Stinks like unto the wild beast!

The Europeans at all times considered Russia barbarous country. And we are often expressed about it in the same spirit. On these days I will not say, but we can confidently say that until the 19th century Russia, despite all the shortcomings, was the most civilized of European nations.
Many wistfully imagine old Europe with noble knights (ha ha ), ready to feats in the name of beautiful women ( ho-ho ), with beautiful palaces and gallant musketeers ( well, well ), with magnificent royal receptions and fragrant gardens of Versailles. Many people think: why I was not born (born ) in those beautiful days? .
Believe me - you are very lucky.
Until the 19th century in Europe prevailed horrifying savagery. Forget about what you see in the movies and fantasy novels. True - it is much less. hmm. fragrance. And this applies not only to the dark Middle Ages. In the chant of the Renaissance and Renaissance fundamentally nothing has changed.
By the way, sadly, but almost all of the negative aspects of life in the Christian church of Europe is responsible. Catholic in the first place. Now I understand Prince Myshkin, who said that ' Catholicism - is worse than atheism '.

The Ancient World built a hygienic procedures in one of my greatest pleasure is enough to recall the famous Roman baths. Before the victory of Christianity in one Rome had more than a thousand baths. Christians are the first thing came to power, close all baths.

By the washing of the body then folk treated suspiciously nudity - a sin, and the cold - you can catch a cold. Hot tub is unreal - worth much firewood is very expensive, the main consumer - the Holy Inquisition - and it is difficult enough, and sometimes had to replace the burning of a favorite quartering, and later - the wheel.

Spain's Queen Isabella of Castile (the end of the XV century. ) Confessed that in his whole life washed only twice - at birth and wedding day. The daughter of one of the French kings died of lice. Pope Clement V dies of dysentery, and Pope Clement VII painfully dying from mange (as King Philip II). The Duke of Norfolk refused to wash out of religious beliefs. His body was covered with an abscess. Then the servants waited until his lordship drunk dead drunk, and hardly washed.

Russian ambassadors at the court of Louis XIV, wrote that their majesty ... Themselves as Russian throughout Europe considered deviants because they went to the bath once a month - often ugly.

If the XV - XVI centuries rich citizens were washed at least once every six months, in XVII - XVIII centuries, they stopped to take a bath. However, sometimes had to use it - but only for medicinal purposes. By the procedure carefully prepared and placed before the enema. French King Louis XIV bathed only twice in his life - and that on the advice of doctors. Washing led the monarch in such horror that he had sworn never ever to take water treatments.

In those troubled times, body care was considered a sin. Christian preachers are called to walk literally in rags, and never bathe, because that way you can achieve spiritual purification. Wash could not yet, because I could wash away the holy water, which touched at baptism. As a result, people do not wash over the years or did not know any water at all. The dirt and lice were considered specific signs of holiness. Monks and nuns served the rest of the Christians an example of serving the Lord.

On the clean look of disgust. Lice were called ... The saints, both male and female, usually boasted of the fact that water never touched their feet, except when they had to wade the river.

People are so unaccustomed to water treatment that Dr. F. E. Biltsu in a popular textbook of medicine late XIX (!) Century had to persuade people to wash. ... Fear of this unfounded - Bilts wrote in his book ... ... Doctor few believed.

Perfume - important European invention - came into being precisely as a reaction to the lack of baths. The initial task of the famous French perfume was simple - to mask the terrible stench of unwashed bodies years of sharp and persistent perfume.

Sun King, waking up one morning in a bad mood (and this was his normal condition in the morning, because, as you know, Louis XIV was suffering from insomnia due to bugs ), the court ordered all the perfume. It is an edict of Louis XIV, in which he said that when visiting the court should not feel sorry for strong spirits, and their flavor drowned out the stench from the bodies and clothes.

Initially, these ... Ladies European Middle Ages, knowledge of the exciting action of the natural body odor, smeared her juices as perfume, skin behind the ears and the neck to draw the attention of the desired object.

With the advent of Christianity, future generations of Europeans have forgotten about the toilets flush and a half thousand years, his face turned to night vases. The role of forgotten sewage perform grooves on the streets, where the streams flowed stinking mud. Forgotten about the benefits of civilization of ancient people celebrated wherever they need now. For example, on the grand staircase of the palace or castle. The French royal court periodically moved from castle to castle, because the old is literally nothing to breathe. Chamber pots under the beds there were days and nights.

After the French King Louis IX ( the thirteenth century. ) Was poured shit out of the window, the people of Paris were allowed to remove the waste through the window, only three times previously shouted: ...

Originally nod was intended to just remove the stinking crap hat away from the sensitive nose ladies.

