Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - What Made You Ugly In Medieval Times?

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Beauty fads come and go - remember super low-rise jeans in the 90s? IYKYK.What was considered cool and beautiful in the medieval period? What skincare routines were medieval people doing? And how did the Black Death affect how people dressed and presented themselves?In this new mini-series, we'll be exploring the beauty standards - and ideas of ugliness - throughout time periods in history.In this second episode Kate is joined by historian and author Dr. Eleanor Janega, co-host of our sister podcast Gone Medieval, to find out why wearing make-up was a crime.This episode was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister, and you are listening to Betwix the Sheets, and I'm so glad that you are. But before we can continue together, I have to protect you from me, quite frankly, and my guest this time.

Absolutely, there's no doubt about that. And we do that by giving you the fair do's warning. So here it is. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adultery things in an adulty way, covering a range of adults subjects, and you should be an adult too. Oh, well, I feel safer.

Do you feel safer? Let's do it! Village life as a medieval peasant wasn't all bad, you know. I mean, as long as you don't mind a steady stream of root vegetables in your diet and living in the same room as your livestock, and, well, I can't get this mud out of my hair for love nor money. But if you can put that to one side, there are some very pretty things to be found. There are lots of theories out there about how life looked and smelled during the medieval period and most of it tells us it looked and smelt grim.

Let's be completely honest. These visual stereotypes present us with quite a hard world and a filthy one at that. So, how did medieval people maintain beauty standards? And what did they have to do to be considered ugly? What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing it.

Yes. Social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time. Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie. Hello and welcome back to Betwixte Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal in Society, with me, Kate Lister. Welcome to the latest episode

in our mini-series on historical beauty standards, and today we are getting medieval. They have a lot of things in common with the ancient Romans. They all loved a pale face, but they do have some very interesting quirks all of their own, such as Christianity.

which really takes off in the medieval period and had notions of beauty linked to original sin. Turns out all that sinning can have a pretty damning effect on a girl's beauty regime. How did they navigate this complete minefield? How were people of colour viewed in the medieval period? And what would a good skincare routine look like back then? Joining us today is the completely beautiful

and brilliant author and historian, Eleanor Janiger, co-host of our sister podcast Gone Medieval, and we love her very much. Tweezers are ready, everybody. Let's do this. Hello, and welcome back to Betwixt This Sheets. It's Eleanor Yonaga. How are you doing? Very well, Kate, I live here now. This is my house. Yeah. That's not true. Well, you know, it's about to be mine. Well, yeah, we can just live here now. This is the Betwixt the Sheets slash Medi-Ey-Eytex.

Evenly speaking crossover pad. Thank you for dropping by, though. We are here to talk about medieval beauty standards. Oh, there's a one. Hmm. I think it's kind of annoying, though. When you talk about medieval beauty standards, it's kind of like, yes.

All right, I'm going to talk about medieval things because you can't stop me. Yep. No, you can't stop, won't stop. Nope. But fundamentally, these standards within Europe, and more particularly kind of in the Mediterranean literal, are pretty much ossified for a really long time.

So, you know, yeah, I could be talking about, I don't know, France in the 1300s, but it's also kind of true of like Morocco in like the 10th century, you know. There are some consistent things. What I'm learning, I've been done this little mini-series and doing little time-travelling trips to different places, is there are some constants.

They're like, wherever you go, that was an attractive thing. Clear skin, I have yet to find anybody. going actually we kind of want you to fuck it up a bit that doesn't happen no um healthy that's like a really big one with maybe a few detours remember heroin chic in the 90s

oh yeah well it's back baby because the 90s are back so no no keep it away no I want my high waisted change but I was also thinking like not only there's some constants of like healthy young that's another one again I have yet to find anyone that thinks as you get older and older you get more attractive. That doesn't happen.

But even if we just think about our lifetimes, how much beauty trends come and go, like in the 90s, right? And I was thinking, because I know it's going to come and talk to it, and I was making a mental list of beauty fads that have come and gone in our lifetime. Number one, concealer lips.

