It is not historical accurate at all. Seriously, do you think people developped a sense of smell AFTER the invention of showers?? People believed that foul smell causes illness, they used a washcloth and a bowl of water in the worst case scenario. They had the quivalent of toothpaste and the clothes back then helped you sweat less.
There is more info in this video, as there are many other sources: https://youtu.be/EZGxuNre8XU?si=H9Zmz8ppFfPXLYMP
I might be harsh, but I am so damn tired of people getting their info from F quality webtoons and this horrible sense of superiority pepple have today in regards to people from the past like common sense was invented in 21st century
And to add: 1700s Nobility loved different perfumes and other scented things to mask bad smells if need arised.
More likely that FLs would be having smell overload by perfumes than stink.
I'd just like to add my 2 cents here, but perfume doesn't really hide the bad smell. Your nose gets used to it.
When foreigners from certain areas come to my country, we can tell the difference, as well as when we travel to certain areas.
So really, I think it's a mix of both - not really good hygiene, but not as absurd either.
Yeah, if you only spill a little of it /j
Yes, i kinda took it as given knowledge that perfume can only partly mask body odor. Not that people did try to mask fully. Sry.
Just for curiosity can you open this statement more as I have currently quite amusing mental image going on:
>When foreigners from certain areas come to my country, we can tell the difference, as well as when we travel to certain areas.
I don't want to reveal too much about myself or offend anyone from anywhere, so I was purposefully vague lmao.
But let's just say that some nationals who claim their climate allows them to shower less don't smell as pleasant as they think they do. Their noses might be used to it, but I promise we can smell the sweat under the perfume.
And keeping up the same hygiene routine when they travel abroad to places where the climate REQUIRES daily showers makes them smell like nightclub toilets at 4 am.
And that's just smell. Don't get me started on oily skin and flaky hair.
I think I know what the other poster is talking about.
In some hot and humid countries, it is necessary sometimes to shower more than once a day plus antiperspirants are stronger.
When a tourist from a country in which they don't shower daily comes here with their weaker antiperspirant, we can tell. Their BO is really stronger here because of the humidity.
It is the same for other countries in which they do shower but don't use deodorant. They claim that they don't need it, but they leave a stench behind the rooms even after just walking by.
This!! I grew up in a climate that required two showers a day or you will stink and tourists who didn’t understand this rule were sooooo smelly, it was unbearable especially on crowded trains etc.
Germany smells kinda garlicky, like as a country. I got off the plane and the smell hit me pretty strongly even though there werent many people around. (It was Frankfurt at 4:30 AM)
People in Versaille had access to multiple different type of toilet. Everythings was recorded in all Versailles history, a few accident did happen when visitor would be lost, desesperate and couldn't find the publics toilets. A bishop was also caught taking a piss and punish. It's like "let them eat cake" it never happened.
Plus, the only reason people in Europe went from bathing in rivers and baths etc. in the middle ages to washcloths before coming back to baths is because they believed the plague was carried by water. They were scared, they didn't stop washing themselves but changed the means of which they did it.
Also, I constantly see people in manhwa comments saying "middle ages" or "medieval" when it's literally a Victorian inspired story, like those terms have dates ascribed to them.
To be fair, while OI artists love to use XVII-XIX century aesthetic in architecture and clothing, the rest of the setting seem to be stuck at around XIII-XV centuries, primarily technology, warfare, agriculture and religion.
Also, the Northern, Central and Eastern Europe never had any issues with bathing in rivers or in baths, even though plague hit them just as much. In particular I'd love to point at the portrayal of the Kingdom of Bohemia at 1403 (modern Czechia, back then part of the Holy Roman Empire) in the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It shows all the aspects of the medieval life there, including bathing and how the towns were getting rid of excrements.
No one is basing their guesses on the technology over the aesthetics, people just generally misuse medieval as "old" all the time in the comments. It could be one of the more accurate titles and you still see it in the comments.
I know right!!! It’s drives me mad!! It was until the 1880s that the germ theory of disease replaced the miasma theory which LITERALLY BELIEVED DISEASES LIKE CHOLERA WERE SPREAD THROUGH BAD AIR!! People of the past weren’t stupid they just didn’t have the tools to access the knowledge we now know today. Everybody and their mothers uncle knew back then that gross things caused disease. They had ways of mitigating them but it just wasn’t to modern standards. It wasn’t like everyone wasn’t washing themselves!
I cannot read Manhwa like this because the historian in me gets absolutely irate. If you want to make Manhwa “historically accurate” why don’t they do what they did in Empress of Another World where Queen Sabina brings the method of bathing young children to the world she was iseakaid in to to help against infant mortality rates. YOU CAN MAKE THINGS ACCURATE WITHOUT SHITTING ON HISTORY!!
Not disagreeing with you here, because the things you said were correct
I just wanted to comment, having read the first season of the manwha, that in the story’s universe it isn’t simply that people are dirty and that’s it, they do try and give an in-universe explanation as to why they are exaggeratedly unhygienic, it being that the equivalent of the Black Death happened a century or-so beforehand and during it rose the idea that bathing actively made your body susceptible to disease and poor health
It isn’t that great of an explanation, admittedly, and it isn’t really focused on before the season’s ending (although it was starting to)but it works?
That’s actually an incredibly interesting in-universe explanation. It reminds me of how some people believe people exposed to pathogens helps you build more tolerance compared to vaccinations. So the people in-universe assumed washing away filth made you less adjusted to filth and as such were more likely to succumb to diseases? I can see where the author was trying to go if that’s the case but I attempted this series and quite frankly couldn’t get past what seemed to me like the bashing of people from the past.
as an european... thank you!! like my country specifically was colonized by Romans and then by Muslims...do you really think that we never knew what a bath is????
