In warm weather, it would appear, mediaeval ladies bathed in
streams, as we may still see countrywomen do in Russia, Bohemia,
and occasionally nearer home. The statement of the historian
Michelet, therefore, that Percival, Iseult, and the other
ethereal personages of mediaeval times "certainly never washed"
(_La Sorciere_, p. 110) requires some qualification.
In 1292 there were twenty-six bathing establishments in Paris,
and an attendant would go through the streets in the morning
announcing that they were ready. One could have a vapor bath only
or a hot bath to succeed it, as in the East. No woman of bad
reputation, leper, or vagabond was at this time allowed to
frequent the baths, which were closed on Sundays and feast-days.
By the fourteenth century, however, the baths began to have a
reputation for immorality, as well as luxury, and, according to
Dufour, the baths of Paris "rivaled those of imperial Rome: love,
prostitution, and debauchery attracted the majority to the
bathing establishments, where everything was covered by a decent
veil." He adds that, notwithstanding the scandal thus caused and
the invectives of preachers, all went to the baths, young and
old, rich and poor, and he makes the statement, which seems to
echo the constant assertion of the early Fathers, that "a woman
who frequented the baths returned home physically pure only at
the expense of her moral purity.
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