The Suprising Truth About Beauty Standards in the Middle Ages

I am medieval hot yeah right because medieval people are like I can't possibly think a woman is hot if Aristotle didn't think she was something they have soap oh that's so silly because everybody knows that ladies hate sex actually hello and welcome back to betwix the sheets it's only Eleanor janega again I live here now no one else I'd rather have in my bed yeah okay no that's fair that's fair you'd bring the history though there's room for all of us I think so yeah I think I better have an interest in medieval history but anyway enough of Jason we are here because it's your book launch babes I know how excited I'm really excited it's uh you know my baby I've been working on it you know for years now yeah and now it's out in the world and she's very beautiful she is is a sexy book um The Once and Future sex where did that title come from was that or was that one of those ones that he had a massive fight with the Publishers it's kind of a reference to The Once and Future King um which is about arthuriana right yeah so essentially what it's doing is flagging people up to the fact that this is a book about medieval things but also what it's kind of hinting at is the fact that I'm talking about Medieval women in the book but also you know the idea of that if we really dig into ideas about gender from the past we can understand our own as well and then hopefully make a more Equitable future haha nice yeah so this is this is definitely your brain baby this is a labor of love I'm going to ask you like where did it come from what did what was the inspiration for this but I think I just know it's because you're a committed pervert oh that's true yeah um it kind of like started out like from being you know a committed pervert who gossips about dead people's sex life for a living yeah um and one of the things that I you know continuously notice when you tell people oh yeah I work on medieval history and sex is they are so confounded by the way that medieval people think about women in sex because medieval people are like oh women are just these insatiable horny sex monsters all they want to do is have sex and people are like oh that's so silly because everybody knows that ladies hate sex actually you know and uh I find that really interesting and important to talk about because really the point of the book is that we are constantly changing what it is that we think women are all the time you know we explain what women are like constantly and we then come to the conclusion well women are bad and they're less than men right so men are the good one and like women are bad and the reason women are second-class citizens is because of all these silly things about them but we're constantly changing what's bad about women all the time because in the medieval period it's like oh well women are massively horny so like you can't have them in public life because they'll just be humping chairs but it's actually a really really old idea um so it comes to us really through the transmission from The Classical period so you ask anybody like Plato Aristotle I knew they'd be involved every time right every time and they're like yeah women are massively horny um and it's because even for the Ancients uh sex in and of itself is considered bad um and so the idea here is that sex um basically overrides all of your kind of intellectual I mean it kind of does I'd have to agree with him there I've done some really done things before well see there you go because you're just an average woman you know my lady brain right and so the way that Aristotle looks at it you know he says that women are kind of like a inside out or deformed men yeah uh and so women are kind of just the opposite of everything that a man is and what men are is like the opposite in a bad way in a bad way right so men are like stoic and logical and they're they can be ideal citizens and they can like contribute to you know the Athenian discourse or whatever helps but women are stupid horny lizard people who you know are basically just trying to fight all the time and also hump things so the idea is that like men can overcome this but women can't right right and so medieval people then you know they love any ancient right especially they never updated their medical text did they it's not very much about digging out the classics you just like look to the classics and then you kind of do this thing where you go oh yeah and Jesus on top of it so and when you add the Bible in things are also like really point to oh well women are horny because uh you just go and you look at the Garden of Eden yeah in the Bible too Solomon with his 850 why yeah but like that's fine that's all right yeah but it's really interesting because you see all this kind of like mental gymnastics around that right so for example you see like even in the conception of medieval sex work right where it's like oh yeah well sex work has to exists because you know if men don't have an outlet to have sex then they'll just like Riot and burn the city down so you better you better have sex workers you know for unmarried men so clearly men are like horny enough that they might like Burn It To The Ground if they don't have access to sex but women are the horny ones they say I'm trying to get like the to the bottom of what did Medieval people think of women and this is actually it's a huge question because medieval it's actually about a thousand years of History isn't it yeah it's a vast wave yeah and obviously we know a little bit more about kind of the later period because you know it's just closer to us than you know