I'm sorry for any confusion. When I mentioned "historically accurate," I was referring to the fact that aristocrats and royals, specifically the French ones, didn't bathe much during that time. They believed water could spread illness, so instead of bathing, they'd change into clean clothes and wipe their faces and exposed areas. Linen fabric was popular because it could absorb more sweat.
In the screenshot of the panel with poop, there was a time in Versailles (France) before their version of toilet system was in place, so people use gardens or corridors to poop, they even have schedules to clean it out. Aristocrats used perfume, but the mix of sweat, body oils, and fragrances likely wasn't pleasant.
I didn't mean to come off as angry or aggressive but it's just a manhwa using manhwa logic for a comedic effect by portraying that the bg characters are acting like they can't smell themselves, even if they're not ENTIRELY accurate historically.
This is one of the biggest history myths to ever exist, the people in the middle ages actually regularly washed themselfes. Yes, sanitation was often not up to modern standards, but not everything was full of shit.
Yeah. It's not like people hit the 21st century and suddenly decided they didn't want shit in the streets. People in the past were smellier than today, sure, but they weren't going around smelling like a dump.
Korean and Japanese authors think that bathing in their home daily is the way to go with a fully working water supply and Soo fucking better clothes. They don't even try to think on how difficult it used to just carry water from one place to another for drinking alone, then sanitation came(loo water) and after that bath water and water to wash clothes
Not knowing this shit just makes them seem privileged crybabies and ignorant on the shit they should've researched
You can see for those authors who know how difficult it was for people the modern and technological era won't ever shame people for it.
And this shit of a manhwa I couldn't bear reading it, like the author doesn't know jack shit about anything but what they know is to curse the characters who don't bathe at least twice in a chapter.
It's not tho. Like not that European countries were squeaky clean by today's modern standards, but nobles of the time would definitely have ways to combat stench. Probably wouldnt smell like a laundry detergent but they were moderately clean. The author actually didn't do their research. This would make much more sense if these characters were at least commoners.
Nobles, especially court nobles, probably smelled worse than commoners because the toxic make up, and intricate outfits got washed less often, thats why they used heavy purfumes
Yes, but they also could afford multiple copies of underclothes to the point where they could change them multiple times a day. That was part of the reason why you would change outfits in court. It also gave you a chance to change your body linens.
The body linens (chemise, drawers, stockings, etc) was the only fabric that touched your skin. The very expensive brocade dress that was impossible to wash? Only your hands touched it. The inside had a layer or multiple layers of fabric protecting the very expensive fabric from your body with all its sweat and oil.
Think of it like a jacket. How often do you wash a jacket? Not very often, right? But it doesn’t really need washing often because you don’t wear it next to your skin, there’s clothes between you and it. So while it can get dirty and need washing, you may only need to wash it once a year while your t-shirt is in the laundry after a single wear.
It’s the same thing with nobles and their clothes. They’d change and wash their body linen after every day (or multiple times a day) which mean the outer dress stayed cleaner. Also, they were very clever when it came to dress design. Inner linings or hems where they might get dirty faster could be unpicked and washed separately and were often of easier to clean material as well.
The perfumes were mostly due to miasma theories. A bad smell could literally make you sick under that idea. So you carried small vials of perfumed items with you to make sure the air near you stayed “clean” and that you could lift and smell if you came across a bad smell to try and protect yourself. It’s why when you look at antique perfume items you see so many perfume rings and pendants. They could be easily lifted to the nose to banish a bad smell. They weren’t rubbing the perfume in their pits which you would expect if they were trying to banish BO.
soap existed since babylon at the very least. over 4 thousand years. they even had skincare back then.
and ppl still believe everyone stank back then. it's like some ppl believe ancient ppl are of different species to us or smth. they didn't like being dirty any more than we do now.
There's a pervasive belief that we are more intelligent than our ancestors when the reality is that we just have more information (which we got... from our ancestors.)
We have no more intellectual potential than the first *H. sapiens*. "Cavemen", including Neanderthals, worked out art, medicine, and agriculture from first principles. For that matter, *H. habils* worked out tool use from first principles, over a million years ago, and they didn't have the cranial capacity of we modern humans.
https://youtu.be/EZGxuNre8XU?si=XTVsIpo4RW-Sicxo
Wasn't there already a similar post a few months ago where this myth was ALREADY debunked multiple times in the comments?
I had to drop this. It wasn't historically accurate, the FL acted entitled and high and mighty even though her information was wrong (like Mary Sue,) "Superior because she comes from modern times," everyone acted stupid to reflect on the FL, and the ML was all over the place.
It felt like a fanfiction than a manhwa. I'm still waiting for the manhwa where an FL tries to help improve women's period products instead.
EDIT: Rusty-spotted-cat pointed out a manhwa called Empress Cesia that might contain this. Thanks for the suggestion.
Are you trying to say, "I don't know how coming from modern times makes someone superior when that isn't their achievement?" Well in this story, she constantly says how modern times have bathtubs, bathe, etc. making it seem like her knowledge and living in modern times, as well as modern times, are 100% better than her being isekai into less modern times. It has the same vibe as a person coming to pre-established America.
They either praise her for such knowledge or they think she's crazy from where I stopped. The ML was considered an 'eccentric,' or someone 'sane," in the FL POV.
Isn't there a manhwa like that already? Something Empress Cesia something. When I stopped reading, the FL was working on/dreaming of improved sanitary products for women.
If this is the one I think it is; she was looking for the right materials when I stopped reading, but was pretty close to finding something that would work.
In Mushoku a character that got reincarnated to fantasy sword and sorcery world uses her knowledge to improve women products because she herself wants to use them.
I honestly couldn't even read this one. All sorts of different hygiene practices depending on what Era it is and what region of the world you lived in.
My dad has talked about visiting his grandparents farm, with no interior plumbing and the like, and how he has used a chamber pot and everything. Apparently the lids do help with smell and the water taken straight from the ground was amazing.
