We often like to believe that bathrooms are a quite recent innovation and that before “our” culture arose, everyone went around dirty and smelling bad. The truth is that our ancestors in medieval times actually bathed more regularly than anyone else until the nineteenth century. Public bathrooms were common in London where boys would run down the streets to announce when the water was hot enough for a bath. Wealthy hosts would often have servants bring out a large decorated wooden tub fitted with cushions brought out and filled with warm water and scented oils for them to share with their guests after a sumptuous dinner. The bathrooms of royalty were in some instances similar to what we envision today, with a built in bath tub surrounded by decorative tiles and surrounded by colorful carpets. In the Middle Ages there were even several books available for those intent on improving their hygiene and manners. Advice was given on things we take for granted in today’s bathrooms that were not widely accepted yet, like washing the hands, face and teeth every morning. The wealthy aristocrats had a team of servants attending them in their bathrooms to wash their hands for them usually by pouring warm, scented water from a pitcher, across the nobleman’s hands into a bowl held by a second servant after which the hands were dried with a clean, fresh towel by a third servant. So while they may have not enjoyed the modern technology we do, they realized that keeping clean was a good thing.