![]() ![]() From the 14th to 18th centuries, kings and peasants shunned water because they thought it spread bubonic plague, and Louis XIV cleaned up by donning a fresh linen shirt. Yet the Crusaders imported communal Turkish baths to medieval Europe. Abandoning Jewish practice, early Christians viewed bathing as a form of hedonism they embraced saints like Godric, who, to mortify the flesh, walked from England to Jerusalem without washing or changing his clothes. ![]() The ancient Romans considered cleanliness a social virtue, and Jews practiced ritual purity laws involving immersion in water. ![]() ), the Western notion of cleanliness is a complex cultural creation that is constantly evolving, from Homer's well-washed Odysseus, who bathes before and after each of his colorful journeys, to Shaw's Eliza Doolittle, who screams in terror during her first hot bath. According to Ashenburg ( The Mourner's Dance ![]()
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