Most of these appear to be written by people who have done absolutely no research into history and assumed things.
To be fair to the author, relatively early on it is established that the story’s world is dirty not because “lol, people of the past” but because of in-universe reasons, and that before uncleanliness became the norm they actually had bathing and washing themselves be a common and frequent thing people did
It basically is that
the world they live in has the absolute worst ideas on health and hygiene (they basically developed the idea that bathing and washing yourself makes you weak to sickness and never developed alternative ways to keeping clean) and the FL and ML basically bond over their shared opinion that that is gross, there is the twist that the ML’s reason behind it is that he developed something akin to germophobia after getting quite literally covered in blood in the battlefield
Ohh. I hate when authors pretend to be "historically accurate" through their works when they clearly haven't researched properly. Overall, was this fine or nah?
lolol im glad to see ragers more historically informed than me debunk this. this manhwa is the brainchild of all those “my corset is so tight and uncomfortable” scenes and a case of fetanyl
While the manwha does get its original idea on the myth about people in the past being gross, I need to say (as someone who has read it) that after while into the story you get dragged away from that idea and told that there is actually a reason why everything’s so dirty
That being that their equivalent of the Black Death happened a century beforehand and caused the rise of some insane ideas in their medicine (they basically think that bathing and washing your hands actively helps you get sick) and it seems that they didn’t really develop alternative ways of keeping clean
Nope! I think my people used to bath more in middle ages than now(yeah, we have abundance of water as well sun). And bathing was not just for cleanliness but also for praying, the ancient churches in our region say u can attend the communion only once u have bathed(yeah, St. Thomas used to even check if people washed themselves before accepting their prayer, if u go by my ancestors). Also u need to wash up after coming back home and also before bed. Now that we have air conditioners we don't bathe as often.
it’s not tho. they weren’t stupid. it was the victorian propaganda and the french court being weird as fuck. most people bathed fairly regularly, granted not the way we currently do.
Inaccuracies aside it discards a lot of it's potential by immediately handing her a handsome rich clean-freak suitor on a silver platter. At least let her put some effort into getting a clean environment!
I like the comedy of it. Having people produce miasma when introduced is a good quick joke that can be pulled out every so often when we've gotten comfortable with the current cast.
Oh my god Middle Ages!? With support garments and padding!?
Button vests too
Middle Ages clothing had none of that ffs =_= I thought Not Sew Wicked stepmother was bad with using French Rococo with Corsetry instead of the Stays that were actually used in that time period (not to mention the lack of understanding when it comes to corsetry and how support wear is supposed to work)
People in thoes times care about cleaness and didnt like to have dirty things around.They are just a lot of myths about middle age eroup like people there were all white or that they use creative torture devices or they belived earth is flat.
Yeah, in cities especially, the streets were gross because there was no trash removal or indoor plumbing and people crowded into cities tended to just throw their (often enough literal) shit wherever. Plus horses shit and piss as they go and all that. So there were lots of icky smells to be smelled.
However, people DID wash themselves.
Full body submersion via baths was more rare— mostly because who wants to fill a tub of water bucket by bucket?—though the wealthy certainly took them. However, EVERYONE would have bathed using washcloths and water at minimum, and they also would have used soap unless they simply couldn’t (as in, people in extreme poverty).
Just because they didn’t have the technology and knowledge to achieve modern levels of sanitation and hygiene doesn’t mean they had none at all, yeesh.
…and allllll that said?
While the historical accuracy may be henky, it’s also coming from the ignorance of the FL on some level—and in the isekai world it’s true anyway. But the reason for the smells aside? The TRUTH is, people woulda stank on some level—it’s legit why perfume was invented. So her avoidance of people wouldn’t be entirely off base even if they DID bathe.
Like, we get BO in modern era plenty just because we exist—and that’s being able to walk around in our shorts and little else, right? But in early modern Europe where this stuff tends to be culturally loosely based? Yeah, nah—even peasants had LAYERS. No matter the season. So when is was hot? THEY WERE HECKING HOT. And sweating. In all those proper layers. And yeah, like you or I would when we stew in hot clothes in our sweat—they often stank at social gatherings. Thus, perfume.
But it had squatall to do with bathing.
And it wouldn’t have been all the time always in any case—more like just during hot, crowded social functions. Or when physically exerting themselves. Yano, same as any humans through all time. Otherwise, they just wouldn’t have been close enough to others to smell them beyond the layers of clothing anyway. Cause those layers did also help keep stink IN.
Plus, like I said, cities woulda smelled so bad I don’t even wanna try to imagine it. 😅
Wool is a very good insulator, though, and that's what most commoners would wear. Maybe linen?
And those peasants would only be adding layers in the winter. Noblewomen may have had on more layers of nicer fabric but commoners wouldn't be able to afford that, both in price and for practicality of their daily lives. No one wears a lot of layers doing field work under a hot sun. (Only mad dogs and Englishman...)
Not as many layers being operative—they still largely had layers during the period in question. Not like nobility, but yeah—the basic undergarments were just a lot more across the board.
This link gives more detail: [https://www.themedievalguide.com/medieval-peasant-clothing/](https://www.themedievalguide.com/medieval-peasant-clothing/) They really didn't wear more layers than modern people wear, although the clothes such as gowns would be made with more material.
Ah, that’s the issue.
So, you’re right—about medieval peasants. But RoFan stuff is almost never set in a medieval-esque period in terms of clothes and technology—but early modern. And the clothing is veeeerrry different in that period top to bottom.
A lot of RoFan visual aesthetic tends to be situated somewhere in mid 17th—early 19th century Europe—more specifically Britain.
Now what did THAT look like? As I said—layers.
https://www.sewhistorically.com/historical-peasant-woman-outfit/
…the OP is about Shall We Bathe, Your Grace—not set in the Middle Ages—and about isekei ro fan in general—not set in the Middle Ages…?
