Foul and Pestilent Vapours: Castle Stories Episode 16

The standard view of the medieval period is that it was a time when hygiene had been abandoned. Abandoning fancy Roman ideas like bathing, the average medieval person never washed and was consequently covered in vile filth, while people threw their waste into the streets and let it fester and breed rats and plague. This unfortunate and stinky image though isn’t the whole truth.