In the Louvre, the palace of French kings, there was no toilet. Emptied in the yard, on the stairs, on balconies. At the ...

The same happened in Versailles, for example, during Louis XIV, in which the life of the well- known for the memoirs of the Duke de Saint Simon. Ladies of the palace of Versailles, in the middle of a conversation ( and sometimes even during the Mass in the chapel or cathedral ), stood up and relaxed way, in the corner, celebrating the small ( and not) need.

Sun King, like all other kings, allowed the court to use as toilets and any other corners of the Versailles castle. The walls of castles were equipped with heavy curtains, made ​​in the corridors of deaf niches. But not it be easier to equip some toilets in the yard or just run around the park? . diarrhea. Ruthless, implacable, able to be caught off guard anyone, anywhere. With adequate food as a medieval diarrhea has been a permanent. The same reason can be traced in the fashion of those years on the men's pants, trousers, consisting of one vertical ribbons in several layers. Paris fashion for big wide skirt, obviously caused by the same factors. Although the skirts were also used for another purpose - to hide beneath the dog, which was designed to protect the beautiful ladies of fleas.



Did not have sewer medieval cities in Europe but had ramparts and the moat filled with water. It is the role of ... The walls were dropped into the ditch shit. In France, a heap of crap outside the city walls grew to such a height that the wall had to build on, as happened in the same Paris - a bunch of grown so much that shit was waddle back, and it seemed dangerous - what if the enemy has penetrated into the city, climbing the wall .

The streets were buried in mud and shit so that the thaw there was no way for them to pass. It was then, according to the extant chronicles, in many German cities, there were stilts, ...

Here's how, according to European archaeologists, this French knight looked at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries: the average growth of the medieval ... Unshaven and unwashed face of this ... Under the helmet of a knight in dirty matted hair of an aristocrat, and in the folds of his clothing in a variety of swarming lice and fleas.
Knight mouth smelled so strongly that modern women would be a terrible ordeal, not only to kiss him, but even to stand next to (alas, the teeth then no cleaning ). A medieval knights ate everything, drank it all sour beer and eating garlic - to disinfect.

In addition, during the next days on the campaign was a knight encased in armor, which he for all his desire could not remove without assistance. The procedure for putting on and taking off the armor of the time took about an hour, sometimes longer. Of course, all your need... celebrated a noble knight in armor right.

Some historians have been wondering why the soldiers Sallah al-Din's so easy to find Christian camps. The answer came very quickly - the smell.

If in the early Middle Ages in Europe, one of the main food was acorns, which are eaten not only commoners, but also know that later (in those rare years when there was no hunger) table been more diverse. Trendy and expensive spices were used not only to demonstrate the wealth, they also blocked the odor exuded meat and other products.

In Spain, women in the Middle Ages, so as not infested with lice, the hair is often rubbed with garlic.

To look pale, languid, ladies drank vinegar. Dogs, except for work by living bloholovkami, another way to beautiful women collaborated: In the Middle Ages, dog urine bleached hair.

Syphilis XVII -XVIII centuries, became a trendsetter. Gezer wrote that because of syphilis disappear every kind of vegetation on the head and face. So gentlemen, to show the ladies that they are very safe and does not suffer from this, began to grow enormously long hair and a mustache. Well, those who for some reason this did not work, come up with wigs, which, if sufficiently large number of syphilitics in the higher strata of society quickly came into vogue in Europe and North America. Socratic sages also ceased to be bald in high esteem to this day.

Due to the destruction of Christians cats bred rats spread the plague throughout Europe flea, why half of Europe died. Spontaneously, a new and much needed in those circumstances the profession Pied Piper. The power of these people in rats did not explain this except the devil, and therefore the Church and the Inquisition at every opportunity, dealt with the Pied Piper, thus contributing to the further extinction of his flock from famine and plague.

Methods of dealing with fleas were passive, such as sticks, chesalochki. Know the insects in their struggles - during lunch of Louis XIV at Versailles and the Louvre there is a special page for catching fleas King. Wealthy ladies, not to raise ... So there was a silk underwear, silk to the fleas and lice do not stick.

Lovers troubadours were collected off the fleas and transplanted to the lady, so that the blood was mixed in a flea.

The beds, which are sharpened on the frame legs, surrounded by a low grille and always with a canopy in the Middle Ages, becoming important. Such widespread canopies were very utilitarian purpose - to bugs and other insects with a nice ceiling is not poured.

It is believed that the mahogany furniture has become so popular because it was not to be seen bugs.

To feed a louse, as well as bugs, it was considered a ... The followers of St. Thomas, even the least dedicated, were ready to extol his dirt and lice, which he wore on his. Search for lice on each other (just like a monkey - ethological roots there ) - meant to give its location.