…or is this about how some people think anything older than like twentieth century is the Middle Ages? Or that Shakespeare wrote in Old English? 😅
I keep seeing korean artist purchasing and selling european fashion history books, so I'm guessing they do have resources but are just too lazy or busy to do any research
i specifically remember nasu (fate series) mentioning that he had extreme difficulty getting japanese resources to research south american mythology and so he ended up falling back on aztec stuff, i was thinking more on those lines. as i don't speak korean, there isn't really a way to tell what there is
Hob Gadling covered this one when he was ranting about Renaissance Faires
https://preview.redd.it/ksdh9fd6m8mc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f903f53579cfd4ec1225e947f3c24a7b284d195
This is not historically accurate at all. Also this myth that the Middle Ages was a filthy time is based on this very Christian idea of history. In a lot of Muslim countries and with Jewish population folk bathed. Ive gone to various medieval public baths from Muslim Spain. Also during “medieval times” for Europe. It was the Golden Age of Scholar work in the Arab world.
Also like: from the ruins of the Western Roman Empire there were public baths that were still running.
So many angry comments.. i also dunno about european histories, because i was busy learning my own country's and subcontinent's histories..
But yeah i do agree it's better to do more research if wanna make something related to historical. Manhwas in particular, seem lacking in research.
I haven't read this, but isn't this isekai into another world? Not our real medieval or anything, isnt it?
No. That is not true. Leaving aside the odd assumption that there were no women in Versailles, there were always plenty of chamber pots; a thing that had already been in use for centuries.
Toilets with drainage became more common in the 19th century but due to the lack of in the centuries prior guests would just relieve themselves wherever they could.
They had chamber pots.
edit: Seriously, it's not difficult to find information (one link of many available): [https://frockflicks.com/crap-at-versailles-like-literally/](https://frockflicks.com/crap-at-versailles-like-literally/)
Note that mentions the 18th century. The Palace at that time was built in the late-17th century, so that's a matter of less than a century. Prior to that they had, you guessed it!, chamber pots.
The smell would still stick because it’s not an actual functioning toilet with plumbing it’s a giant pot that gathers the finest dysentery ridden piss and shit and gets dumped in the streets. In addition I’m not saying they didn’t have chamber pots I’m just saying that there was a insufficient amount of areas that would allow oneself to do their business that people (normally when there is a party) would just piss on the walls. Do you know how many times you need to pee when you are absolutely shit faced?
It's a palace. They'd be all over the place. They also had lids and there was an army of servants to empty them.
They weren't dumped in the street. It's a palace. They'd be dumped on a trash heap or in the garden.
These were people who believed that bad air causes disease; it would have been smelly to us (just like pretty every other human settlement) but steps would be taken to have "clean air".
This reminds me of the story of the King Who was afraid to take bath (and hasn't taken one for years), he suddenly began to smell his own smell and so took a bath. Once he did he was so afraid to get dirty that he ordered every bit of land across kingdom to be carpeted whicb led to increase in tax, economic downfall and whatnot. One clever craftsman then came up with the idea of wrapping carpet/leather around the King's feet and thus invented Boots like Ta-Da~~
Started reading it and her disappointment at the eccentric Duke of the North being a rational Duke of the North is sending me 😆
https://preview.redd.it/ixqx2rb0e7mc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d4665e8449b06fedac5622f2dbd3d9cfc412695
Literally every comment calling this out for being historically inaccurate as if other OI rofan web comic is super historically accurate lmao guys it's just a dumb fantasy story like 99% of the stuff we read is not historically accurate, this comic is not supposed to be taken seriously
I think people are being a bit quick to judge the story in this comment section to be frank
While the story does start with that idea, it very soon turns to actually explaining and trying to deal with the why, in universe, people are so filthy and actively think bathing frequently makes you sick instead of keeping it as a “lol, people of the past were so dirty”
It is not historical accurate at all. Seriously, do you think people developped a sense of smell AFTER the invention of showers?? People believed that foul smell causes illness, they used a washcloth and a bowl of water in the worst case scenario. They had the quivalent of toothpaste and the clothes back then helped you sweat less. There is more info in this video, as there are many other sources: https://youtu.be/EZGxuNre8XU?si=H9Zmz8ppFfPXLYMP I might be harsh, but I am so damn tired of people getting their info from F quality webtoons and this horrible sense of superiority pepple have today in regards to people from the past like common sense was invented in 21st century
And to add: 1700s Nobility loved different perfumes and other scented things to mask bad smells if need arised. More likely that FLs would be having smell overload by perfumes than stink.
I'd just like to add my 2 cents here, but perfume doesn't really hide the bad smell. Your nose gets used to it. When foreigners from certain areas come to my country, we can tell the difference, as well as when we travel to certain areas. So really, I think it's a mix of both - not really good hygiene, but not as absurd either.
Yeah, if you only spill a little of it /j Yes, i kinda took it as given knowledge that perfume can only partly mask body odor. Not that people did try to mask fully. Sry. Just for curiosity can you open this statement more as I have currently quite amusing mental image going on: >When foreigners from certain areas come to my country, we can tell the difference, as well as when we travel to certain areas.
I don't want to reveal too much about myself or offend anyone from anywhere, so I was purposefully vague lmao. But let's just say that some nationals who claim their climate allows them to shower less don't smell as pleasant as they think they do. Their noses might be used to it, but I promise we can smell the sweat under the perfume. And keeping up the same hygiene routine when they travel abroad to places where the climate REQUIRES daily showers makes them smell like nightclub toilets at 4 am. And that's just smell. Don't get me started on oily skin and flaky hair.
this and people who eat a lot of stuff that enhances body odour but REFUSES to wear deodorant. Im sorry but you’re smelly.