uh further in the back like you know the 8th Century it's a really long time ago uh and but it's interesting because you can see kind of kernels of things in there that go along but there's certain things so for example and I really talk about beauty standards a lot in this yes and we spend a long time like in the earlier medieval period where we just don't really talk about what we think a hot woman is um and that's really much closer to the kind of Greek ancient Greek way of thinking about things so if you go back and look at like ancient Greek texts when they talk about what a hot woman is which is what medieval people were doing right because maybe people were like I can't possibly think a woman is hot if Aristotle didn't think she was hot like I wouldn't how would I ever um so they go back and look at all these texts and they're like okay well let's go see how they describe Helen of Troy right because she's the hottest I think they describe hello she's blonde that's it that's it that's it that's and and also sometimes they're like she's the cutest and like that is it like and and so that's all we know and then like you know in descriptions of the church rewards like sometimes like a Perseus or polyzenia like they will get described and they're like well Perseus is tall polyzania she's not tall right so lots of different yeah so there's like nothing at all to go on and it's it's quite interesting because it's very much like a beauty is in the eye of the beholder type of situation okay and then when you're in the earlier medieval period when people describe women as being beautiful they're just like oh yeah she's beautiful and then like that's it and then no detail right right then from the 12th century forward they're like no guys like we've got to get this down and they kind of like come up with what a beautiful woman is uh and it becomes really ossified right so there is this idea and they so they scan from the head down to the toes who's scanning who's doing this so it's like poets so there's like this guy a Joffrey of vinsoff who's like he writes this whole uh basically guide book on how to write poetry and he's like hey if you want to describe a sexy woman this is what a sexy woman is what what did he say is a sexy woman okay so she's got blonde hair um a high uh hairline you've got to have like a High full head okay you're in baby okay um You Gotta Have arched eyebrows preferably black I I could nip to boots okay so so um gray eyes blue eyes yeah like Blue's okay Gray's better okay um like a nose that is neither too big nor too small I think I could I'd do that that's okay yeah that's fine yeah white skin I did fake tan the other night yeah I see that here right now yeah and then you gotta have like a cheeks like roses yeah yeah uh a mouth like a rosebud uh white teeth they could be white yeah well they always code right um a neck like a swan definitely not yeah um small shoulders no small high breasts no a pot belly yes a dump truck yes okay yeah thick thighs yes uh feet I have feet there you go so you know like you're the checklist's pretty good right right I am medieval hot yeah there you go so I'll be on tapestries all over the ancient world yeah and it's like that is and then for them they're like okay that's that's what it is and really they like to fat in a pot belly oh God yeah they're they are like they are like pear-shaped baby they're like they don't want to see titties they're like those titties better be up by your armpits did you see that in medieval paintings when it looks odd it looks like the breasts are trying to go in different directions yeah and they're like me right that's that's that's that's what they gotta be like so like they're they're looking for that pear shape and they are they are hardcore about it to the point where you know if I remember online like posting pictures of like you know a hot medieval Bay because naked people are like why is she pregnant and I'm like uh that's her luscious little belly wow and you know so now we just don't think that's hot at all but God it's not hundreds of years it's I was born hundreds of years too late you know well what I would argue babe is that perhaps creating an archetype that is really rigid of being like the only way to be hot is this one thing is a social construct okay that's right we're not doing that okay because like don't take that away from me I was really excited but this is like the thing right because um now when you see like uh women that we call Hot uh there'll be like all these nerd ass nerds who are like uh actually it's Evo psychology and and we developed we evolved this way to think that this particular woman is hot I'm like oh really because for 700 years they wanted like chicks that were just like packing a booming system in the back right and like that's all they wanted so it can't possibly be evolutionary like this is this is just like social and like that's fine is there anything that has been constant like throughout I suppose being healthy probably cleanliness and good skin good skin yeah sparkly eyes probably yeah it's like and that is always Universal so even now there's only like a couple of universals in terms of what everybody finds attractive and it's like cleanliness and good skin oh straight teeth well no not even straight teeth no no I take that back because there's plenty of people who like crocodones and that there are some cultures today that stain their teeth yeah it has to be exactly but see even in the medieval period washing yourself yeah very important medieval people bathe oh my God please please leave me alone medieval people washed they were and