Frazz by Jef Mallett for March 15, 2020

Back then, the water wasn’t safe to drink. I don’t know about bathing in it.

I’ve always wondered if the models in those old paintings are as clean as they look in the art work.

I’ve read about kings and queens centuries ago only bathing 2-3 times their entire lives. I wonder if the commonfolk were cleaner than the royals back then, or were they just as grimy?

Those gods were some pretty white whities, as well.

I have heard that Queen Elizabeth I really was into hygiene; – she had a bath every month, wether she needed it or not!

I think John Wesley was speaking in more of moral terms, not literally. As some have said here, most people back then didn’t bathe.

Exodus 30:17-21 ESV

The Lord said to Moses, “You shall also make a basin of bronze, with its stand of bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it, with which Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet. When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn a food offering to the Lord, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die.

If I had to tote the water, heat it on a wood-burning stove, I wouldn’t be taking many baths.

yep, only so much expensive perfume can handle

Standards and norms were so different back then. What are we doing now that people 500 years from now will look back and say, “What in the world were they thinking?”

The affluent were wont to congregate at Bath to bathe (immerse, not lave themselves) in hot springs mineral water for its supposed therapeutic benefits, I thought. Though I imagine waters of that type would only exacerbate the noisomeness of one’s personal aroma.

Oh, Caulfield…so wise, and yet so young…

Read about this recently. Apparently people in the 18th century & earlier believe that it was important to keep their skin pores closed to avoid letting the air penetrate their bodies carrying noxious substances. So they didn’t bathe because it opened the pores – which they regarded as dangerous.

Maybe in those days, cleanliness was next to impossible.

Being next to godliness doesn’t strike me as a very good recommendation for anything.

Reverend means “good” and isn’t limited to religious vocations.

If everyone told the absolute truth all of the time the human race would be in constant turmoil and far fewer than the 7+ billion we have today. It made good fodder for comedy.

Jef Mallett’s Blog Posts Frazz · 13 hrs · You have to imagine that, for whatever good intentions he may have had, Wesley’s sermon didn’t go over too well, coin-operated laundries being about as common then as showers and what the salons like to call “product.”

Although I don’t know who he was preaching to. If he was preaching to the masses, whom you have to assume were called the great unwashed for a reason, it’s easy to picture a lot of, “sure, I’ll borrow one of your servants any time, Mister Doesn’t-Know-How-To-Work-A-Plow.” If he was preaching to the era’s privileged few who did have access to a clean shirt once in a while, telling them to ignore the resentment from the grubbier ones as their good fortune was proof of their virtuous distance from them, well, he may have been onto something. Maybe The Truth, or maybe the future.

You know who could see the truth or the future was Oscar Wilde, who said that if you wanted to tell people the truth you had to make them laugh, otherwise they’d kill you. And that’s why Wesley’s dictum will never have quite the same impact as the exchange from Monty Python and the Holy Grail that begins, “How do you know he’s the king?”

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness” because both are hard to attain.

In the middle ages, it was thought that dirt and oil on your skin was a barrier to disease.Add to that the difficulty in filling and heating a tub (assuming you owned one, which is a big assumption for the average peasant) and you have lots of reasons for infrequent bathing.If you lived in near proximity to a river, the odds were a little better that you would clean yourself more often, just as they improved for nobles who had servants to do the menial work of getting and heating the bath water.And yet – the Irish were a clean people in spite of the same level of civilization, so…Some blame can be placed on the Church’s abhorrence of even husband and wife looking at each other while naked, in the prevalent belief that even married sex was wrong unless performed with the explicit purpose of pregnancy, and if you enjoyed it, you were wrong. I’m not a Catholic, but I don’t think that view is held to anymore.

A late comment but: I think the fifth panel is unclear. Maybe instead of saying "what’s it leave, "Frazz should have asked, besides bathing how else does one get wet? Or simply, religion.