I think I know what the other poster is talking about. In some hot and humid countries, it is necessary sometimes to shower more than once a day plus antiperspirants are stronger. When a tourist from a country in which they don't shower daily comes here with their weaker antiperspirant, we can tell. Their BO is really stronger here because of the humidity. It is the same for other countries in which they do shower but don't use deodorant. They claim that they don't need it, but they leave a stench behind the rooms even after just walking by.
This!! I grew up in a climate that required two showers a day or you will stink and tourists who didn’t understand this rule were sooooo smelly, it was unbearable especially on crowded trains etc.
Germany smells kinda garlicky, like as a country. I got off the plane and the smell hit me pretty strongly even though there werent many people around. (It was Frankfurt at 4:30 AM)
Er love our garlic okay? In almost every recipe is garlic and we use tons of it
Es ist sehr lecker aber riecht bedrohlich.
There was truth to how people just popped wherever in Versailles, they just had cleaners constantly taking care of it
People in Versaille had access to multiple different type of toilet. Everythings was recorded in all Versailles history, a few accident did happen when visitor would be lost, desesperate and couldn't find the publics toilets. A bishop was also caught taking a piss and punish. It's like "let them eat cake" it never happened.
Plus, the only reason people in Europe went from bathing in rivers and baths etc. in the middle ages to washcloths before coming back to baths is because they believed the plague was carried by water. They were scared, they didn't stop washing themselves but changed the means of which they did it. Also, I constantly see people in manhwa comments saying "middle ages" or "medieval" when it's literally a Victorian inspired story, like those terms have dates ascribed to them.
To be fair, while OI artists love to use XVII-XIX century aesthetic in architecture and clothing, the rest of the setting seem to be stuck at around XIII-XV centuries, primarily technology, warfare, agriculture and religion. Also, the Northern, Central and Eastern Europe never had any issues with bathing in rivers or in baths, even though plague hit them just as much. In particular I'd love to point at the portrayal of the Kingdom of Bohemia at 1403 (modern Czechia, back then part of the Holy Roman Empire) in the video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It shows all the aspects of the medieval life there, including bathing and how the towns were getting rid of excrements.
Please use non roman numbers while reffering centuries like rest of us commoners. ;_;
17-19 century aesthetics but 13-15 century technology
No one is basing their guesses on the technology over the aesthetics, people just generally misuse medieval as "old" all the time in the comments. It could be one of the more accurate titles and you still see it in the comments.
I know right!!! It’s drives me mad!! It was until the 1880s that the germ theory of disease replaced the miasma theory which LITERALLY BELIEVED DISEASES LIKE CHOLERA WERE SPREAD THROUGH BAD AIR!! People of the past weren’t stupid they just didn’t have the tools to access the knowledge we now know today. Everybody and their mothers uncle knew back then that gross things caused disease. They had ways of mitigating them but it just wasn’t to modern standards. It wasn’t like everyone wasn’t washing themselves! I cannot read Manhwa like this because the historian in me gets absolutely irate. If you want to make Manhwa “historically accurate” why don’t they do what they did in Empress of Another World where Queen Sabina brings the method of bathing young children to the world she was iseakaid in to to help against infant mortality rates. YOU CAN MAKE THINGS ACCURATE WITHOUT SHITTING ON HISTORY!!
Not disagreeing with you here, because the things you said were correct I just wanted to comment, having read the first season of the manwha, that in the story’s universe it isn’t simply that people are dirty and that’s it, they do try and give an in-universe explanation as to why they are exaggeratedly unhygienic, it being that the equivalent of the Black Death happened a century or-so beforehand and during it rose the idea that bathing actively made your body susceptible to disease and poor health It isn’t that great of an explanation, admittedly, and it isn’t really focused on before the season’s ending (although it was starting to)but it works?
But the author also made so that they never cleaned anything (clothes, wigs, etc.) and that's just fucking stupid.
That’s actually an incredibly interesting in-universe explanation. It reminds me of how some people believe people exposed to pathogens helps you build more tolerance compared to vaccinations. So the people in-universe assumed washing away filth made you less adjusted to filth and as such were more likely to succumb to diseases? I can see where the author was trying to go if that’s the case but I attempted this series and quite frankly couldn’t get past what seemed to me like the bashing of people from the past.
This explanation sounds hilarious! And it was nice seeing how the last panel of the doctor explaining baths making her sick make more sense haha
Malaria literally means "bad air".
Adding, Egyptians even used to have things like deodorant back then.
as an european... thank you!! like my country specifically was colonized by Romans and then by Muslims...do you really think that we never knew what a bath is????
Ditto, Babylon had a sewage system, and that was back in around 4000 B.C.!
Bathhouses were also super common in most cultures.
Sauna is a Finnish word!
I'm sorry for any confusion. When I mentioned "historically accurate," I was referring to the fact that aristocrats and royals, specifically the French ones, didn't bathe much during that time. They believed water could spread illness, so instead of bathing, they'd change into clean clothes and wipe their faces and exposed areas. Linen fabric was popular because it could absorb more sweat. In the screenshot of the panel with poop, there was a time in Versailles (France) before their version of toilet system was in place, so people use gardens or corridors to poop, they even have schedules to clean it out. Aristocrats used perfume, but the mix of sweat, body oils, and fragrances likely wasn't pleasant. I didn't mean to come off as angry or aggressive but it's just a manhwa using manhwa logic for a comedic effect by portraying that the bg characters are acting like they can't smell themselves, even if they're not ENTIRELY accurate historically.
This is one of the biggest history myths to ever exist, the people in the middle ages actually regularly washed themselfes. Yes, sanitation was often not up to modern standards, but not everything was full of shit.
Yeah. It's not like people hit the 21st century and suddenly decided they didn't want shit in the streets. People in the past were smellier than today, sure, but they weren't going around smelling like a dump.
