And I mean, part of this is Voltaire's fault, of course, because, you know, since Voltaire was like, oh, blah, blah, blah, that's the age of faith. I live in the age of reason. You just don't need to worry about what was happening in the medieval period that thousand years. Forget about it.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Forget it.

[Kate Lister]

They're clever, they're stupid, you know, so there is that that's going on. I think also within this, there's some kind of common misconceptions about the way that history works. Right. And one of the things that people tend to think is that history is just a process of people getting better all the time and they get better at things. So if you look at the Victorian period and how there have to be these major works to get, like sewage pipes in because the cholera epidemic is so bad, then you go, oh, well, if it was gross in the Victorian period, then it must have been even grosser in the medieval period. And it's like, that's not how it works because the cities are different and that's not how. How things or people will oftentimes look at the fashion for not bathing in the early modern period and think, medieval people did that.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Okay.

[Kate Lister]

As I'm sure you will learn, it's a gross misunderstanding as well of the fashion for not bathing in the end, because they're still keeping clean by changing their laundry a lot. I would still rather bathe. They'll talk about that Louis XIV thing where they'll be like, oh, he took two baths in his life, blah, blah, blah, or whatever. And then. And I'm like, okay, yeah, but Louis XIV lived hundreds of years after the medieval period, and they weren't doing that. But again, because people think about history as this process of things getting better. It's like, oh, well, if even Louis XIV didn't bathe, then how much grosser must everyone have been in the medieval period? And that's not how things work. Things change all the time. People go, then do different things in terms of fashion. People have different ways of relating to the concept of cleanliness. These things do different understandings of what.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

What clean means and shifting attitudes to how you get ill seem to play quite a lot into this factor as well. Like, as you're moving into the early modern period, there's a slight belief that comes in that you can get ill just through your skin.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. And so they tend to think that, oh, if you're really ill, then you shouldn't bathe or something, because that is going to open up. That's the one.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

That's the one. Yeah. That illness can get in that way somehow have.

[Kate Lister]

And medieval people don't really share that belief. It's not really something that we tend to see from them. And indeed you will see in some medical textbooks and things like that. They're like, oh, yeah, if someone is quite sick, like, give them, give them a bath and see what happens. Like, you know, heat them up, you know, because a lot of the time they're like, oh, yeah, well, this will be. Because, you know, you're, you're too cold and wet, so we need to get you, we need to get you hot. And you know, one of the ways that you can do that is by bathing. So. So it is just one of those things to keep in mind that it's not just a process of things are gross and then they get nicer. That's not how things work and there's just different ways of looking at the world.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Eleanor, you have been fabulous to talk to. You always are. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[Kate Lister]

Obviously you can come on over to Gone Medieval, where I host every Tuesday along with my wonderful co host Matt Lewis, who's on a Friday. You can also check out my book, the Once and Future Going Mediev Evil on women's roles in society. That does a lot of bath chat.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

It does, indeed it does. It's fabulous. Thank you so much. Will you come back again and talk to us more about medieval stuff?

[Kate Lister]

Whenever you want, baby. I'm at your disposal.

[Eleanor Jarnegger]

Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Eleanor for joining us. And coming up this year we will be getting even more filthy. And don't miss an episode by following us with wherever you found us today. And if you would like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email [e-mail] this podcast was produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again betwixt the sheets. The history of Sex Scandal in society. A podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Why choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed.

[Kate Lister]

Can I make my sight softer?

[Reggie]

Can I make my sight firmer?

[Friend 1]

Can we sleep cool?

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Sleep Number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your sleep number setting J.D. power ranks sleep number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in store and online. And now the more you buy, the more you save on beds, bases and more. Plus, get free premium delivery on any bed with base limited time. For J.D. power 2025 award information, visit J.D. power.com awards check it out at a sleep member store.

[Friend 1]

Today, the new year brings new health goals and wealth goals. Protecting your identity is an important step. Your info is in endless places that could expose you to identity theft leading to lost funds. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our restoration specialists will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Resolve to make identity, health and wealth part of your New year's goals. With LifeLock, save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com SpecialOffer terms apply.