they were really fastidious about us about it yeah yeah because it's like it's um it's very much a cleanliness is Next to Godliness sort of thing it's you know keeping clean is well a really comfortable and everyone gets that yeah and B it's kind of like seen as keeping yourself pure in the the same way that it is now really and like it can't have been as easy to keep yourself because like I rolled out my hotel bed this morning and there was pretty much rolled into the shower and there was free soap and like this anti-back on hand medieval people they didn't even have like running sewers so like how if you because we're in London right now and if you're a medieval person in London and you want to keep clean it must be quite tricky so how do they do it if you're a medieval person and you're rolling out of bed first thing in the morning what you would do is you'd kind of go stand in a wooden tub and you would just take some water and just give yourself a good wipe down yeah exactly yeah yeah so you would like soap yourself up you'd wash it in like real quick do you have soap they have soap and in fact it's one of these things where soap is massively kind of like expands as an industry in Europe specifically during the Middle Middle Ages what did it make so powerful uh they make it out of Ash lye and oil just don't work it does yeah so it's like it's pretty much the same recipe for soap like from time not not time Memorial yeah yeah so like I'm you know big centers of soap Productions still exist so like Marseille in France like they were making soap then they're making it now um because still working steel soap comes from they would have smelled French yeah they would have and so but here's two things right so rich people probably have that French soap and rich people are probably like having you know the nice soap that comes from Italy and stuff if you are a normal person you probably make your own but it's totally something that you can make and something that they do so they make their own soap you just give yourself a good wash down then like maybe once a week you'd go for like the full bath that's because they had public bathing didn't they so something my students are always really surprised when I tell them that that like how many friends have you had that you've got in the bath with yeah and they're in for them it's just like this is like a leisurely thing to do you'd be like come on everybody we're going down to the bath house and you just believe it and you know it's just like it's spa day and and you know it's just completely fine but you got they got a really different understanding of kind of what privacy is in the Middle Ages like the idea of privacy is just like not there okay you know like you sleep kind of in a room with six other people and you know you and the homies go get naked down the baths and you know it's it's just not considered the same sort of way that we do now okay okay so the the there is soap where would they get water from if they lived in a city so in the city there are wells and fountains and places that you would get that here often to people do get Thames water like you can go down to the Thames and do it but a lot of the times it's Wells uh Wells and springs and stuff so you have like fountains and stuff around okay so that definitely exists so you've given yourself a bit of a wash until you can go with your mates and get in the tub yeah with your neighbors as well apparently um like what about things like uh bad breath or [ __ ] in your hair or makeup or anything like that like how do you put your face on yeah so um they do brush their teeth they've got like little kind of twigs and stuff that they brush their teeth with and interestingly that's kind of As Good As It Gets until the 1960s because it's not until we started adding fluoride to toothpaste the toothpaste did anything like it might make your breath smell good but it's like it is not fighting like and she's gonna eat [ __ ] like the the actual scrubbing is what cleans her teeth before then so fine so you know it's pretty much exactly the same level and probably they have better teeth than a lot of us do anyway because they just don't have as much access to Sugar yeah like they are they are not eating cane sugar like constantly because we're living that good life baby but uh anyway so there's that a lot of makeup um girls will make their own and we have lots of really cool recipe books about this a big famous one is called the tarantula um and it was allegedly written by Toronto Salerno but a Toronto Salerno we know definitely wrote this bit that is like about Midwifery and it's like here's how you like birth babies and stuff and then what medieval people do is like when they want to get there you know cosmetic guide out they just like start putting it together oh that's clever and then they're like yeah trots of Salerno wrote this thing and there's all sorts of things that you can do so they uh make like face whitening powders um they've got kind of like regular regular Old Powder just kind of like get the blot off they make lipstick they make blush um they have you know various kind of like washes that you can put over your face and even people like a Hildegard of bingen had like oh yeah she was like a skincare girly and she was like oh yeah here's my like is she a nun yeah she's a nun and she was all like oh here's like a really good like skin softener for if you've got like wind chapped it's not skin softener it was a like a barley water thing where you kind of like boil down barley with some uh varying flowers and stuff and apparently that works like because there's