(23 August 2013, 06:03)Kenneth Eames Wrote: There was a time when the Elizabethans sewed there clothes on during the winter and used scent to hide the pong. Nelson wrote to Lady Hamilton 'don't wash I'm Coming home'. HUM, HUM. POO. Kenneth Eames.
Quite right Mr Eames, the stench was horrific. The peasants would indeed sow themselves into their undergarments, with the obligitory "arse flap" in their breeches and then change them at the end of the year, or when they rotted off. The nobles although wearing the best fabrics were no less riddled with lice and intestinal worms. Washing was seen as a bad habit and the people honestly believed that building up a crust of grime and dead skin acted like a suit of armour protecting them against the "humours". Queen Elizabeth 1 was reported to have boasted that she had a bath "once a year whether she needed it or not". Most people did not wash or bath at all, the only two times in their life they would be washed wash was at birth and death.
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