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Rusty51 t1_j1ht9yl wrote

Bathing is not the same as washing. People washed themselves regularly usually by wiping down with wet and scented towels, and buckets of water. Those who lived near a body of water or streams would swim in there as well.

Almost no one had a bathtub to bathe in and in the Middle Ages bath houses were seen as places of prostitution so they stopped building them.

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Stargate_1 t1_j1htkue wrote

Fascinating, so bath houses were a common occurence before then? I did not realize

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alaninmcr t1_j1huo44 wrote

Bath houses were extremely common in the Roman Empire. The claim that they were often places of prostitution is also true.

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Thibaudborny t1_j1i0a48 wrote

Not really, bath houses were still quite popular in the medieval era, including with ahum, company. It's onlyby the 16th century that the pendulum began to swing in the other direction.

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