k Death convincing people from to avoid them. The disease of syphilis, which broke out in Europe the late fifteenth-century, would have also motivated people to stop their sexual promiscuity, thus reducing the other reasons for having a bathhouse.
The Dutch philosopher Erasmus, writing in 1526, notes the fall of the public bathhouse. “Twenty-five years ago, nothing was more fashionable in Brabant than the public baths,” he remarked. “Today there are none, the new plague has taught us to avoid them.”
This is the web address for this article, http://www.medievalists.net/2013/04/13/did-people-in-the-middle-ages-take-baths/
Archibald, Elizabeth, “Did Knights Have Baths? The Absence of Bathing in Middle English Romance,” Cultural Encounters In The Romance Of Medieval England, edited by Corinne Saunders (Boydell, 2005)
Caskey, Jill, “Steam and “Sanitas” in the Domestic Realm: Baths and Bathing in Southern Italy in the Middle Ages,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 58, No. 2 (1999)
Harvey, Barbara, Living and Dying in England, 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience (Clarendon Press, 1993)
Holmes, Urban Tigner, Daily Life in the Twelfth-Century (University of Wisconsin Press, 1952)
Lucas, A.T., “Washing and Bathing in Ancient Ireland,” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 95, No. 1/2 (1965)
Newman, Paul B., Daily Life in the Middle Ages (McFarland and Co., 2001)
Smith, Virginia, Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity (Oxford University Press, 2007)
van Dam, Fabiola I., “Permeable Boundaries: Bodies, Bathing and FLuxes, 1135-1333,” Medicine and Space: Body, Surroundings and Borders in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. Patricia Baker (Brill, 2012)
van Winter, Johanna Maria, “Medieval Opinions about Food and Drinking in Connection with Bathing,” Spices and Comfits: Collected Papers on Medieval Food (Prospect Books, 2007)
2014 has arrived and it is once again time to begin the planning of the Alabama Renaissance Faire. This year the Faire is going to take place on October 25th and 26th and it will be held at Wilson Park in Florence, Alabama. This is the same location that it has been held at for the last 27 years.
This coming Thursday marks the first of our monthly meeting, we will be meeting from noon to one at the Richards Center, which is located 541 Riverview Drive.
In case you missed it during the Faire last year, once again the curse upon our land has required us to select a new monarch. This curse has prevented any monarch from sitting upon the throne for more than one years time. And so we have a new monarch for 2014. I would like to introduce to you to Her Royal Majesty Angelia from Andalusia, Spain. This dress was made with the aid of JoAnna Scott.
Well, the 27th Annual Alabama Renaissance Faire is behind us. Now, it is time to take a short break, during which time we will prepare for the Florence (our home city) Christmas Parade on December 12th, then we will resume our short break until January. At which time we start all over again!
If you are already trying to get your calendars set up for next year, hear are some dates for you to jot down and add to your event planning. In January, the 16th, we will be turning our official attention to planning the next Faire. The Roundtable (the group of volunteers who bring you the Renaissance Faire) will be meeting at the old Florence Board of Education (aka the Richard’s Center) building at 541 Riverview Drive here in Florence. We will be meeting monthly on every third Thursday, until September rolls around. In September we will meet two times that month, on the 1st and 3rd Thursday and then in October we will meet every week (lots to do and time is getting short. Also in October, two weeks before the Faire we hold a costume making workshop, that should be on the 11th and the next weekend is our Royal Autumnal Feast, it will be held on the 18th. Then on the following weekend, is the 28th Annual Alabama Renaissance Faire. To be held on the 25th & 26th.
There are other events that occur during the year. We, the Roundtable, wi