Shining Armor, Questionable Hygiene

knights, squires, and the myth of chivalric cleanliness

Noble Knights: a suit of shining armor, lance held high, a paragon of the Middle Ages. It sounds straight out of a fairytale. And, unfortunately, that is exactly what it is. These were men who spent hours sealed inside iron suits in the baking sun and solved biological problems in ways that do not hold up to modern standards. The shining armor? It stayed shining for as long as it took to walk towards the enemy, but after that, you were basically a mobile swamp.

And yes, it gets worse. Because behind every knight fumbling with his own equipment was a squire, a young man of noble descent who dreamed to be not the cleaner of the swamp, but its creator. See, squiring was normally a mandatory step on the road to knighthood, meaning these ambitious teenagers at some point in time looked at a knight, reeking of a foul stench and covered in filth and thought: Yes, I want that. I will clean up after that man so that one day I too can be in his shoes—which may have been filled with pee.

Ambition is a hell of a thing

Artistic Depiction of a Squire Helping His Knight

The medieval standards for hygiene were, in modern standards, not all that great, but arguably not as bad as media renditions make it out to be. The daily hygiene practices of people in medieval England were relatively similar to what is now described as ‘top and tail,’ which included the hand cleaning of the face, underarms and ‘nether regions’(genitals). Naturally this process would change depending on a person’s societal positioning, with the poor meeting this quota less frequently and nobles having a much more robust routine. During these cleaning routines, medieval people would utilize scented oils (or soap) and water, bathing at either a bath house, horse trough, or, if you’re wealthy, your own personal bathtub (wow!). Additionally, it is worth noting that ‘bathing’ in this case rarely ever meant full submersion in water. No, in fact, during this time physicians believed this practice weakened the body and could invite illness. Regarding other processes, such as brushing teeth, hazel twigs that had been frayed at the end were used in coordination with sea salt and herbs to ‘clean’ teeth daily. And for the maintenance of hair, combs would be used to remove dirt and potential parasites while also massaging in cleaning oils. Again, all differ between groups depending on your economic status.

Bas-de-page scene of a man bathing in a tub, with attendants

Now, where do knights fit into these standards? Well, knights too attempted to hold themselves to a degree of cleanliness, bathing regularly and adhering to a schedule similar to that of the times. But, as I stated, this was an attempt, not necessarily the case. When out on long campaigns, potentially longer than 40 days, it is well documented that the ability to maintain certain standards of hygiene becomes much more difficult. Knights went days without proper bathing as water could run low and access to lakes or streams could be nonexistent. And when in consideration of other diminishing standards such as the proximity of people, environmental conditions and bodily fluids, things start to look much, much worse.

Once a knight returns from a campaign, covered in the nastiest substances you can think of, the squire would be responsible for the armor and clothing’s return to its previous state. For plate armor, squires would utilize a mix of physical and chemical abrasives such as sand, brick dust, vinegar and even urine to scrub away the blood, excrement and whatever else was brought back by their master. After the rust and grime was stripped away by the multiple rounds of hand scrubbing, the squire would then have to buff the armor with wool cloth for polishing, followed by a round of greasing to prevent rusting, often done so with animal fat or plant oils. For chainmail, squires would place it in a barrel with sand, gravel and sometimes oil, and tumble it for multiple hours to clean and polish it. But that’s not all. Squires often helped in the dressing, grooming and bathing of their masters. All of this, in addition to the maintenance of their steeds and weaponry, were included in the routine duties of a squire.

So the next time you find yourself admiring a suit of armor at a museum, gleaming under a set of carefully arranged lights, just remember what it took to get it to that state. The sand, the brick dust, and most importantly the elbow grease of a 15 year old boy. Knights of the Middle Ages were, by any modern measure, extremely foul — or at least, that is what historical anecdotes suggest, having every reason to exaggerate. Medieval chroniclers were not exactly known for their journalistic restraint, and the further back you go, the harder it becomes to separate fact from a good story someone really wanted to be true.

What we can say with reasonable confidence is that long campaigns, heavy armor, and the general conditions of medieval warfare did not make for pleasant company. The specifics may be murkier than they appear. Knights were, at minimum, doing their best under circumstances that modern hygiene standards would classify as a rough situation.

They were also somehow the most romanticized figures in all of Western history. Hell, we even named an ideal of moral virtue after them. We made them the heroes of every tale and put them on the poster for civilization. History, much like a suit of armor after a 40-day campaign, does not always smell the way we would like it to.

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Did you Know?

• Unrelated to the Middle Ages, but when Crusader armies arrived in the Holy Land in 1096, Arab accounts record that locals were more struck by the knights' stench than by their religious zeal. Where Christian accounts of the Crusades tend to gloss over this detail, Muslim accounts are remarkably candid about it.

• In the Middle Ages, ceremonial baths were ritualistic rather than hygienic, symbolizing the spiritual purification of a new knight. Before their knighting, candidates were placed in a tub, instructed on chivalric duties by senior knights, put to bed to dry, and then they spent the night in prayer.