The Suprising Truth About Beauty Standards in the Middle Ages
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- Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
- What made you attractive in the Middle Ages? In this filmed episode of the History Hit podcast Betwixt the Sheets, Dr Kate Lister interviews medieval historian Eleanor Janega about medieval beauty standards, hygiene and the perspectives of women throughout the Middle Ages.
You can listen to Kate's podcast here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...
They also discuss Eleanor's new book 'The Once and Future Sex'. It's an illuminating exploration of medieval thinking on women’s beauty, sexuality, and behaviour. What makes for the ideal woman? How should she look, love, and be?
You'll also find out if medieval people washed, shaved or brushed their teeth. Plus, why weren't nuns allowed to look after the sick overnight?
#historyhit #medieval #eleanorjanega
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“Middle aged men are the hottest” - middle aged male writer in medieval times 😂
Was it their money or social standing that made them the hottest?
@@653j521im thinking maybe it was made by men or its related to physical activites, maybe the become stronger or its the climax of themselves, like athletes. (A lot of times we think 30s but ive seen 40 yo dancers)
@@653j521 I'm guessing their patronage to the poets describing the standards of beauty for both female and male was a main reason for pushing middle aged men as "hottest" - they could afford to pay for their views to be presented as "objective truths" - if objective truth was of any value anyway.😁
I think it’s that men needed to be more established and able to provide for a family, and most younger men, especially if they weren’t firstborn, probably weren’t able to do that. As for physical appearance, we don’t have a lot of historical women writing about what they found sexy in men. But apparently Lancelot was a stud… lol
“Feet.”
“I have feet!”
😂
6:54 Reminds me of reading about how difficult it is to reconstruct women's clothing for some periods! Somewhat in the reverse of today, it was the *men's* clothes written about in great detail - the cut and style of his garments, adjective-filled descriptions of their color and fabric, etc. - then just, "the bride wore a gown of woo!."
Men were the first to wear pink, too, it was extremely popular for them🙂
love this discussion!
I'm very far from the core of beauty standards now and in the medieval period, but I have a feeling I'd've been seen as dead sexy in the paleolithic
😂😂😂❤
😅😅😅
Awesome! I love it.
Thinking that it is a social construct with the amount of science we have is pure madness.
I'm just looking for the time period where super short, not scrawny but not quite chubby, small eyes and short waist come into the ultimate fashion
The recipe for soap is simply a mixture of potassium hydroxide and oil/fat. The potassium hydroxide comes from mixing the ashes of a fire ("pot ash" = potassium) dissolved in water. By itself, the straight lye dissolves skin, fat and protein. Mixing it with a fat or oil and water in the correct proportion decreases the lye's ability to eat the skin from your body to a substance that allows dirt, oils (body odor), and other filth to be dissolved in water and washed away.
It’s not quite that simple, there is a process that occurs called saponification
@@paultuerena I just described saponification, the mixture of lye with an oil leading to combined properties of both oil and water where the surface tension of water is lessened while the "soap" allows the mixing of both oils and water so that water can literally wash both the dirt and oils away.
@@db_37205 apologies very early in the morning and I possibly misread! Never comment before coffee!
@@paultuerena I don't even have a heartbeat before my morning coffee ☺
I worked as a volunteer on archaeological digs years ago, and the palaeontologist was able to fairly accurately date remains to before or after the 1500s (when sugar became widely available from the americas) by looking at the teeth of a skull.
Basically, after refined sugar was introduced, dental hygiene goes to hell
Prior to the introduction of sugar, teeth generally wore down due to millstone pieces in grain and bread
I imagine that using one’s teeth as tools put some wear on them, as well
Depends i guess. The more you bite as a kif the more theyll be straight so it might bz in the same boat
Paleontologist? That's for dinosaurs. They aren't on archeological digs.
Sugar existed before the Americas... sugar was produce in europe through beet...
I love seeing someone with the same flat, slightly nasal, Western US accent just kicking ass as a Medievalist in the heart of the City of London. Go on, Queen!
Yes! An opportunity for unbiased honesty.
Actually I read that US accent is closer to older English accents than modern UK accent.
