Top Medieval History Facts You Won’t See in Romance

The ConquerorKris Kennedy’s medieval historical novel made quite a splash on Twitter, particularly as it was hella-bargain at Books on Board. Jane and others had good things to say about it, and let’s face it – the medieval is not as frequently seen as it used to be.

While emailing with Kennedy last week, I asked her about the historical details that few really want to experience in the course of a narrative, and she was kind enough to write up a list of historical details we rarely see in medieval romances. Bring on the hilarity, and thank you to Kris Kennedy for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at historical research and details we might be better off not seeing in your nearest medieval romance.


There are just some things we don’t see much in historical romances.  Not that we don’t need to know those things.  We just, generally, don’t want to be thinking about them. 

As an author, you’re constantly deciding what to leave out and what to put in.  Historically accurate details often get left out for reasons other than ‘yuck’ factor.  Storytelling takes precedence.  You want to build the world, engage the reader, and propel the story forward.  And not make the reader gag.  Not gagging is good. 

 

In my debut release last month, The Conqueror, a medieval romance, I was constantly making these decisions.  I probably made mistakes , in part because every reader is different in this regard, the degree of realism she prefers.  But here are a few of the things we rarely see in a medieval romance, and maybe some of the reasons why. 

The Whole ‘Washing’ Issue, or; The Heroine Smells Like Lavender / Orange Blossom / You Pick The Scent

In the middle ages, they did not wash as much as we do.  It’s a lot of work to haul water and, in the winter, heat it up.  So the hero might have a hard time detecting the heroine’s pretty floral ‘perfume’ amid the general body aromas of the time.  A faint, lingering scene of lavender might not measure up to hard-working B.O. 

Then again, there were no processed foods, no pesticides/herbicides/antibiotics/etc being ingested by plant or beast, so I suspect the odors were much less . . . well, odoriferous.  And those hard-working field hands were not eating much meat which would also make them stink less. 

And the medieval person did wash, more than we might assume.  You can find pictures in illustrated manuscripts of people bathing, even with little canopies over them.  A man and a woman might bathe together, each in his/her own tub, toasting their good fortune in having servants to carry the heated water up the stairs.  There were also public baths, a left-over custom from the days when those communal-bathing Romans played with their weapons in the cold, dark north.  (Ques: Why *don’t* we see more public bath scenes in medieval romances?  :hmmm….plotting ahead…: ) It could become a whole event.

But in the end, after six months, one month, or even a week of hard work and sweat, yeah, someone’s going to smell like . . . themselves.  Unique and noticeable.  Maybe pungent.

But the hero might not care too much.  His heroine would be judged by the times, and everyone else around would have their own odors.  He might not be thinking, “Jeez, she’s funny and smart and hot and all, but whoa, does she stink!” 

I think we can expand this to almost all hygiene issues: people are judged by the customs of the times.  But the contemporary romance reader doesn’t always want to be making those mental value adjustments as she reads.  Such as . . . toothbrushing. 

We probably won’t often see the heroine picking food out of her teeth with a twig.  The villain?  Sure.  Give him an old stocking.  The hero?  Hmm…does it move the story forward?  No?  Ye-a-ah, I think I’ll leave it out.  In The Conqueror, there are no toothbrushing scenes.  Not a single reference. 

‘Course, there isn’t an abundance of toothbrushing scenes in contemps either.  But it’s an interesting factoid that I might want to include, but it tends to burn the bridges of identification enough that I leave it out.  Don’t want the reader thinking, ‘There’s no WAY I’d let him kiss me.”  Kind-of destroys the ‘romance’ piece of a romance.

Dig Your Privacy?

Too bad.  In a romance, the hero and heroine usually get a lot of alone time.  Their bedchamber is a place of privacy.  But that was not always the case.  Early on, privacy was considered rude, and even without the social strictures, these were usually cramped quarters, even in castles.  Rooms were small—easier to heat—and people got together for almost everything.  Often, even nobles had big old beds so that hero, heroine, their children could sleep together. 

Hey, you’re thinking, some of us do that now.  How true.  But how about servants?  A few key knights?  In the dead of a freezing (literally) winter, that wasn’t uncommon.  It could mean the difference between life and death. 