Oh, God. I remember them. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. And then with, like, a dark liner around. Yes. That showgirl's liner, girl, that showgirl's liner. super low-rise jeans

girl what a horrible time to live through my 20s you had to shave to put those up it was just you know I've emerged into the world and they were like put these on oh by the way your fly is like two inches long I mean it was kind of like a notion at that point

and the thong hanging out at the back so we don't do any and like the height of sophistication on the red carpet was jeans and a nice top okay do you remember though at the same time the jeans under the dress thing Oh my God, hideous. Oh, no.

Oh, yeah. But like, we could do this for a while. But my point is, is like, look how much these things come and go within a few years. So even though things are constant when it comes to beauty standards, there must have been things coming in and things going out. Because the pretty evil period, as I've learned from you, is a thousand years of history. Absolutely. And so there are things that we don't necessarily know about what's going on at certain periods of time. So like the early middle ages when we have fewer sources for them because 1500 years is a really

long time ago, you know, and it's hard, it's hard to get sources for that. And also, culturally, they just kind of don't write things down in terms of what descriptions are. So we don't know that much about what's going on in, say, the year 650 because no one was like, hey, she is really hot and she looks like this. The thing that they'll do is they'll write down that someone is really beautiful. Yeah. And you're like, helpful, thanks, you know, and that isn't really expanded upon. And this is super common, though, because even if you go back to, for example, the ancient Greeks

and they're like, Helen of Troy, you're like, oh, yeah, okay, the most beautiful woman on earth. And they're like, she's blonde. And you're like, anything else, they're like, absolutely not. That's just, that's all it takes, baby. And, you know, even within that, when you're looking at a class, classical women that are portrayed as beautiful. You know, again, like from things like the Trojan Wars, you'll have like Polysena. And they'll be like, oh, yeah, she's not too tall.

And that's, yeah. Yeah. And like, you know, it's not giving you much to work with. There's absolutely nothing. So, you know, this isn't a particularly medieval thing. And so, you know, even when we are looking at ancient standards of beauty, we got to go look at, like, statues. Right?

You know, you need to go find like Aphrodite bathing and things like that. And, you know, these are pretty uniform. And, you know, medieval people saw those statues, right? Those are, those are things that they saw with their eyes because it wasn't like they were underground or something. So, you know, that must have persisted in some places. But what we definitely know about early medieval beauty standards is they're like, to be beautiful is kind of like to be righteous. I'm sensing that as developing as a theme, you know, this sort of pretty privilege, but on an epic scale of like if you're, beautiful, then you're just a good person. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And it's like the other things you have all this time, like, where this is a legitimate cause for philosophical debate. So people are like, why is it that the chick I really want to bang is also so holy

and good? And they're like, well, it's because, it's because God created the world, right? God created nature. And, you know, God created the Garden of Eden. he created everything that exists. And when we were still in the Garden of Eden, you know, we were close by God. We were just like, in his image, right?

And, you know, then things went south. You know, Eva ate the pomegranate or the apple or whatever it is you want it to be. We got kicked out, bada bina bada bada bada bda-boo. But naturally things are close to God because God made the physical world. So therefore, things that naturally are beautiful are close to God. God and then that's how you kind of get spiritual perfection. That is some mental gymnastics, isn't it? That is a hell of a way of saying,

we always think that the people you want to shag are amazing. And they are. For a bit. I've never ever wanted to shag some man who was terrible. No. You learn that later. Yeah. Put that on record.

That's always right. Right? That's what happens later. And you realize, damn it, the pretty man did it again. curses. The medieval people, now this is, this has thrown a bit of a conundrum my way, because what I know from you and your work is that they didn't like pretty women, but... Okay, look, so you can be more than one thing, right? You can be massively horny and also angry about it. Like, since time in a memorial, men have been mad that chicks are pretty. There we go.

Right. And then it goes back to Eve in like these theological conceptions, because like one of the things about Eve and pictures that you see of Eve, absolute stone cold batty right like just a dime piece like always always upholding the beauty standards at the time because of course she does because she's in the garden of eden and they have makeup counters yes just picking the lip gloss off of the trees um so it's uh but it's like one of these things where of course she's a spiritual perfection at the time and then also this is you know the opportunity that you have to paint a hot naked chick so like let let let let Let us not, you know, forget that there are ways to just kind of like have some fun with this, right?