I love their dynamic!! This really represents a genuine conversation between two friends about a subject they are passionate about. More of both Dr Lister and Dr Janega please! Also the topic is really interesting
“I’m medieval hot!” is just such a great quote! 😂
"Dumptruck ass" Yeah, that sounds medieval... 😁 Love these two together!
Me too! But why o why all the beeps! I hate those! If people can't handle simple describing non hateful words, they can just watch something else! It's so puritanical! So: sex, ass, shit, boobs and fucking penis! There!
Great discussion. Two very bright women . Full of wit and humour .
One of the great beauties of the medieval age was Eleanor of Aquitaine. Like many other beautiful and/or powerful women she had her share of rumors. But this idea that one had to "young" to be the epitome of beauty, is not correct. While she was indeed young when she married the King of France, by the time she married Henry ll of England, she was 30, he was 18. At that time she was still renowned as one of the most beautiful women in existence. They proceeded to have I believe 8 children together and the last one was born when she was 44.
Her son King John married the beautiful Isabelle of Angouleme. She was a widow in mid-twenties, and remarried at 30 and proceeded to have 8-10 children with her new husband. Fertility and beauty were more intertwined in that era than the present day.
I love seeing these two together! Going through the list of medieval beauty standards cracked me up, especially the dumptruck a**
I’ve learned about Hildegard of Bingen but I have never heard she was a skin care girly. Love it!
She’s my confirmation saint, so I adore her, but I didn’t know this! 😅
It was so cute how excited Dr. Lister got in hitting each checkbox for medieval hotness.
Lack of visible ulceration was hot 👍🏽
And whoever among them owned the most serfs blighted with the least amount of pustules who lived upon the vastest tracts of land was the hottest of all methinks. Yea verily.
As was pulling your visible hairline halfway back on your head from your forehead, and slathering your face with lead and arsenic.In place of perfume, just dont ever take a bath after the age of infancy.
😂😂😂
@@SofaKingShit right, the classic, “well, he’s serf hot, soooo….”
Still is, baby!
Mucilage is the softening agent in the barley water, Irish root is a stabilizer and anchors scent
I would love to buy them a pint in a pub and just listen to the stories.
My two favourite presenters! Another great video, the beeped swearing made me chuckle ... the conversation felt more authentic for it. Always fun to see what insights you two can give us into medieval life and the absurdities of commonly held cultural beliefs.
Except they forgot one fuck somewhere in the second half 😂
@@kisa229 That was the fuck they were allowed to give! 😉😁
I click in quickly quite often to history hit. But when I saw this drop I had to drop everything. I appreciate the frank approachable discussion. the compare contrast to how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. More more more please.
The "millihelen" was the unit of female beauty in the Guinness book from my teens. It meant beauty sufficient to launch one ship. The origin was Helen of Troy's beauty being enough to launch 1,000 ships.
Edit: I think the Guinness editors may have been throwing a joke into the book.
naw a millihelen is totally a legit unit of measurement
That is “hysterical.” A roaming uterus for men?
How would one measure a milihelen, I wonder? Take pictures of the lady in question to a series of navy ships, and begin canvassing the crews to find out how many would be willing to launch their ship for her? But then one would have to factor in that modern ships are much larger than those in the Bronze Age, and scale the ships accordingly.
9:39 I'm so obsessed w a MEDIEVAL HISTORIAN calling these ppl out as "nerd ass nerds" get em Eleanor
Organic distilled rosewater is an ancient cosmetic product that I love. It smooths, moisturizes and softens skin without adding any grease or oil, and it smells wonderful. I can’t stand greasy hands, especially working with silk fabrics as I often do. Or those horrible candy, fruity, muffin smells they put in everything nowadays, give me florals instead.
I second this! Rosewater is amazing both as a cosmetic product and as a culinary ingredient.
I love learning about ancient beauty because the mix of "why don't we do this anymore?" and "this is why we do not do this anymore" is just insane. Caring for hair by brushing out the dead skin cells to clean hair seems to be coming back in the form of the curly girl method. Officially we no longer whiten skin with lead, mercury, or arsenic unless you find a lightening cream that actually works. We no longer drip belladonna in our eyes to achieve the appearance of deadly desire. We only inject neurotoxins (botox) in our faces and take a lot of unregulated pills/powders/potions of unknown content to acheive the perfect body, so clearly we have come a long way.