Think of the possibilities.  Yet I’ve never read a romance with four or five of them in bed together.  (:begins more mental plotting:)

And in villages, huts were often shared with the farm animals.  More fun.  In The Conqueror, for example, there is such a scene, cows and people sharing a home, but it’s definitely not the hero’s house.

Dig meat?

Unless you were rich, too bad.  Not much of that.  The good news is, that’s a good beginning to a heart-healthy diet, all those grains and vegetables.  But not raw.  Raw vegetables were thought to be bad for the digestive system. 

Dig your dog? 

Let him sleep with you?  Feed him off the table?  Sure, why not?  Well, then why make him go outside to relieve himself?

They didn’t back then.  Thus, those rushes on the floor (and in winter, straw), scattered through with herbs and flowers to alleviate the stench. 

And while we’re at it, bring in the horses, and your prized hawk too.  Because the lord of the castle was a bird-loving man.  (Stop.)  I mean a hawk-loving man. And he had a relationship with his hawk.  (Stop that.)  It was very common to have Hawk with him all the time.  On a perch behind his seat (or on his shoulder) at meals. In the bedroom. Wherever. And birds definitely do not get potty-trained.

(Oh, and much as they loved and needed their animals, the average medieval person may not have been able to wrap his mind about the concept of animal shelters, but we sure can.  Check out the charity fundraiser hosted by SB and Dear Author in Edith Layton’s memory, to support animal rescue efforts.  Now, back to the regularly scheduled history tour.)

If You Were Cold… 

Too bad.  If you were in Northern Europe/England, we’re talking like, really cold.  There was a what’s known as the Little Ice Age smack in the middle of the Middle Ages, but even without that, castle and village life was pretty cold.

Of course, they had really warm blankets. Furs.  And rooms were small, to conserve heat.  Rugs or tapestries covered the walls and helped a little.  And, of course, there would be a lot of people there with you to help spread the heat.  But still, it’d be cold.  Really cold.  Yet we rarely see the heroine performing her morning toiletry by plunging her hands through the layer of ice that’s formed in the water bucket overnight.

If You Were Sick…

Bring on the leeches. 

I have never, ever seen a hero in a romance get ‘hung with leeches.’ (That’s what what they called it.  Is that not bad enough?)  I’ve never seen a romance heroine hung with leeches.  It’s probably not going to happen much, at least not on-screen. (SB Sarah: And thank God for that. I’d start thinking about that scene in Stand By Me.)

Body Parts Strewn

Seriously.  People would have a lot of missing body parts.  Teeth, arms, ears.  Malnutrition, battle, tournaments (especially the early ones) and a multitude of bad accidents with various implements of destruction/farming/milling, populated the medieval town or castle with a motley-looking crew.  Still, we rarely see our heroes missing arms or eyes.  Unless they’re a pirate, of course, with the patch and all.

The Frequent and Varied Uses of Urine

Urine was a very useful agent in the middle ages.  It was used for everything from working wool to building plaster.  They used it as a cleaning agent and to diagnose illnesses.  And it keeps the hands nice and soft!  Mmmm. 

The ‘Facilities’

Not a pretty thing.  When privy chambers were inside a castle, there was simply a chute that ran to the outside, and straight down the wall.  Some of the refuse might make it into the moat or other defensive ditch surrounding the castle.  Some would stick along the way.  Even today, centuries later, many castle walls are still stained.

Only villains have these sort of walls.

And then there’s the accoutrements.  We have toilet paper.  They had . . . straw.  Or moss.  Or soft leaves.  Sometimes in richer homes, there’s been a linen cloth.  Or . . . your hand.

Okay, that is so not in my book.

Food was highly colorful and wildly spiced…

Often to disguise the fact that the meat was rancid. Fortunately, if you were a peasant, you wouldn’t be getting much meat.

The Good News:

Drinking ale was good for you.

The medieval person didn’t get a lot of vitamins, particularly A, C, and D, and in general, especially amid the lower classes, they didn’t get a whole lot of calories either.  No, this isn’t the good news.  The good news is that, as a result, drinking ale fortified you, especially with calories. 