So she is always going to be portrayed as like really, really beautiful. But she's also the vector for which sin came into the world. Yeah. You know, she's also the reason why we have death. She's, you know, she's the cause of original sin. So very particularly a hot chick did all this. Yeah. You wouldn't have had a five doing this, would you?

no absolutely no mids it's just like this is this is hot chick behavior this is this is hot chick yeah like you know the you know all her friends are like honestly girl work you know like oh she's so to love this she is the drama etc but i mean fundamentally this also is linked to the fact that the beauty then becomes sexual yeah because part of the fall of man isn't just that adam and eve realize they're naked right it's that they realize they're naked and they're turned on by it. Okay. So because, you know, like, they just didn't know to be turned on before.

So, like, this being attracted, that's kind of like the next step. That's, that's the issue, right? And you get this weird cognitive distance that arrives. It's not just the medieval period that you see this, is that they want women to be beautiful, but not aware that they're beautiful because then that's bad. They want them to be sexually attractive, but not too much. and they can't flaunt that at any point. They need to be unbelievably beautiful, but also innocent.

What we would now call the no-make-up makeup. Look, just completely natural, like long tresses of blonde hair, not made up. I think a really good example of that is in the Canterbury Tales. When you've got, so you've got the Miller's tail, and he describes this 18-year-old girl called Allison. They're all Allison. There's so many elephants to know. Like, Chosen, pick another name.

And she is kind of slutty. And she's like really heavily made up. And he really goes to town describing her like slow eyebrows and like her hair's pulled back and she's got like loads of pleats on her and stuff. And then then there's the knight's tale where another girl is described. And she is described as like also very beautiful, but it's a very different type of beauty. It's not made up.

It's just like not like it doves and blue. bluebirds follow her around singing songs. And she literally skips through gardens singing, doesn't she? Yeah. And I mean, this is what medieval people would tell you is true beauty. Okay. So it is 100% that you're just supposed to be beautiful. Just be beautiful.

Just be. There is an ossified beauty archetype. Yeah. And by the way, if you don't live up to this, we think you're sinful and evil. But I swear to God, girl, if you pluck your eyebrows. Trouble. No, then you're a bad woman. Which also, I think it's really funny because many people are.

constantly talking about like chick's eyebrows and how hot their eyebrows are. And I remember it did like a few years ago. Do you remember when there was like the really like really heavy brows? And there would be videos from men being like no man has ever been attracted to eyebrows. I'm like baby, actually we got 100 years of history. Where men are like, oh, oh, you see the eyebrows on that one. Highbrow trends do come and go. Oh yeah. Yeah. And definitely Alison in the millers tale, she got her eyebrows get a mention. And so eyebrows become this part. particular sight of worry for men, obviously, because they're like, I go, I hope that her arched, they have to be arched and hopefully black.

Right. You're supposed to be blonde with black eyebrows. You know, that thing. That happens. That thing that exists without makeup. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And so this, there's a particular story about this where there's a guy who he's very in love

with his wife and she was so beautiful and like wonderful, but she dies, you know, in the way that people do. So he pays this monk who can have ecstatic visions to like go check in on his wife in the afterlife and tell him how he's doing. So monk takes money, has a static vision and comes back. He's like, yeah, your wife is in hell. And your wife is in hell and demons are gnawing at her eyebrows and at her hairline because you thought she was beautiful. But actually she plucked her eyebrows and her hairline. And so now her ironic punishment in the afterlife is that demons gnaw, the places that she used to plug.