Thirded! Rosewater is sooo good for delicate face skin!
I could listen to these two all day long
These two Historians are always fantastic together.
am I the only one distracted by the color grading being different between the shots?
Was driving me nuts. Who did that? Did no one notice?
Yeh, not a good effect.
I believe it's caused by lens flare and the camera from the front. The light bouncing on the lens affects the color?
And the bowl filled with books, moves with every shot😮 center, left, right… and the mirror to her left, then not…weird
Congratulations on the book Janega! ❤👍🏻
The frankness of this conversation is awesome :)
Once again Dr Eleanor delivers a great insight of what ideals were like, Thanks Dr Eleanor
Eleanor Janega is just awesome!
Love Dr. Eleanor... Smart, knowledgeable and a fantastic presenter. Would love to sit through one of her college lectures. That she's killing it over in the UK is fantastic. She and the other American (guy) that is curator of the arms collection somewhere over there are a credit to American history scholars.
Eleanor has that contagious energy about her... I'm sure she's the "belle" of the history nerd balls in academic circles. Bet she's a lot of fun to hang out with, at least if you're talking medieval history!
Depilation wasn't always just to please men. In those days, lice were endemic, so getting rid of hair prevented cooties. And prostitutes definitely had to get rid of pubic hair for hygienic reasons as well as easy cleaning between customers.
Lye, ash, beef tallow. My grandmother made her own soap through the 1970s. That stuff could take all the dirt plus a layer or two of skin.
My grandmother did that too around same years or probably earlier than I was born xx
8:23 "I have feet!" I love just listening to these women banter, and I'm glad I live in a time when I'm allowed to respect them. God the past sucked.
So happy to see Eleanor Janega again! I bought and read her book as soon as it was available and enjoyed it very much. Thanks very much for this video, I could listen to Eleanor conversate all day.
This is a brilliant authentic discussion! Hearing a serious historian say, "Dump-truck ass" is so funny.
Why can't I like this video ten times? RUclips really needs to bring in a superlike. A deci-like, if you wish.
My two favorite historians together again talking about a subject I love!
My two biggest parasocial crushes in the world, right here.
I am ecstatic that you've written your book, and loved watching this. In my personal time, I've studied gender inequality and social conditioning, for over 30 years, and you're so right that what is deemed sexy and appropriate for women, is a social construct, created by powerful men. It essentially keeps women in their place and grovelling for acceptance from the "men above them". I refuse to bow to societal pressure that tells me I am somehow wrong, or "less than", if I don't fit the current standard of what is beautiful. We need to get this message across loud and clear. These days it's more about capitalism and consumerism, ensuring women spend a fortune in order to look beautiful. I think there's a lot more men these days that are far more accepting of our less than perfect bodies than we realise. Mature, more spiritually focused men anyway. And who wants a shallow man who only cares if he can see through the gap in your thighs, or if you have big boobs. But this topic needs to be discussed so women will stop hating on themselves, for being who they naturally are. This is a subject that women have been so affected by, they have caused themselves physical harm and even death, in the pursuit of "beauty". Well I say FUK THAT!
I love watching these two. Huge congrats on the book release!
And here in Japan we still like going to the sentou ( public bath ) together with our friends and family. It's a nice way to bond. Foreigners usually shocked because wearing any bathing suit is npt allowed in sentou.
Love to see you ladies! Making history interesting and hilarious. No better way to start a day
I could listen to these 2 all day❤❤
We love Eleanor!!! ✌✌
Bought the book. Can’t wait to read it. I'm really interested in the concept of beauty standard as social construct.
I need NEED more of this conversation!!
I love the nature of this video. Relaxed conversation
Thanks guys, insightful and thought provoking. Not many more historians I trust and have more confidence in for intelligently analysing and disseminating past primary sources, the likes of which that survive are from a narrow channel of society, that resonates so much to my identity, values and heritage. I've also never felt the urge stronger to jump into the screen, go buy a bottle of sav from the bar and pull up a stool and join in too. My tribe!