Yay, ale!  Yay beer! (Fun note: it was called beer after they discovered it was much much better to add hops instead of bark or leaves, about mid-16th century).  And this, we do see in romances.  A lot of drinking.  (Not water, for reasons related to the above, see: The ‘Facilities’.) 

And I suppose, in the end, treated water or no, our relationship with wine and beer is something that hasn’t changed very much after all these centuries. 

So, what about you?  What sort of ‘history’ do you see/want to see/not want to see in your historical romances?  Any other interesting historical realities we just don’t see much in a romance?


SB Sarah says: I happen to LOVE the fact that just about every heroine in historical times, whether in the description in the text or portrayed on the cover, has hairless legs. My theory: all the time-travel heroines secretly brought cases of Nair for the historical heroines. 

Thanks to Kris for Fun with Rather Revolting History! What are your favorite historical facts that would never make it into romance?

 

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  1. earthgirl says:

    @Randi and Kris—yes, but what did they do for periods? Did they stick moss in their underpants?

    @Lisa—Thanks for clearing me up.

  2. Julianna says:

    I remember hearing that those big collars that Elizabeth 1 made so popular, were to catch lice. Anyone know anything about that?

    I did some research on ruffs while I was looking into Shakespeare’s London.  The big starched ruffs started as just the edge of your undershirt showing at your neck.  Over time they got longer, more elaborate, more starched, etc. etc. until they were these huge purgatorial pie-frill things you could hardly eat over.  I never heard anything about lice, though!

  3. Randi says:

    Kalen: I can’t remember where I heard/read that. It was probably over a decade ago. But this is what Wiki has:

    They served as changeable pieces of cloth that could themselves be laundered while keeping the wearer’s doublet from becoming soiled at the neckline.

    It’s not a lot, and it’s Wiki, but…

    earthgirl: exactly! AND, most bloomers or their ilk (like a combination), had the seam open at the crotch, so…how does that work when you have your period?

  4. Kalen Hughes says:

    @Randi and Kris—yes, but what did they do for periods? Did they stick moss in their underpants?

    Ok, I’ll step up to this one since I have done a ton of research and I get asked this question every time I give a workshop on the history of underclothes: THERE IS ZERO DOCUMENTATION ABOUT WHAT WOMEN DID BEFORE THE VICTORIAN ERA.

    Zero.

    As in Nada.

    None.

    Whenever the topic gets brought up there is a ton of speculation, ranging from “nothing, they bled on their shifts” to “rags” to “Pessiaries” but the plain, simple truth is that there is not one shred of documentation before the 1850s.*

    As it’s never been germane to any story I’ve written, I just leave it behind the veil (along with the toothbrushes). 

    *If you have something, I’d LOVE to see it.

  5. JennyME says:

    I personally would be quite happy if I never had to read another description of any character’s smell in a romance novel. Do I need to know that the hero smells like leather and “male”? Do I care if the heroine smells of lavender? Not really. Certainly I don’t go around describing people’s smells in real life. Oh lord, and Julie Garwood’s medievals always mentioned somebody (usually the hero, I believe) smelling like the sun. WTF?

    Different strokes, I guess. I’m trying to think of an instance when the smell description really added something to the story…I did enjoy the description in Not Quite a Husband of the heroine’s soap smell, only because it was so different from the usual, but in general I find any mention of smell or hygiene pulls me out of the story because I start to wonder what life was really like Back Then.

    Great post, though! I’ll definitely look for The Conqueror—I love medievals and wish there were more of them these days.

  6. ladypeyton says:

    Medieval gentry actually did not go around stinking to high heaven and throughout a great deal of the period were actually very concerned about personal hygiene.

    One has only to read medieval manuscripts like The Babees Book or some of the many medieval herbals available today to know that.

  7. Kalen Hughes says:

    Kalen: I can’t remember where I heard/read that. It was probably over a decade ago. But this is what Wiki has:

    They served as changeable pieces of cloth that could themselves be laundered while keeping the wearer’s doublet from becoming soiled at the neckline.

    It’s not a lot, and it’s Wiki, but…

    This is what all shirt collars and ruffs did.