And it's like, so, but your wife kind of sucked, actually. I think you'll find it. But it's like not only is there this real pressure to have these specific eyebrows, but if you do anything about it, you're going to help. And it's because makeup or any kind of intervention is seen as a form of trickery. Right. Like to the point where there are laws on the books, like here in London, where if you find out that a sex worker that you frequented was using makeup, that's fraud, and you can go ask for your money back. I mean, granted, you're going to be left out of the stews. Yes. Yeah. Did anyone ever enforce that? I mean, good luck, right? But it's on the books, right? So like, in theory, that's in there. And so the idea is like, well, this is false advertising. You're not really beautiful because to-

So, would you want me to come home and meet your mother? Like, what do you mean? Like, you're paying for a quick shag up against a world. I know. And it's just like, oh my God. Like, I'm sorry. Like, were you writing love poetry to this woman? She does not care.

Right. Like, this is a business woman. Thank you very much. But it's, it's. And you're no six foot two either, I know. I know. Mm. I mean, like, into the point where, you know, when you have poor Allison in the

Miller's tail, they're like, and she thinks she was really hot. And I'm like, I mean, you're still kind of like literally wanking over her. Like, really quite intensely. Yeah. And so it's sort of like. Like, you are making her into a figure of fun, but you still think she's hot. Yes. But she's the wrong kind of hot.

But we do that today. That's still a bind that women are in today. Point in case, Kardashians. I love to return to them again and again. Always. But they occupy that same space of like they're judged for how they look, but they also influence how people look. We also hate them for what they do and how they're made up and artificial, but they're

also adored for it. And it becomes really weird and complex. And it's that same artifice that people in the medieval period got angry about. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Where the trouble here is that these people are aware. Yeah. And that's a big part of it. As you mentioned, it's like you're not supposed to quote one direction.

You don't know you're beautiful, right? Like that's the thing that you're supposed to be doing is that you're just supposed to meet this standard. And also be blithely unaware of all of society. Am I really beautiful? Oh, wow. I didn't notice that I looked like every single statue in the church. Right. Like every painting I've ever seen.

And also, no one's ever mentioned this to me, like in a society completely obsessed with the way that women look. And if you can be unsexual as well, that's a help. Just going back against the counterfeitals, because Emily, the really beautiful one with the bluebirds tweeted, she wanted to be a virgin all the life. She wanted to be a priestess of someone or other, some virgin goddess. So, like, the idea as well that you're not even supposed to be sexual. just this beautiful Disney princess wandering around. Well, like, we see this, for example, in the Pearl poem as well.

So, you know, in the Pearl poem, the little girl dies and she's like two. And then her dad sees her in heaven and she's like a 16-year-old haughty. Uncomfortable. Yeah. And he's like, oh, isn't it great that she's so hot? And it's because, you know, she's kept the spiritual perfection because she was a virgin and she died and she never did anything wrong. And so there's this idea that our souls when the... they go to heaven and indeed like when we rise from the grave on judgment day, our bodies are

going to be at the height of their powers. Like we're going to be, we're going to be as good as we are. And so hilariously, for women, this is like, yeah, 16. Like, you know, you're supposed to be a maiden, which means like you've achieved sexual maturity, but you haven't had sex yet. Right. And for men, it's middle age. Oh, for fuck say. I know, right. So like, go look at, go look at any, you know, picture of the last judgment and everyone, all the little naked souls getting up out of their graves. It's a bunch of baddies and then like middle-aged dudes. Do you want to be 16 again? What an awful idea that is.

Oh my God. It's like, have you ever spoken to a 16-year-old girl also? Never want to go through that nonsense again. Like, it is horrifying times. That is not judgment day shit. Let me be 16 in my swamp witch era. I mean, look, let me tell you also. Like, as, you know, a noted elder millennial, we definitely lived through that with like

Britney Spears. Yeah. For example, where it was like, look at her. And then they would like parade her around. be like, say you're a virgin, say it, do it. It's like, while they're like, and also take all your clothes off and please gyrate, you know, and it was like a really weird time to be alive where you're just like, huh, this thing of kind of simultaneously commodifying women who haven't had sex yet, but sexualizing them. So it's like they can't be sexual, but you're going to be

sexual at them. And so. And so every woman who like notices that this is happening, it's like your fault for noticing. you're just supposed to be blithely unaware. So this is kind of why they have this link of if you're beautiful, you must be spiritually pure somehow because the ideal beauty is somehow unaware and innocent. What the fuck happens when you get older? You're only 16 for one year.