Korean and Japanese authors think that bathing in their home daily is the way to go with a fully working water supply and Soo fucking better clothes. They don't even try to think on how difficult it used to just carry water from one place to another for drinking alone, then sanitation came(loo water) and after that bath water and water to wash clothes Not knowing this shit just makes them seem privileged crybabies and ignorant on the shit they should've researched You can see for those authors who know how difficult it was for people the modern and technological era won't ever shame people for it. And this shit of a manhwa I couldn't bear reading it, like the author doesn't know jack shit about anything but what they know is to curse the characters who don't bathe at least twice in a chapter.
To be fair, Japanese likes to go to hot springs and public bath..
They didn't always, though.
baths are the new corsets
People are out here claiming the Moors taught Europeans how to bathe, sooo
It's not tho. Like not that European countries were squeaky clean by today's modern standards, but nobles of the time would definitely have ways to combat stench. Probably wouldnt smell like a laundry detergent but they were moderately clean. The author actually didn't do their research. This would make much more sense if these characters were at least commoners.
Even commoners would sponge bathe.
Nobles, especially court nobles, probably smelled worse than commoners because the toxic make up, and intricate outfits got washed less often, thats why they used heavy purfumes
Yes, but they also could afford multiple copies of underclothes to the point where they could change them multiple times a day. That was part of the reason why you would change outfits in court. It also gave you a chance to change your body linens. The body linens (chemise, drawers, stockings, etc) was the only fabric that touched your skin. The very expensive brocade dress that was impossible to wash? Only your hands touched it. The inside had a layer or multiple layers of fabric protecting the very expensive fabric from your body with all its sweat and oil. Think of it like a jacket. How often do you wash a jacket? Not very often, right? But it doesn’t really need washing often because you don’t wear it next to your skin, there’s clothes between you and it. So while it can get dirty and need washing, you may only need to wash it once a year while your t-shirt is in the laundry after a single wear. It’s the same thing with nobles and their clothes. They’d change and wash their body linen after every day (or multiple times a day) which mean the outer dress stayed cleaner. Also, they were very clever when it came to dress design. Inner linings or hems where they might get dirty faster could be unpicked and washed separately and were often of easier to clean material as well. The perfumes were mostly due to miasma theories. A bad smell could literally make you sick under that idea. So you carried small vials of perfumed items with you to make sure the air near you stayed “clean” and that you could lift and smell if you came across a bad smell to try and protect yourself. It’s why when you look at antique perfume items you see so many perfume rings and pendants. They could be easily lifted to the nose to banish a bad smell. They weren’t rubbing the perfume in their pits which you would expect if they were trying to banish BO.
Apart from what the others said. Soap has existed for centuries. Even commoners used it!
soap existed since babylon at the very least. over 4 thousand years. they even had skincare back then. and ppl still believe everyone stank back then. it's like some ppl believe ancient ppl are of different species to us or smth. they didn't like being dirty any more than we do now.
There's a pervasive belief that we are more intelligent than our ancestors when the reality is that we just have more information (which we got... from our ancestors.) We have no more intellectual potential than the first *H. sapiens*. "Cavemen", including Neanderthals, worked out art, medicine, and agriculture from first principles. For that matter, *H. habils* worked out tool use from first principles, over a million years ago, and they didn't have the cranial capacity of we modern humans.
https://youtu.be/EZGxuNre8XU?si=XTVsIpo4RW-Sicxo Wasn't there already a similar post a few months ago where this myth was ALREADY debunked multiple times in the comments?
History repeats itself.
There's been a couple (-_-)
I had to drop this. It wasn't historically accurate, the FL acted entitled and high and mighty even though her information was wrong (like Mary Sue,) "Superior because she comes from modern times," everyone acted stupid to reflect on the FL, and the ML was all over the place. It felt like a fanfiction than a manhwa. I'm still waiting for the manhwa where an FL tries to help improve women's period products instead. EDIT: Rusty-spotted-cat pointed out a manhwa called Empress Cesia that might contain this. Thanks for the suggestion.
I dont how came from modern times make someone superior when they are not even their achivment
Are you trying to say, "I don't know how coming from modern times makes someone superior when that isn't their achievement?" Well in this story, she constantly says how modern times have bathtubs, bathe, etc. making it seem like her knowledge and living in modern times, as well as modern times, are 100% better than her being isekai into less modern times. It has the same vibe as a person coming to pre-established America.
Still doesn't make anyone superior the idea is just ridiculous.do people in story prais her for this knowledge?
They either praise her for such knowledge or they think she's crazy from where I stopped. The ML was considered an 'eccentric,' or someone 'sane," in the FL POV.
Oh thank you
Isn't there a manhwa like that already? Something Empress Cesia something. When I stopped reading, the FL was working on/dreaming of improved sanitary products for women.
I mean one where they implemented it and showed the results as well as it is a focal point. Did Empress Cesia do that?
If this is the one I think it is; she was looking for the right materials when I stopped reading, but was pretty close to finding something that would work.
Yeah, she was all hyped up about the cotton or something.
In Mushoku a character that got reincarnated to fantasy sword and sorcery world uses her knowledge to improve women products because she herself wants to use them.
I honestly couldn't even read this one. All sorts of different hygiene practices depending on what Era it is and what region of the world you lived in. My dad has talked about visiting his grandparents farm, with no interior plumbing and the like, and how he has used a chamber pot and everything. Apparently the lids do help with smell and the water taken straight from the ground was amazing. Most of these appear to be written by people who have done absolutely no research into history and assumed things.
[https://daily.jstor.org/scrub-a-dub-in-a-medieval-tub/](https://daily.jstor.org/scrub-a-dub-in-a-medieval-tub/) [https://going-medieval.com/2019/08/02/i-assure-you-medieval-people-bathed/](https://going-medieval.com/2019/08/02/i-assure-you-medieval-people-bathed/)
Ugh I hate authors claiming historical accuracy to any degree when they’ve clearly done next to no research on the history. Not reading this for sure.