Medieval lice even actively participated in politics - in Gurdenburge (Sweden ) ordinary louse (Pediculus) has been an active participant in the election of the Mayor. Candidates for high office could be in that time only men with bushy beards. Elections took place as follows. Candidates for mayor sat around the table and laid on him their beards. Then inject a designated person at the center of the table louse. Elected mayor is the one in whose beard crept insect.

Neglect of hygiene cost Europe dearly: in the XIV century, the plague (...

Medical techniques to help at the time were primitive and brutal. Especially in surgery. For example, in order to amputate the limb, as the ' anesthetic ' was used a heavy mallet, ' Mallet ', which is a blow to the head led to a loss of consciousness, the patient, to other unpredictable consequences. The wounds burned with hot iron, or poured boiling water or boiling tar. Lucky for those who have just hemorrhoids. In the Middle Ages he was treated by cauterization with a hot iron. That means - get the fire rod in the ass - and free. healthy.

Syphilis is usually treated with mercury, which, by itself, lead to favorable poledstviyam could not.

In addition to enemas and mercury basic universal method, which treated all in a row, was bleeding. Diseases considered to be afflicted, and subject to the expulsion of the devil - ... At the root of the bloody superstitions were monks - ... Blood is allowed to all - for treatment as a means of combating sexual attraction, and for no reason at all - on the calendar. ... The main problem was the most flawed logic of such a treatment - if the improvement in the patient did not occur, then the output was only one - let the blood is too low. And let more and more, until the patient from loss of blood did not die. Bleeding as a favorite method of treatment of all diseases, was blown away, probably lives no less than the plague.

It was in medieval Europe and Surgery. Even if the surgeon has learned to cut quickly - and for this they sought, bearing in mind the Hippocratic, ... In ancient Egypt, attempts have been made already in pain V-III millennium BC. e. Anesthesia in Ancient Greece and Rome, ancient China and India, was carried out using infusions mandrake, belladonna, opium, etc. n. , In the fifteenth and thirteenth centuries BC. e. for this purpose was first used alcohol. But in Christian Europe had forgotten about all this.

Widely distributed in the Middle Ages drugs from corpses and bones crushed. Garmann also leads recipe for the ...

Deliberate disregard for the death and contempt for earthly life was manifested in the phenomenon of fashion in the human skull. Historian Ruth Weg, was amazed to this custom, widespread in Europe in the 18th century:.
' It is hard to imagine that a human skull was once the subject of fashion. Abnormal fashion was born in Paris in 1751. Ladies of the skull installed on the dressing table, decorated it with colored ribbons, placed into a lighted candle, and at times immersed in reverent contemplation '. But there is nothing particularly surprising here - in relation to such human remains deep-rooted. Christian millennium fostered the cult of relics. It is known that the early Christians lived in the catacombs, surrounded by corpses.

For the pagan culture that was unacceptable. Evnapy of Sardis in the IV century, described the desecration of Christian pagan temple of Serapis, ... collect the bones and skulls of people convicted of crimes and executed by a court, give them as gods and presenting themselves before them ... This cult of the dead bodies, as well as the cult of the Eucharist, the Church has ensured that people in Europe in the 17th century, firmly believed that the powder worn skulls and knuckles are very useful for health. From the burnt bones of happy spouses or lovers, passionate love potion prepared the excitatory.

The phrase ... But if you look at the infamous lampshades never succeed because of their absence, the prototype of the ... Books bound in human skin, in the libraries rather. Books or parchment, wrapped in human skin, appeared in the Middle Ages, when it became widely practiced tanning of human skin (and the preservation of other body parts ). These books have not survived, although there are some historical reports about the Bible XIII- th century and the text of Decretals ( Catholic canon law ) written on human skin.

Among the other bound in human skin documents - a copy of the Human Rights and several copies of the French Constitution of 1793.

The Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada in Spain (1420-1498), widely famous for its sacred struggle with heretics, became a kind of ... Torquemada with a truly Christian benevolence burned at the stake 10,220 persons. Much less is known more - much human material ... Burning alive emotionally hides from us far greater number of ... For example, in the same Torquemada a link to the galleys were sentenced 97,371 people. It was in the galleys were these heretics atone his guilt before the Lord. Thomas Torquemada was the confessor Infanta Isabella of Castile ( the one who was proud of the fact that washed two times in my life ).

With respect to ... The rest of the heretics have always had a choice: a quick death in the fire (still fast - the burning of wood in damp Christians will come up later), or galleys. Link to the galley was in fact the same death, just lazy - the majority of those sentenced to penal servitude did not survive even to the end of the second year of imprisonment.