That's all you get at being 16. You've got a long way to go after that. Well, luckily, you'll be a mommy soon. And then all your worries are over. And then you don't need to be attracted. that you don't need to be in target because not your own mommy. It's not your mommy. And like, and this is kind of, although, you know, obviously there are cases where this doesn't

happen. So, you know, very famously, Eleanor Vauquitaine is incredibly hot. And everyone is like, stupid, sexy Eleanor Vauquitaine. Like, and they're so angry about it because like she's like really, really hot and doesn't behave like they want her to behave. I don't know. There's constantly rumors swirling as a result. They're like, oh, she's shagging her uncle.

You know, she's dead. And 200 years later, they're like, she was shagging Saladin. It's like, homie how? Literally, how did that happen? You know,

and like, these are things that even the Victorians are repeating later. So there are women who continue to meet the beauty standard later. And when they enter the record, people are furious. They're like, no, you're not supposed to be doing that anymore because you're supposed to kind of like transcend.

You're supposed to get into motherhood. And then this is going to be like a moot point. And, you know, then people will say you were an excellent wife. You were an excellent mother. But still have a good. said that, it's like medieval literary tradition is absolutely full of people's really hot wives who are like cuckolding them or not.

Wife of bath. Wife of bath. Is she hot? I'm just, she has a very detailed description. She's another Allison. Yeah. She's 40, all of 40 years old. And, oh my God.

Oh, my God. Can you imagine? And she, she's got a gap between her tooth. I remember that. Yeah. She is slightly red in the face. Which is good. Which is that, that's good?

So what you want is you want white skin, but rosy cheeks. And oftentimes in literary sources, it's referred to as a complexion of snow and roses. Oh, wow. Which is very. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So she's got that, the gap tooth.

I remember that, that she's got a gap between her teeth. Mm-hmm. I can't remember what her eyebrows were like, is she a sexy figure? She talked about sex all the time. It's really difficult to say because she's sexualized. Yeah. Certainly. And I think that it's very difficult to not then kind of like put her in sexy situations as a result. But she's kind of representing people's worry about widows, more particularly even though she's a wife at this point in her life. But this idea that, you know, older women are sexually aware of what they want, their experience, and they have money. So they can kind of pick and choose what they want to do. They can marry men for whatever reason they wish to or not. You know, So they then, you get into this kind of like limbo where there's a specific worry about widows where it's like, oh, these widows are out here being hot and, you know, like they are out of control.

You know, they don't have fathers to shove them in one way or another or brothers. You know, like maybe your sons can be like, mom, knock it off. But, you know, they're just going to do what they do. So there is also this kind of like moral gray area that they fall into. Okay. All right. That's interesting. But they're not regarded as beautiful in the same way as...

No, I mean, because to be young is to be beautiful within a lot of these things. I mean, if you look at the De Cameron, for example, there's just endless stories of cuckolding. It's just like, that's all there is. And, you know, also stories of, like, a really beautiful women who are kind of younger. So, you know, for example, you got the story of it's the king of Babylon, which is Egypt, to, like, do not look, I can't explain it to you. and she's really hot and is supposed to get married off to the king of the Algarve and gets set on a boat and like the boat shipwrecks. And then there's like a series of stories where every man who comes into contact with her is like, a woo-go, like, you know, tongue on the floor.

It becomes a cartoon wolf. And they like are all killing each other and kidnapping her. And then like the minute you show her a dick, she's like, oh, well, I guess this is fine. you know and it's like it's absolutely incredible right and so she kind of gets passed like from hand to hand through like I think eight different dudes wow um and then like eventually finds her way home to her father and makes it this great story about how she was uh actually uh the whole time like do not worry dad virginity intact because I was hanging out at the nunnery of St. Crescent in the whole of course you were yeah uh great great little euphemism there um and you know like we are