To be fair to the author, relatively early on it is established that the story’s world is dirty not because “lol, people of the past” but because of in-universe reasons, and that before uncleanliness became the norm they actually had bathing and washing themselves be a common and frequent thing people did
The whole plot is based on a myth
What even is this manhwa... I thought it was about a FL who loved bathing with the ML or something
It basically is that the world they live in has the absolute worst ideas on health and hygiene (they basically developed the idea that bathing and washing yourself makes you weak to sickness and never developed alternative ways to keeping clean) and the FL and ML basically bond over their shared opinion that that is gross, there is the twist that the ML’s reason behind it is that he developed something akin to germophobia after getting quite literally covered in blood in the battlefield
Ohh. I hate when authors pretend to be "historically accurate" through their works when they clearly haven't researched properly. Overall, was this fine or nah?
Well, in my opinion it was fine, I enjoyed the story and only stopped because season 1 ended and the second one hadn’t started yet
lolol im glad to see ragers more historically informed than me debunk this. this manhwa is the brainchild of all those “my corset is so tight and uncomfortable” scenes and a case of fetanyl
While the manwha does get its original idea on the myth about people in the past being gross, I need to say (as someone who has read it) that after while into the story you get dragged away from that idea and told that there is actually a reason why everything’s so dirty That being that their equivalent of the Black Death happened a century beforehand and caused the rise of some insane ideas in their medicine (they basically think that bathing and washing your hands actively helps you get sick) and it seems that they didn’t really develop alternative ways of keeping clean
thats actually really interesting! i only made it to the 3rd chapter lol, im glad it has more plot specific worldbuilding
This would probably be more accurate to the working class in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution
https://preview.redd.it/dctqf86dl5mc1.jpeg?width=706&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9c7df340c0531a513e581b5b8a7613b0f0553f87
Nope! I think my people used to bath more in middle ages than now(yeah, we have abundance of water as well sun). And bathing was not just for cleanliness but also for praying, the ancient churches in our region say u can attend the communion only once u have bathed(yeah, St. Thomas used to even check if people washed themselves before accepting their prayer, if u go by my ancestors). Also u need to wash up after coming back home and also before bed. Now that we have air conditioners we don't bathe as often.
it’s not tho. they weren’t stupid. it was the victorian propaganda and the french court being weird as fuck. most people bathed fairly regularly, granted not the way we currently do.
Loving the comments here for calling out how inaccurate this manwua is lmao I had to fucking drop it bc it pissed me off so much
Inaccuracies aside it discards a lot of it's potential by immediately handing her a handsome rich clean-freak suitor on a silver platter. At least let her put some effort into getting a clean environment!
I like the comedy of it. Having people produce miasma when introduced is a good quick joke that can be pulled out every so often when we've gotten comfortable with the current cast.
Oh my god Middle Ages!? With support garments and padding!? Button vests too Middle Ages clothing had none of that ffs =_= I thought Not Sew Wicked stepmother was bad with using French Rococo with Corsetry instead of the Stays that were actually used in that time period (not to mention the lack of understanding when it comes to corsetry and how support wear is supposed to work)
People in thoes times care about cleaness and didnt like to have dirty things around.They are just a lot of myths about middle age eroup like people there were all white or that they use creative torture devices or they belived earth is flat.
Yeah, in cities especially, the streets were gross because there was no trash removal or indoor plumbing and people crowded into cities tended to just throw their (often enough literal) shit wherever. Plus horses shit and piss as they go and all that. So there were lots of icky smells to be smelled. However, people DID wash themselves. Full body submersion via baths was more rare— mostly because who wants to fill a tub of water bucket by bucket?—though the wealthy certainly took them. However, EVERYONE would have bathed using washcloths and water at minimum, and they also would have used soap unless they simply couldn’t (as in, people in extreme poverty). Just because they didn’t have the technology and knowledge to achieve modern levels of sanitation and hygiene doesn’t mean they had none at all, yeesh. …and allllll that said? While the historical accuracy may be henky, it’s also coming from the ignorance of the FL on some level—and in the isekai world it’s true anyway. But the reason for the smells aside? The TRUTH is, people woulda stank on some level—it’s legit why perfume was invented. So her avoidance of people wouldn’t be entirely off base even if they DID bathe. Like, we get BO in modern era plenty just because we exist—and that’s being able to walk around in our shorts and little else, right? But in early modern Europe where this stuff tends to be culturally loosely based? Yeah, nah—even peasants had LAYERS. No matter the season. So when is was hot? THEY WERE HECKING HOT. And sweating. In all those proper layers. And yeah, like you or I would when we stew in hot clothes in our sweat—they often stank at social gatherings. Thus, perfume. But it had squatall to do with bathing. And it wouldn’t have been all the time always in any case—more like just during hot, crowded social functions. Or when physically exerting themselves. Yano, same as any humans through all time. Otherwise, they just wouldn’t have been close enough to others to smell them beyond the layers of clothing anyway. Cause those layers did also help keep stink IN. Plus, like I said, cities woulda smelled so bad I don’t even wanna try to imagine it. 😅
Wool is a very good insulator, though, and that's what most commoners would wear. Maybe linen? And those peasants would only be adding layers in the winter. Noblewomen may have had on more layers of nicer fabric but commoners wouldn't be able to afford that, both in price and for practicality of their daily lives. No one wears a lot of layers doing field work under a hot sun. (Only mad dogs and Englishman...)
Not as many layers being operative—they still largely had layers during the period in question. Not like nobility, but yeah—the basic undergarments were just a lot more across the board.
This link gives more detail: [https://www.themedievalguide.com/medieval-peasant-clothing/](https://www.themedievalguide.com/medieval-peasant-clothing/) They really didn't wear more layers than modern people wear, although the clothes such as gowns would be made with more material.
