History of personal hygiene in Europe

For some weird reason some people seem to think that Europeans didn’t care about personal hygiene till relatively recently, others even believe that Europeans never bathed or washed and still don’t.
Yes, I’m serious, there are really folks out there who believe this.

So on this page I’m going to simply collect a list of links related to articles, books & evidence regarding personal hygiene in Europe throughout history.
This will support the fact that Europeans have always cared about hygiene in one way or another.

This list is a work in progress.

By Kelvin Wilson

Prehistory

Ancient Greece

Roman era

Romans writing about the hygiene of others:

Roman hygiene:

Middle ages

Elizabethan

Louis XIV & Versailles



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