Muslim, but, you know, these Christians safeguarded me in any way I can marry the Prince of the Algar when he's like, you sure can. And this is the story of a woman who's kind of like in her teens to 20s, and they're like, she maintains her beauty and her sexuality all throughout these subsequent changes of sexual partners. And to the point where she's like married off with all honors in the end, and it's kind of like a happily ever after. So what we learn is that there are these sort of conceits where it's like, oh, you're supposed to be holy in order to be beautiful. You've got to be a 16-year-old. You need to be a virgin in theory. In practice, if we're seeing what people actually do and what's going on with their lives, there's a lot more room for interpretation

about where beauty lies and whether or not, you know, sexual women are indeed sexy. Because in this case, yes, absolutely. I'll be back with Eleanor after this short break. I feel like we should finish up by talking about men being attractive. Because this conversation always focuses on women because they're the ones that have had the pressure put on them to look a certain way. But men feel the pressure too. What was a medieval male haughty? Oh, well, so the medieval male haughty, as a general rule of thumb, a little bit muscular, but a little bit of meat on the bones.

You know, they go for, they go for like, ooh, there's food in the house. Yeah. Right? You know, like that's hot. So if you got like a little bit of a belly, that's no problem. Do not worry about that. there is like a lot of like men kind of like exercising to exercise and like you know to maintain their figure so it's like quite cute like there is do you even lift bro in the medieval period but

they're just like picking up big rocks like it's a lot more like a strong man competition that's very amazing so that they'll be like exercise regimens and things like that um the other big one is like being clean clean that's a constant yeah everybody likes it when you're clean so there's like rather a lot of that you got to like comb your hair brush your teeth yeah all of those things don't stink. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, there's rather a lot of that. And then dress is a big one.

Yeah. So one big difference, I think, between now and with medieval men is medieval men, is medieval men be showing it off, right? Like, it becomes a huge issue in the 14th century when the black death is going on, because a lot of men are like, look, if I'm going to die tomorrow, I'm wearing hoes. Right? And they're like, they got it out. Like, they're like wearing super, super pointy shoes.

And the bishops in England are furious. and they're writing about this. They're like, God is punishing us with the black death because these men are wearing tights. And like everything that we see has them like wearing tights. And then, but then there's kind of like this.

The equivalent of women shouldn't wear makeup is you shouldn't go too crazy on the clothes. Okay. So like if your tights are party colored, so like they are green and purple or something like that, I mean, well, probably not purple. Only kings can wear purple. But I don't know, green and red.

Right? Like that is like really pretty. about that's too much. And it's like, everyone agrees it's sexy, but it's like, gauche. I've noticed that there's a lot of discussion around men's legs. Oh, yeah. That's one of the thing. You don't say that as much.

It'd be a bit weird if you did say that. It'd just a nice legs on a guy. Like, it wouldn't be like, you know, institutional behavior, but like, you just don't say that about them today. People would go, I mean, I suppose. But, like, yeah, like, minimal men do not skip leg day. No, they're missing about legs. Yeah, and because they're wearing tights and things, right?

And so it's one of these things that's interesting with clothes theory, where it's kind of like, chicken or the egg situation is like, dude, we find legs sexy and so men were wearing tights or were men, you know, like did the finding men's legs sexy come out of the wearing tights thing?

Yeah. So, and I mean then, especially in the later medieval period and into the early modern period, get there a codpiece on that. Yes. Yeah, that was a weird moment in fashion history,

that one. You know? Remember the first time, my sorrow card piece. I thought it would just be like a cup that you know, ruby players wear. It's a full-on penis. You can hang things off that. Absolutely. And, you know, it goes to show that medieval people and early modern people are a lot less prudish than we are. They're just like, I know you're looking at it, so I'm going to make it look like that. That's what's going on, you know. And so there's a lot more comfort around the genital area. But then there are kind of,

I guess, some surprising things that medieval people do. Like, bald men are kind of sexy. For example, it's because they're very manly. They're very masculine. The idea is they are so hot and dry, which makes them very masculine, that their hair is burnt off. So it's like a humorally, there's kind of like nothing wrong with being bald.