  8. Kris Kennedy says:

    Earthgirl~
      Again, not something I’ve studied in any great depth (or any depth at all) but I think they used, essentially, tampons.  A small rag rolled up and inserted, with a thread tied around the end, to assist in removal.  I assume they didn’t use a rag like we might a pad, as there wasn’t ‘underwear’ as we know it. 

      And perhaps, thus, the phrase, ‘on the rag’?

  9. Kalen Hughes says:

    earthgirl: exactly! AND, most bloomers or their ilk (like a combination), had the seam open at the crotch, so…how does that work when you have your period?

    Both of these garments are Victorian, and we know that they used sanitary belts and washable rags/pads. Underpants for women in England dates to the early 1800s (before that they’re all going commando).

    I’ve seen images of German women wearing underpants, but all of the images are allegorical and are making a point about the woman “wearing the pants in the family”, so they can’t be taken as proof that German women were actually wearing underpants as men did.

  10. Scrin says:

    I’ve always liked how people assume that the swords and stuff were so dang heavy.

    Really, I’ve seen numbers as high as forty pounds.

    As much as my internet researches can tell me, the heaviest double-handers still around today are, like, 12 pounds (not an exact figure). For a weapon that’s big because it’s ceremonial and meant to be impressive.

    The business items were smaller and lighter.

    I mean, really, like eight pounds. Even lighter for something that’d allow you to, I don’t know, carry a shield or the flailing maiden of your choice over your shoulder as you fought off the Green Priests of the Mad Snake God.

    And don’t get me started on the armor.

    A suit of plate mail isn’t significantly heavier (and may not be at all heavier; my memory’s going on me) than what some of the soldiers in Iraq are carrying on their back. And, furthermore, it’s spread all over the body. Sure, your range of motion is a bit restricted, but after a while it apparently wasn’t hard to move in.

    Next Episode: Why Armor Won’t Stop An Arrow.

  11. Kris Kennedy says:

    And Kalen again has the dirt on the research, which is awesome.  🙂

    I didn’t know there wasn’t any research on periods/ underclothes prior to the Victorian era, but I assume they did something for their periods.  Rags make the most sense to me, but as Kalen says, if it doesn’t serve a story point, why put in something that isn’t researched? (Or at least has been suggested and theorized about by 1-2 credible sources).

    That being said, I know, in my heart of hearts, women did not go around bleeding on themselves for 3-7 days a month.  Holy cow.  Aside from any other considerations, there would have been riots.  Men would have run screaming down the streets, jumped into the nearest sea, and drowned en masse.

  12. Kalen Hughes says:

    Whenever the topic gets brought up there is a ton of speculation, ranging from “nothing, they bled on their shifts” to “rags” to “Pessiaries” but the plain, simple truth is that there is not one shred of documentation before the 1850s.*

    And I will now contradict myself (sort of). While looking for a date for “on the rag” (which I pretty much knew had to be Victorian or later; and it is 1939 ‘JUSTINIAN’ Americana Sexualis 34 She’s got the rag on) I found this in the OED:

    1606 R. FIELD Of Church I. xviii. 35 The Prophet Esay pronounceth, that all our righteousnesse is like the polluted and filthy ragges of a menstruous woman.

    So there we have a 17th century comment on how women dealt with menstruation! Yea!!! I love finding new info to add to workshop.

  13. Anon76 says:

    OMG, Kris, you rock!

    Especially over the whole “bathing” thing. The practice of the roman style communal baths and bathing in general only became thought of as harmful when one version of the plague hit. I think the one in the mid 14th century. And even after that, it wasn’t uncommon for a priveleged (aka rich and titled) person to travel with his personal bath in tow.

  14. Kris Kennedy says:

    JennyME~
      LOL on not wanting any more descriptions of character smells!  🙂 
      Such descriptions have become invisible to me now in books.  I don’t read them; I skim.  I didn’t even realize it until you said this.

  15. We need to go back to the furry legs. All this waxing is exhausting.

  16. hollygee says:

    This reminds me of a secondary character in Sarah Bird’s The Boyfriend Club [terrible title, good book] who was a medieval romance writer attending a Luvboree in Texas.