I think there's like some glucose or something that kind of like comes off The Barley nice so yeah so you know they have these things um some of them get quite wild though so for example like depilatory creams like in order to get rid of hair because because they really want that you know and they're they're doing their legs and they'll like do their pubes as well like it goes all the way oh no yeah but they make some depilatory creams and baby is bad what do they put like is some of them are medieval iMac yeah like some of them are like literally kind of like caustic and and so they'll be like oh yeah and that's like this will definitely get rid of your hair and then they're like and here's what you put on afterwards on like them and so like some of them are like nasty nasty right don't hit me like yeah so like I've seen them and they have you know it starts off pretty nice and it's like oh there's Iris root and you're like okay like Iris roots and everything I don't know why uh so there's like oh there's Iris root and there's camphor okay okay and then they're like uh carbolic acid and you're like girl what and then like hey where am I coming up with this but like apparently they're like that's around the joint and it's like did they have Brazilians then yeah I mean you know burnt Flags apparently they're like just straight up waxing and stuff like that big in the Italian lands I have read that actually there's a lot of people come in about from Italy commenting on the fact that they're cloth designs didn't have pubic hairs yeah it must have been a thing that's a really big thing um and so like there it specifically kind of talked about as things that women do to please their husbands and it's you know kind of like right in there yeah with red hair part of medieval perceptions of beauty so it doesn't really come up a lot they just talk about how horny they are for blondes um and then like redheads kind of like get into the scale of that where they're like they're kind of blind see so so like occasionally you'll see some images of people where it's like you you can't tell if it's supposed to be red hair or or blonde hair so okay like you know like the little Eve on the front here she's she's virgin on yeah that's what made me think yeah you know if Eve can rock red hair actually actually while we're talking about this and I know that your book is like it's focused a lot on women was anybody writing about what a fit man is in the medieval period do they have pot bellies and interestingly there's these well I say interestingly because you're not gonna be surprised right like uh so the way of kind of thinking about the ideal woman in the ideal man is like really different in that like the ideal woman is a maiden right and Maiden is this kind of like uh yeah right it's like oops like and like mating kind of describes this sort of liminal Zone kind of like we talk about teenagers so the ideal woman is kind of younger uh to the point where you know you will see things like if somebody's child dies like in um the Pearl poem which is about a father who kind of like goes and sees his uh dead child in heaven and she like dies when she's two in heaven she's a maiden and she's like 20 because that's the ideal body and that's what you get for men middle age is ideal which is so it's like in the fort in your 40s that's like what the ideal man is that's so unfair and it really sucks right where it's kind of like yeah you just kind of like get there and and so this is a really interesting thing if you ever see for example um the last judgment paintings that you get from the medieval period when everyone's getting up out of their grave to like go see say Michael and be like do I get to go and everybody's naked because like that's their little souls and all the women look the same like the ideal hot woman and all the men are in their 40s they realized that teenage boys aren't yeah it cannot possibly be ideal and that's kind of actually part of it because um they're considered like so um hot and dry right in humeral Theory it's like they're burning too hot they're too wild with it right and like you need they need to settle down a little bit okay um whereas women because they're colder and water start out colder and wetter you're just becoming colder and colder and wetter all the time and that is kind of like what leads to death it's thought so like aging is thought of as a process of becoming colder and wetter over the life cycle right okay so you know it's nothing that you won't hear from some incel now I mean you get that now yeah like if you look at most Hollywood films it's like the the guy is years and years older than this is leading lady yeah it's like you know the minute you turn like 26 it's like all right get in the get in the closet with that one actually cold and wet exactly like we're we're not having it so you know we haven't really come that far on that well we really haven't have we got those depressing

Channel: History Hit

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Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, middle ages, medieval history, history of sex, dr eleanor janega, eleanor janega, history hits channel, history hit documentary, history hit medieval, history hit eleanor janega, history hit medieval pleasures, history hit kate lister, kate lister, medieval beauty, medieval beauty standards, medieval hygiene, did medieval people wash, medieval makeup, eleanor janega history hit, eleanor janega going medieval, eleanor janega the middle ages

Id: il0lSiYBWBg

Length: 19min 54sec (1194 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 24 2023