Like unless you're bald because you're old. Like it's like a young bald guy thing. It's like, you know, if you've got the Jason Statham. Jason Statham. Call me. If you want to sponsor this podcast. It's fine.

It'll be fine. So, you know, like this, this is. the thing that universally is kind of like a grade is pretty hot, but it's interestingly like scientific. You know now when like weirdo, evo psychologist will be like, well, we've always found exactly the same thing attractive about women, which is hourglasses. And I'm like, no, dude, like absolutely not.

No, it was pear shapes for Europeans. Anyway, like, they were like, well, scientifically, bald men are hot because the humors. And it means basically exactly the same thing as evo psychologist going off on one now. So, you know, like you can treat it with as much respect, right? So if you're a medieval person and you want a decent skincare routine, very important, still important to everybody today, cleanse, tone, moisturized, but you didn't have that so much if you're a medieval person. What would be your go-to routine?

Well, we actually have recipes and routines that are left to us from a couple of different sources, one of which is our girl, Hildegarde, Von Bingen. I like her. She was a skincare girlie. I love that. Yeah, like she leaves us like toner recipes. She's like, girl, this is how you make barley water, which to me was always kind of just like a Mary Poppins, the musical reference. But it's like a toner thing.

So, you know, in the way we'll use kind of like colloidal oatmeal now, like in order to like moisturized. So you can do the same thing with barley. So she would be like, this is what you do, girl, take the barley, boil it up, put the water on your skin. It'll soften it. And it will, you know, and this is something that's really available to most women. I've seen barley skincare scrubs and things available in shop. Yeah, exactly. So that 100% existed at the time.

We also have like, if you have a little bit more money, a lot more skincare recipes that survive to us in the trotula. And so this is kind of like, you know, it starts out as an OBGYN manual. And then people are like, and also makeup tips. You know, so this has lots and lots of different recipes for all sorts of things. How to treat sunburn, good moisturizers to use after you're out in the sun. softer cleansers for your face because there is kind of some acknowledgement of the fact that your skin might get a little bit rough if you're just using sort of like the soap that you're

using on the rest of your body. So they will be like, oh, you know, add rose petals, add honey. There's rather a lot of adding honey to things in order to put it on your skin. There's also more extreme things. So for example, there's rather a lot of stuff that is like, you want to bleach your skin, bleach your skin, bleach your skin to night queen, bleaching your skin. And it's like, a big concern for medieval women because especially like within the Mediterranean and European context, pale skin is a really big beauty standard. They love pale skin. Everyone seems to have been absolutely nuts for that until like the 1950s. Oh yeah, absolutely. And essentially what it boils down to is that is a preference for

rich ladies. Yeah. Right? Because like if you're a peasant and you're out working in the field all the time, your skin's going to get messed up because they don't have SPF, right? And they know the sun will burn you and they're like, or whatever. So being tan is a sign that you were like some poor peasant who works outside, right? Whereas being very, very pale is a sign that you got the kind of money where you don't have a job outside. Yeah. Right.

So that's very attractive. And that's across the board. Like, you know, you see that as much in Arabic poetry about beautiful women as you do French poetry about the same thing. So that as a result creates a demand in skincare routines for skin whitening products. Some of which look pretty horrible. Like you'll see examples in the trotch level. They're like, yeah, put some quick lime in there, girl.

And I'm like, do not put quick lime on your face. No. Right. So, but it does kind of show us how there are some things that would absolutely work in terms of skincare. And then there are some where it's just like you are so off-piece right now. But it's to try to live up to this really difficult standard where, you know, most people are outside all the time and they want to be pale.

I think that this could be one of the periods in history where actually to be skinned, means that you'd probably have the better beauty products because you couldn't afford lie or whatever the hell it was that you had to put on your face. You'd probably be better off with some barley and something you found in a bush. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're, you're banging on there where that stuff is kind of universally available. It's going to be more about whether or not you've got the time to do it because they're not the ones who are attempting to make blonde hair die. Right? You know, which, you know, exists. Absolutely. Like, they figured out ways to bleach your hair and that kind of a thing. But, you know,

It's rough. What about smelling good? Because one of the persistent myths about folk from the middle ages, as you are well aware, is that they were all dirty and that they all stunk and no and admi teeth. Yeah, well, no. So 100% actually. Teeth is one of the big ones where medieval people probably had better teeth than we do now. Talk about teeth a lot.