  17. GrowlyCub says:

    Earthgirl,

    I’m not a paleoclimatologist, just an interested layperson, but I’ve seen quite a few scientific sources that state that the Little Ice Age began as early as 1250, and usually the time frame is given as from 1300-1850.  The first obvious sign, the Great Famine, occurred in 1315.  It’s true that the coldest periods didn’t start till the 16th century, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the Little Ice Age didn’t start until 1600.

  18. Kalen Hughes says:

    And don’t get me started on the armor.

    A suit of plate mail isn’t significantly heavier (and may not be at all heavier; my memory’s going on me) than what some of the soldiers in Iraq are carrying on their back. And, furthermore, it’s spread all over the body. Sure, your range of motion is a bit restricted, but after a while it apparently wasn’t hard to move in.

    Next Episode: Why Armor Won’t Stop An Arrow.

    Having worn a suit of plate, I can tell you it’s damn heavy, and don’t forget that there’s chainmail under large parts of it (which is really heavy!) as well as padded arming doublets and clothing. It’s certainly much heavier than cameos, a chemsuit, and body armor. And yes, you do get used to moving in it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still heavy (and jousting armor was even worse).

    Most plate would stop an arrow (and why you wore chainmail in the spots you couldn’t cover with plate). In fact, it would stop a bullet (that’s why many suits have a dent in the breastplate, that’s the proof that it had been tested). This is not to say that arrows didn’t get though, but they shouldn’t have (and in most cases they didn’t).

  19. Cecille says:

    @ Kalen

    Re: Bathhouses in Medieval German Duchies

    I don’t know if this is right, but off the top of my head- strangely this was discussed in history lessons in school, when I was a teenager in Germany- bathhouses were closed down eventually, beginning in the 16th century with the advent of syphillis. Since public baths were often used for prostitution and maids that worked in bathhouses had a reputation in accordance, as far as I remember, they earned a reputation for spreading ‘The French pox’, and closing them down was a way of trying to keep the disease from spreading. At least I remember my history teacher telling us that, and I vaguely remember reading somewhere about it too, but hands down, have no idea where to start looking for my source.

    *returns back to lurkdom* 🙂

  20. SB Sarah says:

    If there was any doubt as to why I love the conversations here, let it be known that there is nothing better than, “I learned in history class about the spread of French pox amid bathhouse babes!”

    This was never part of my history course. Thank God for the internet and for all of you folks.

  21. Kris Kennedy says:

    Kalen~
    Realized my response to you about public bathing didn’t come through as clearly as it sounded in my head.  My post implied, via a few misplaced commas, you’d made a point about the dangers of public bathing, when in fact the opposite was true.  I was was agreeing with (& expanding on) your point that there was public bathing in various cultures, despite any risks. (Ah, the joys of non-nonverbals and speedy cut-&-pastes)

      And yes, public bath houses were closed down for public health reasons at times.  And they always opened back up again. Interesting.

    Scrin~
      On armor . . .
      You make a good point.  Like Kalen said, I think it was pretty heavy, but then, these men trained with it, and wore it a lot, so to them it wouldn’t seems as heavy as to us.  They carry it better, and I’m guessing not notice it as much (which doesn’t mean not at all).  Armor did become heavier, to the point of ridiculousness, later on, when used for tournaments and other ‘show’ events.  But you make an excellent point: armor worn for battle had to be light enough to be useful.  Knights had to be able to move and ride and fight in that armor.  It couldn’t so heavy it was cumbersome or unwieldy.

      And…it was HOT.  People could die of heat stroke and dehydration as a result of wearing armor, especially in the heat.  And that’s usually when they’d be fighting: the ever-popular summer battle season.

  22. Kris Kennedy says:

    Chris~
      LOL—oh yes, let’s go back to furry legs!  🙂

  23. Jenne says:

    On believing that bathing was dangerous…
    “Swallow a mouthful of that wonderful cleansing bathwater and expect to be very sick in a week from cholera, typhoid, or dysentery.”

    Actually, the bathwater would be just the same sort of water that was used in cooking, brewing, or to water the wine, so you were exposed to the germs in the water quite regularly. But the belief that bathing was dangerous comes in in the late 1500s and flowers in the 1600 and 1700s, when you have rich people wiping with clean dry linen cloths and changing shirts but not washing, believing that dry rubbing was as cleansing but much safer.