Fascinating conversation!
Keep your simon schamas these 2 are the best historians in the world.
Amazing discussion! I’ll look for more of your talks together!
Love these two ladies! They are soooooooo entertaining and well-spoken. Excellent presentation yet again!! Warm wishes from Northern California :)
I enjoy the comments learning lots from them as well . Nice ,smart community 🥰 you’re all so good as well
Perfect medieval man is in their 40s, so who is the writer of these descriptions? Men in their 40s
Naturally! 😂😂😂
I just want to know what the public bathhouse was like for an average person! A pool? Individual tubs? How often were the tubs being cleaned? Was somebody just going back and forth with a bucket? How were they heating the water?
Many of the famous bath/bain/springs towns had geothermal springs. They could even divert just a small stream of super hot into cold baths, for the tepid ones.
The Medieval Stews, as they were called, had large half-barrel tubs. They could be small enough for two, or large enough to hold group of 6 or more. There were public rooms with several tubs, and private rooms with one. This was not for modesty, but because Stews were often used as a place to carry out business or to network.
People usually sat on a low stool, and there would be floating trays to hold food and drink. To protect the user from rough edges, towels were draped over the sides and into the water. To keep the heat in, there were often hung around with curtains or a tent like structure.
Sometimes the larger Stews had large pools where people could swim.
The use of chimneys was adopted quickly by the Stews, allowing rooms to be kept warm.
Water was usually heated by fires. Smaller Stews would have large metal pots, think witches cauldrons, and water would be transferred by bucket. More elaborate Stews would use the same method of heating, but the water would be transferred by pipes. Taps were around at this time, think wine and beer barrels.
Apparently, the water was changed regularly. If it were not, then it would be difficult to reheat it. If a tub was emptied, they might part fill it with cold water, then place heated metal in it to warm the water. I imagine this only happened with the smaller tubs. They were probably far more hygienic than the Roman style baths which still existed in a few places, and which were cleaned less often.
Loved this! Thank you!
Excellent and entertaining. Thank you
This is so interesting and enjoyable, thank you!
What an interesting discussion. I could listen to much more of this.
This was fantastic 👏🏻
Love the easy banter back and forth between these two! Well done!
p.s. Regarding the casual attitude toward public bathing, I've heard that their is an old Japanese saying that "Nudity is often seen, but seldom looked at." Perhaps that also applied to medieval Europe.
I loved the book! It was a fascinating read.
So interesting… great presenters. More please 🙏
I just downloaded this book, I’m looking forward to reading it! :)
I would chew off one of my own arms to go and have coffee and talk with these two women. They’re absolutely incredible.
Would you still be hot, though? :)
This is fantastic. Also you're both friggin hilarious!
Love that HH caters to the ladies. Eleanor Janega is fantastic!
I'm only 5 minutes into the video and I'm pre-ordering your book!
Love these two.
Please more! These 20 mins wend over in no time.
This is making history relevant - and amusing!
Thanks!
However, I love this conversation!! ❤
These ladies are quite charming. Love this ❤
"I have feet!" LOL!!
Thanks for your insights...❤😊
I wish they would mention that life was hard and exhausting for most people and that most of the time, people didn't travel much so basically, you're pairing up with the townspeople and there's really not much choice on picking who's best looking. Also, evolutionarily, heavier set women were desirable because food supplies were not reliable year by year, at the most and skinny, thin people didn't last as long in times of famine, so being heavy set was attractive because it meant that you had plenty!
Well, after producing two very large babies, I have some of the beauty characteristics, especially the beeped ass. I was originally very thin…I now try to think of myself as a Titian dream girl! I am a social scientist who studied these things as part of a lifelong study of the human need to oppress “Others” and/or define what is or is not acceptable behavior. I hoped that with advanced age some of the pictures in my head would go away. No such luck,beep, beep.
The volume on this video is very low. It's difficult to hear what they say. Please ensure the audio volume is normalized (preferably with some compression as well).
Yay! I was waiting for another video with Eleanor.
