![]() ![]() If a Swede were to steal less than a mark, he would not be prosecuted, unless it was stolen in a bath house-then he would be hanged. Crime in the bath house was considered heinous because of the bather’s naked vulnerability. However, because of its inviolability, anyone committing a crime inside a bath house was doubly punished. In medieval Sweden, the bath house was a legal sanctuary for criminals. This eventually led to jurisdictional conflicts between the bath house and bakers’ guilds. times tapped for a bath by a tube that carried steam into an adjoining room.In parts of Europe, bread ovens were some Medieval bath houses were used for socializing, but also as a place where physicians plied their trade. The French called them étuves Germans and Scandinavians knew them as bath houses (badstübe, badstue, bastue ). They were known as hot-houses, stews, sweat houses-whatever configuration of native words conveyed the idea of heat, sweat and enclosure. Although bath houses may have varied structurally, their laws, customs, and methods were virtually the same throughout medieval Europe. However, as the conquerors were driven back, the hammam went with them. In the south, conquering Turks and Arabs brought their hammam (a smaller version of the thermae) up the Danube in the Balkans, and into Moorish Spain. In any case, Dürer’s fifteenth century wood carvings, etchings and drawings of the German badstübe bear striking similarities to the Scandinavian bath, complete with birch-branch flaying and fanning. It’s not clear whether they introduced the Scandinavian type of sweat bath, with its hot rocks in a wooden room-or whether the locals were already using something comparable. Whatever else the medieval period may have been, it certainly wasn’t dirty.ĭuring the eighth and ninth centuries the Vikings terrorized the north (what is now Holland, Germany, Belgium and the British Isles), and eventually settled there. In the southern and central areas, Roman-style bathing flourished (although without the customs and symbology of the balnea), and in the north, Scandinavian bathing was popular. In fact, they enjoyed several types of sweat baths. Later, during the Middle Ages, bathing enjoyed so much popularity that we must question the portrayal of medieval Europeans as diseased and pest-ridden right up to the sixteenth century. However, with tens of thousands of balnea and thermae in Europe, bathing could not be completely eliminated. ![]() At the same time, the growing Christian church, anxious to wipe out all vestiges of pagan Rome, converted many of them into churches. When Atilla saw the elaborate metalwork adorning the thermae, he was more interested in converting it into weaponry than appreciating its aesthetics. During the upheavals that accompanied the fall of the Roman Empire, bathing practices in Europe experienced a sharp but brief decline.
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