    (Cholera, by the way, came to Europe from India, in the 1800s.)

    On the other hand, human-produced gas (burping and farting) was a major problem if the health manuals, manners manuals, and cookbooks can be believed!

  24. Anaquana says:

    And it’s conversations like these that make me love this site and all of you Bitches. 😀

  25. SB Sarah says:

    On the other hand, human-produced gas (burping and farting) was a major problem if the health manuals, manners manuals, and cookbooks can be believed!

    What do you mean WAS a problem!?!? STILL IS!!

  26. earthgirl says:

    @growly cub: Yeah, the Little Ice Age isn’t my area of focus. I’d just heard enough about it and the Medieval Warm Period to think Kris’s timing was off, but I was schooled by Wikipedia above.

  27. Kris Kennedy says:

      On the other hand, human-produced gas (burping and farting) was a major problem if the health manuals, manners manuals, and cookbooks can be believed!

    What do you mean WAS a problem!?!? STILL IS!!

    At my house it sure is.  And provides almost-endless entertainment for my preschooler son and husband.

  28. rebyj says:

    Great post! Farting heroes are a bit too much like real life ,leave them out!!

    Overall though life back then doesn’t sound much different than living in rural Kentucky in the 1960s .
    Outhouse perched over a creek. Didn’t stink but I don’t remember if anyone lived down hill? Enameled tin pee pot under the beds.
    Saturday night baths in a metal tub on the porch where the cleanest person went first. (gotta smell good to gotomeetin)
    Daily washing of course but in winter, yes you had to break ice to get to the water. The soap would burn a layer off our skin.
    There was one laundry day and it took ALL day.
    Standard medication was castor oil,  not leeches.
    If we didn’t grow it, we didn’t eat it. I think we were what the hippies wanted to be.
    Coca cola , not beer, was like THE BEST TREAT EVER!
    God I’m old.

  29. Sandra D says:

    I just finished Loretta Chase’s The Last Hellion and there’s a scene where the heroine browbeats the hero into being leeched.

  30. Jen C says:

    I love this list!  There is one thing that always gets me in just about every romance I read.  Picture it, hero and heroine touching stuff- babies, lakes, farm equipment, guns, horses- and then suddenly, her magic hoo hoo takes over and they are suddenly having sex.  He’s sticking fingers in her, she’s rubbing his stick of love and then putting it in her, and no one ever seems to wash their hands.  It really upsets me!  They did a study and found that’s really gross.

  31. K. Z. Snow says:

    Sad to say, common folk get short shrift in medieval romances, which all seem to twirl around the upper classes and royalty.  I’m sick to death of knights. 

    Two terrific nonfiction studies of the mid-medieval period (specifically, the fourteenth century) are Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror and John Kelly’s The Great Mortality, which focuses on the Black Plague.  The latter in particular offers glimpses into daily life, and it’s eminently readable.

  32. Randi says:

    Kalen, yeah I know those terms are Victorian (and I learned about the combination from the latest Sherry Thomas); I just couldn’t recall what they were called prior to that time period, and figured everyone would know what I was talking about. Which, basically, everyone did. 😉

  33. Melinda-K says:

    [ arrows wouldn’t pierce plate armor…]

    weeeelllll, not quite right.  The English longbow was actually pretty good at punching holes in plate when it was weilded by a pro.

    From: A Short History of the Longbow by C. Anton –

    Such was the power of the Longbow, that contemporary accounts claim that at short range, an arrow fired from it could penetrate 4 inches of seasoned oak. The armored knight, considered at one time to be the leviathan of the battlefield, could now be felled at ranges up to 200 yards by a single arrow. One account recalls a knight being pinned to his horse by an arrow that passed through both armored thighs, with the horse and saddle between!

    Modern tests have verified that this was indeed possible. A 700-800 grain arrow can pierce 9 cm of oak at close range, and 2.5 cm at 200 yards. No armor up to plate was proof against an arrow at less than 200 yards, and even plate could be penetrated at less than 100 yards.

