Bodies and clothes in early modern England
type: CreativeWork
about: DefinedTerm
  alternate name: Clothing and dress
about: DefinedTerm
  alternate name: Hygiene
about: DefinedTerm
  alternate name: Medicine
about: DefinedTerm
  alternate name: Bathing customs
about: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/320126539
about: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/320129600
about: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/320130020
about: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/330134642
abstract: "Sweet and Clean? challenges the widely held beliefs on bathing and cleanliness in the past. For over thirty years, the work of the French historian, George Vigarello, has been hugely influential on early modern European social history, describing an aversion to water and bathing, and the use of linen underwear as the sole cleaning agent for the body. However, these concepts do not apply to early modern England. Sweet and Clean? analyses etiquette and medical literature, revealing repeated recommendations to wash or bathe in order to clean the skin. Clean linen was essential for propriety but advice from medical experts was contradictory. Many doctors were convinced that it prevented the spread of contagious diseases, but others recommended flannel for undergarments, and a few thought changing a fever patient's linens was dangerous. The methodology of material culture helps determine if and how this advice was practiced. Evidence from inventories, household accounts and manuals, and surviving linen garments tracks underwear through its life-cycle of production, making, wearing, laundering, and final recycling. Although the material culture of washing bodies is much sparser, other sources, such as the Old Bailey records, paint a more accurate picture of cleanliness in early modern England than has been previously described. The contrasting analyses of linen and bodies reveal what histories material culture best serves. Finally, what of the diseases-plague, smallpox, and typhus-that cleanliness of body and clothes were thought to prevent? Did following early modern medical advice protect people from these illnesses?" -- Provided by publisher.
creator: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/31084764
language: eng
name: Sweet and clean?
subject of: Statement
  additional type: http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300195187
  text: 1. Digging the dirt in the pursuit of cleanliness -- 2. Manners and health -- 3. Clothing and disease -- 4. Clean bodies -- 5. Wearing linens -- 6. Owning linens -- 7. Manufacturing linens -- 8. Sewing linens -- 9. Washing linens -- 10. More washing -- 11. Washing bodies -- 12. Sweet and clean.
work example: https://id.rijksmuseum.nl/301326272

PropertyValue
property ID: NL-AmRIJ
value: 326272