I loved the Once and Future King..immediately understood the reference. You must shout out Tantivy! And go at the lists! That was my favorite character.
I love these two. Fascinating discussion
I love the discussion, but I have to say I was distracted by the different filters on the camera lenses and I checked a coiple of times to see if I had accidentally turned on the automatic brightness on my phone. The topic was super interesting though, along with the breadth of the discussion, from medieval beauty standards to cleanliness for everyday people.
I was also, and kept wiping my glasses, thinking I had somehow smudged them! lol
Just bought your book on audio.
This is great. Thank you! This from a Medievalist.
Brb, off to buy a book ❤
Beauty is for sure a construct. As a teen in the late 90s, if someone told me that in the 2020s there would be fashion models that had visible curves I would have told them they were dreaming. Back then any kind of female A-list celebrity was extremely thin. I don't know what they ate so I'm not going to speculate but suffice to say, they did not look young, fit and healthy. It was a very unrealistic and unsustainable physical standard that really was considered the height of excellence. It makes you think about other bizarre trends throughout the ages. Corsets, white faces, feet binding, collar bone sinking to lengthen necks. A lot are the opposite of healthy and actually are designed to make women look deformed. Less human. Like a woman in her natural state isn't good enough. I don't think on their own men would agree with these odd standards, or women, but it's funny how we all buy into with enough peer pressure. The moral I guess is to get to know people on the inside and what they look like on the outside will become your standard.
Also eyebrows. Eyebrows were not allowed in the late 90 early 00s, now people are basically tattooing on unibrows.
Other than the very skinnyI miss the look on the women 1990s early 2000
Now is its huge trout lips, monstrous backsides, gross breasts. Gel/acrylic long talons, plastic eyelashes. Makeup application all from same mold.
Got her book!
Great video...except the sound! I had my speaker on max volume and had to really pay attention to catch everything. This seems to be the case with a number of HH videos, which is such a shame.
Good Lord, I would so love to buy the Doctors a beer and I could listen to them talk history for hours. I may pick up a copy of The Once and Future Sex, too. Clever, but not overbearing, title. I do appreciate a good King Arthur allusion! I mean, who doesn't? I'm not even British.
5:31 in and there is already like 3 bleeps 😂😂😂 considering which podcast this is from that’s light 😂😂😂
Epic!!
"I have feet" 🤣
God you ladies have a witty wild energy to you, I loved this!!!
I loved this one! I laughed so hard I think I jump scared the cats.
That was very interesting
"High hairline?" "Yes, I have a high hairline." "Small, high breasts?' - "No, no!" "Dumptruck ass?" "YES! Oh yes!" Ladies, I LOVE, love, love what you do! Please make more programs together: you are an absolute hoot and you get so much info across, it's unreal" Oh, and congrats on being "medieval hot." Someone's gotta do it, and you do it so well!" So glad I found you: I too have a dumptruck ass, and as a lady nearing her '60's I'm pretty pleased pleased with being hot. Granted, I'm about 600 - 800 years late to the show, but better late than never!
If it makes you feel any better, I was born too late for my Henry VIII calves to be truly appreciated. These woulda been like the Lamborghini of legs back in the day.
😂
“It’s not that I’m not hot. It’s that I was born hundred of years too late!” 😂
There was a huge, scientific dating study about 15 or 20 years ago, where each person’s looks, personalities, occupations, wealth, education, etc. were carefully assessed. The conclusions:
1. women selected men based on their height, the taller the man, the better; and
2. men selected women for their small waist to hip ratio, in other words, the greater the difference between these measurements, the more desirable the men found them.
This was the most thorough and objective study I’ve seen and the results have the ring of evolutionary truth about them. The taller the men, the better to protect and provide for a women’s children; the wider a woman’s hips, the better to bear a man’s healthy children.
I wouldn’t have found a mate with my narrow hips and small bottom!
if that were necessary evolutionarily speaking, there would be very very few narrow hipped women and short men. They would have been selected out long ago and would be considered biological anamolies. Our preferences are not by default the characteristics of the people we end up with.
@@deedrole5296well it’s moreso that the undesirables just get with each other. You don’t need to be the apex you just have to be the best option available