reasonable ideal should render it easy and natural for every man, woman,
and child to have a simple bath, tepid in winter, cold in summer, all the
year round.

For the history of the bath in mediæval times and later Europe,
see A. Franklin, _Les Soins de Toilette_, in the _Vie Privée
d'Autrefois_ series; Rudeck, _Geschichte der öffentlichen
Sittlichkeit in Deutschland_; T. Wright, _The Homes of Other
Days_; E. Dühren, _Das Geschlechtsleben in England_, bd. 1.

Outside the Church, there was a greater amount of cleanliness
than we are sometimes apt to suppose. It may, indeed, be said
that the uncleanliness of holy men and women would have attracted
no attention if it had corresponded to the condition generally
prevailing. Before public baths were established bathing in
private was certainly practiced; thus Ordericus Vitalis, in
narrating the murder of Mabel, the Countess de Montgomery, in
Normandy in 1082, casually mentions that she was lying on the bed
after her bath (_Ecclesiastical History_, Book V, Chapter XIII).
In warm weather, it would appear, mediæval ladies bathed in
streams, as we may still see countrywomen do in Russia, Bohemia,
and occasionally nearer home. The statement of the historian
Michelet, therefore, that Percival, Iseult, and the other
ethereal personages of mediæval times "certainly never washed"
(_La Sorcière_, p. 110) requires some qualification.

In 1292 there were twenty-six bathing establishments in Paris,
and an attendant would go through the streets in the morning
announcing that they were ready. One could have a vapor bath only
or a hot bath to succeed it, as in the East. No woman of bad