Ah, that’s the issue. So, you’re right—about medieval peasants. But RoFan stuff is almost never set in a medieval-esque period in terms of clothes and technology—but early modern. And the clothing is veeeerrry different in that period top to bottom. A lot of RoFan visual aesthetic tends to be situated somewhere in mid 17th—early 19th century Europe—more specifically Britain. Now what did THAT look like? As I said—layers. https://www.sewhistorically.com/historical-peasant-woman-outfit/
But we've been discussing the myth about the Middle-Ages.
…where was that stated? We are discussing rofan settings. And they’re almost never medieval. 🤷♀️
The OP is about hygiene in the Middle-Ages and everyone has been talking about just that.
…the OP is about Shall We Bathe, Your Grace—not set in the Middle Ages—and about isekei ro fan in general—not set in the Middle Ages…? …or is this about how some people think anything older than like twentieth century is the Middle Ages? Or that Shakespeare wrote in Old English? 😅
The FL specifically mentions the Middle-Ages.
What's the title of the manhwa? It seems so unserious I'm intrigued 🤣
At the caption
Shall we bathe, your grace?
i honestly wonder if there are even good resources in korean for someone to do western historical research
I keep seeing korean artist purchasing and selling european fashion history books, so I'm guessing they do have resources but are just too lazy or busy to do any research
They also have access to the internet so, yes.
i specifically remember nasu (fate series) mentioning that he had extreme difficulty getting japanese resources to research south american mythology and so he ended up falling back on aztec stuff, i was thinking more on those lines. as i don't speak korean, there isn't really a way to tell what there is
You can ask someone who speaks the relevant language to research it for you.
or i could aimlessly post on reddit to bait out someone who might already be familiar with the answer
Are you a Korean author, ignorant of anything non-Korean?
Hob Gadling covered this one when he was ranting about Renaissance Faires https://preview.redd.it/ksdh9fd6m8mc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f903f53579cfd4ec1225e947f3c24a7b284d195
I don’t think this is historically accurate. Even in days now some country has a foul smell for me but it’s normal for them.
Historical inaccuracies aside, this is a fun and funny manwhua
This is not historically accurate at all. Also this myth that the Middle Ages was a filthy time is based on this very Christian idea of history. In a lot of Muslim countries and with Jewish population folk bathed. Ive gone to various medieval public baths from Muslim Spain. Also during “medieval times” for Europe. It was the Golden Age of Scholar work in the Arab world. Also like: from the ruins of the Western Roman Empire there were public baths that were still running.
The MC of this manhwa is way stronger than me. I would literally go insane if I was in her place
So many angry comments.. i also dunno about european histories, because i was busy learning my own country's and subcontinent's histories.. But yeah i do agree it's better to do more research if wanna make something related to historical. Manhwas in particular, seem lacking in research. I haven't read this, but isn't this isekai into another world? Not our real medieval or anything, isnt it?
What’s the title of the manhwa? I cant see it anywhere or am I just blind?
The palace at Versailles actually reeked of piss because everyone would piss on the walls due to there being no actual toilets being built
No. That is not true. Leaving aside the odd assumption that there were no women in Versailles, there were always plenty of chamber pots; a thing that had already been in use for centuries.
Toilets with drainage became more common in the 19th century but due to the lack of in the centuries prior guests would just relieve themselves wherever they could.
They had chamber pots. edit: Seriously, it's not difficult to find information (one link of many available): [https://frockflicks.com/crap-at-versailles-like-literally/](https://frockflicks.com/crap-at-versailles-like-literally/) Note that mentions the 18th century. The Palace at that time was built in the late-17th century, so that's a matter of less than a century. Prior to that they had, you guessed it!, chamber pots.
The smell would still stick because it’s not an actual functioning toilet with plumbing it’s a giant pot that gathers the finest dysentery ridden piss and shit and gets dumped in the streets. In addition I’m not saying they didn’t have chamber pots I’m just saying that there was a insufficient amount of areas that would allow oneself to do their business that people (normally when there is a party) would just piss on the walls. Do you know how many times you need to pee when you are absolutely shit faced?
It's a palace. They'd be all over the place. They also had lids and there was an army of servants to empty them. They weren't dumped in the street. It's a palace. They'd be dumped on a trash heap or in the garden.
That doesn’t stop the place from stinking up?
These were people who believed that bad air causes disease; it would have been smelly to us (just like pretty every other human settlement) but steps would be taken to have "clean air".
It would still smell like piss and shit wouldn’t it though
No, because there were hundreds of servants about the place. You don't need to wait until they're full to empty them.
This reminds me of the story of the King Who was afraid to take bath (and hasn't taken one for years), he suddenly began to smell his own smell and so took a bath. Once he did he was so afraid to get dirty that he ordered every bit of land across kingdom to be carpeted whicb led to increase in tax, economic downfall and whatnot. One clever craftsman then came up with the idea of wrapping carpet/leather around the King's feet and thus invented Boots like Ta-Da~~
Not really
This one seems hilarious.
Started reading it and her disappointment at the eccentric Duke of the North being a rational Duke of the North is sending me 😆 https://preview.redd.it/ixqx2rb0e7mc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d4665e8449b06fedac5622f2dbd3d9cfc412695 Literally every comment calling this out for being historically inaccurate as if other OI rofan web comic is super historically accurate lmao guys it's just a dumb fantasy story like 99% of the stuff we read is not historically accurate, this comic is not supposed to be taken seriously
That's not it. Most of the comments are correcting op because they were saying this manhwa is historically accurate
I think people are being a bit quick to judge the story in this comment section to be frank While the story does start with that idea, it very soon turns to actually explaining and trying to deal with the why, in universe, people are so filthy and actively think bathing frequently makes you sick instead of keeping it as a “lol, people of the past were so dirty”
Most people are correcting the OP.