  34. GrowlyCub says:

    Earthgirl,

    Not sure I’d trust Wikipedia, but I think there are plenty of scientific texts out there on this topic.  The Fagan was already mentioned.

    Have you read William H. Calvin?  If I remember right he had a bit about the Little Ice Age in ‘A Brain for All Seasons’.  His comments on the Atlantic conveyor belt and the current slowing of it scare the dickens out of me and that was in 2002.  I haven’t dared to look into what’s going on right now.

    FYI for everybody, ‘A Brain for All Seasons’ is looking at human evolution and abrupt climate change (aka the major ice ages) and I highly recommend it.  It’s very readable and utterly fascinating.

  35. Cyranetta says:

    It’s been so long ago that the details are hazy, but I remember reading Grace Ingram’s RED ADAM’S LADY and being enchanted with the footnotes about historical details, the one that stuck with me was that certain establishments (tanneries? soapmakers?—I said the details were hazy) had receptacles at the door for urine deposits, since urine was used in whatever they were doing.

  36. Laura (in PA) says:

    I am endlessly fascinated at the education to be found here.

  37. theo says:

    Where do you think the saying “three dog night” came from? If it was a bitter cold night and no covers would help, you dragged your dogs onto the bed with you. Thus, it was cold enough to have three dogs sleeping with you = Three Dog Night.  🙂  (or one, or four, but three is the common phrase)

  38. Deb Kinnard says:

    Egads, we of the Eternal Bitchery KNOW our medieval stuff!

    Roberta Gellis (one of nine names in my personal pantheon of writing mages) wrote THE ROPE DANCER some years back because there was so little medieval-set romance among the lower classes. A fascinating book, though all of hers are wonderful.

    Ladies in the 14th century were aware of halitosis. According to the herbals, they often chewed various herbs to sweeten the breath. One tooth-cleaning agent (assume they used a finger or a rag) was sage mixed with rock salt. I wouldn’t want to try it, give me the stuff in a tube anytime.

    The spoiled-meat-and-spices theory has already been well debunked, but I submit also the following: if you could afford meat, it came to your table fairly fresh from the hoof. There was no way to slaughter goat, pig or steer and keep it fresh for next week. Therefore if you were having a feast, you sent out your hunters and commandeered your provisions fresh. The spicing was more a matter of taste than preservation, although salting was heavily used. The spicing may have resulted from a desire to disguise the taste of salted meats, not spoiled ones. And as far as fish, google “stockfish” and see how they dealt with salt herring and cod during Lent.

    In my medieval time-travel romance (out next spring, thanks for asking), I had my time-traveler heroine remark on some of these nastinesses, but only once. One can afterward assume she became 1) inured to the various smells, although she does notice the pleasant absence of cigarette fumes and jet fuel); 2) accustomed to the sanitary facilities; and 3) inventive at concocting 14th century approximations for 21st century conveniences. I trust it works.

    Brava, Kris, for crafting a book I now want to read. And just WHY is his sword turned that way on the cover? I fear for his neck.

  39. GrowlyCub says:

    K.Z.

    I’ve only read a few medievals where both main characters were non-nobles and they were by Roberta Gellis, so you know they were high quality all the way around.  I enjoyed them, but they are not the ones I tend to re-read.  I might just have to break out Roselynde and Alinor again. 🙂

    I just think besides minstrels and traveling folk the lives of the peasantry and/or serfs were so circumscribed that there isn’t a whole lot of room for interesting stories.  Get up, work the fields, eat, have sex, repeat, die.  And quite honestly, if somebody wrote a story about an exceptional serf my anachronism meter would probably go off the scale.

  40. You know, I DID have a section about hairy legs.  Then I pulled it, as I was trying to cut space.  But you’re right!  Smooth silky skin might be something a romance hero notices, but I’m not too sure it’s an accurate.

    Hairy legs can be smooth and silky. Stubbly, short hair on legs won’t feel either smooth and silky, but if someone never shaves their legs, the skin and hair do feel smooth and silky. I suppose it might depend a bit on the texture of the individual’s hair (some cats and dogs, for example, have rougher coats than others), but still, I see no reason why one couldn’t describe hairy legs as smooth and silky.

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