LL-L "Customs" 2010.01.20 (02) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 20 January 2010 - Volume 02
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Customs

Further about personal grooming among the earlier peoples of the north,
please check out the resources below:

*Personal Grooming in the Viking Age*
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/hairstyl.shtml
Anglo-Danes seemed too clean for Anglo-Saxon tastes but fairly disgusting
for Arabic tastes.

Under "Vikings" in the Wikipedia:

*Uncleanliness*

The image of wild-haired, dirty savages sometimes associated with the
Vikings in popular culture is a distorted picture of reality.
Non-Scandinavian Christians are responsible for most surviving accounts of
the Vikings and, consequently, a strong possibility for bias exists. This
attitude is likely attributed to Christian misunderstandings regarding
paganism. Viking tendencies were often misreported and the work of Adam of
Bremen, among others, told largely disputable tales of Viking savagery and
uncleanliness.

The Anglo-Danes were considered excessively clean by their Anglo-Saxon
neighbours, due to their custom of bathing every Saturday and combing their
hair often. To this day, Saturday is referred to as laugardagur / laurdag /
lørdag / lördag, "washing day" in the Scandinavian languages. Icelanders
were known to use natural hot springs as baths, and there is a strong
sauna/bathing culture in Scandinavia to this day.

As for the Vikings in the east, Ibn Rustah explicitly notes their
cleanliness, while Ibn Fadlan is disgusted by all of the men sharing the
same, used vessel to wash their faces and blow their noses in the morning.
Ibn Fadlan's disgust is probably motivated by his ideas of personal hygiene
particular to the Muslim world, such as running water and clean vessels.
While the example intended to convey his disgust about the customs of the
Rus', at the same time it recorded that they did wash every morning.

As you can see, everything is relative. I would be surprised to find out
that North Europeans (e.g. Saxons and Franks) living south of Scandinavia
were any cleaner, and there are indications that Anglo-Saxons found local
Danes to be excessively clean. I assume that the pronouncements of people
like Adam of Bremen and other Christian missionaries are suspect because
they tended to portray Scandinavians and Slavs as uncivilized and thus
needing to be made into Christians. So we are likely to have propaganda
going on there.

Also, please bear in mind that early Christian leaders considered bathing
inappropriate.

The image of the rough and tumble as well as crude and unkempt Viking has
been sticking around for centuries, probably beginning with the usual
dehumanization of the enemy. However, all of us that have visited Viking
exhibits in museums and/or read books about Old Norse ways of life know that
their civilization was fairly sophisticated.

Public bathhouses, probably based on the Roman model, were common in many
parts of Northern Europe through much of the Middle Ages, much to the
chagrin of church leaders, because it involved public nudity and allegedly
lewdness as well.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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