Het middeleeuwse openbare badhuis: fenomeen, metafoor, schouwtoneel

Abstract

The medieval public bathhouse is, since the nineteenth century, often described as a brothel, as a stage set for presumed medieval licentiousness and sexuality. Fabiola van Dam shows the public bathhouse was much more than that. It was an important urban institution that was supervised by the town council where people went to get clean but also to relax. It also was the best place to go when one was injured, had a broken leg or a fever that would not go away. No less important the bathhouse was a social hub, a meeting place where one could go to hear the latest news, talk over the most recent happenings in town or make all kinds of appointments, be they for business or for romance. The many bathing prescriptions in medical literature, the popular rules for living well and the frequently issued rules by town councils concerning public health show how important medieval people considered this to be. This also is attested by the many bathing scenes in art and in literature. Fabiola van Dam’s research of the language of bathing prescriptions has made clear that medieval people expected bathing to cause changes in body and soul, for the good but also for the bad. Of this the medieval bath house is not only a phenomenon and a metaphor but it also is a stage where medieval notions of dirt and cleanliness, of health and disease are communicated, contested and changed.