Yeah, they do. And it's like one of the things we have to keep in mind is that they don't really have access to sugar in the way that we do now. So most of our sugar is now coming from like sugar cane and stuff like that. And it certainly existed in medieval Europe, but it's coming to you in much smaller amounts. And it comes from very far away and it's mad expensive. So you're just not eating sugar in every single thing in the way that we are now, which is the stuff that makes your teeth go wild, right? And they brush their teeth.

So they've got toothbrush brushes or they'll use kind of like little like licorice roots, things like that in order to like brush the stuff. And to be fair, toothpaste didn't work until the 1950s. Until we invented fluoride, whatever you were brushing your teeth with, it's like, well, I hope you're having fun. Like, it makes your breasts smell nice, but that's all it does. So honestly, if you compare the teeth of a medieval person with a person in the 1930s, probably the person in the medieval period is going to have better teeth because they have fewer things that are going to mess their teeth up. I'll be back with Eleanor after this short break. What about being ugly then?

We've spoken a lot about being beautiful. Ugly seems to be another one of those consistent things like disfigurement. They must have had a fair bit of disfigurement wandering around in the Middle Ages. Oh yeah. You know, you have issues, for example, like with leprosy, for example, is fairly endemic and common across Europe at the time, which can be pretty disfiguring. You know, if you come down with any diseases where you might end up with like pockmarks, we don't have smallpox or things like that yet. But, you know, if you've got like chicken pox or something like that, that can really mess you up.

Or, you know, even if you just end up having acne, you know, and your skin gets scarred. These are all things that are going to count against you. And certainly, it is a specific thing where ugliness will be associated with evil, right? Like, where if you're not hot, well, then you must be evil. And then that gives me a reason why I'm allowed to kind of exclude you from society. So we see this in particular with people who have leprosy because they will be like, well, they kind of were asking for it. Right.

So there is this way of talking about people with leprosy as though they brought it on themselves because they were lustful. They were gluttonous. They were garrulous. They're just like shagging and fighting all the time. And that's how you end up with leprosy. So the idea is that they were sinful, which is why they've ended up ugly. like this and then that just seems mean yeah it's really mean and it just gives you

carte blanche to just kind of be a bit of a dickhead to people who are having a really tough time that's a cheap shot medieval people oh I know look I like them very much but I didn't say they were perfect okay they're not as bad as the Romans they're hands down the maddest most cruel if something's not being killed quite frankly they're not having a good time what about fat and thin in the medieval periods because that's something that fluctuates as well where like body shape fat ratio yeah so we want some fatness like a little bit of swish don't it yeah so like for the body standard for women remains pretty much ossified and the thing that they are looking for is they want tiny little tits yeah the smallest boobs available right like

the de cameron talks about like hot chicks boobs and they're like they're small and hard like ivory yowza right that's so that's what they're looking for uh but you want what they're they call a luscious little pot belly. I can do that. Yeah. So that's hot. That's really hot. And then like junk in the trunk.

You got to be packing heat back there. Okay. So we're looking for a pear shape. Done. And that's what they want. So it's kind of like, it wouldn't necessarily be like obese or anything, but they definitely want you to have flesh.

Pushing for the push. Yeah. And, you know, again, this is one of these things where it's like, that means that there's like money. Yeah, it's weird how much beauty. and still today. If you want to look hot like a Vogue model, you know, like the money. Yeah, exactly.

And we change whatever it is we think is hot to be whatever is the most difficult or expensive thing to acquire. So, you know, when everyone couldn't afford a Brazilian butt lift, the Kardashians have big old boots. And thank God for that, all right? And until quite recently being overweight went from being something that only rich people could have because they could afford the food. to actually now it's a sign of not having enough money and not being able to eat right and go to the gym.

I wonder what's going to happen with the dawn in of Ozmpic. What will happen now? Well, yeah, we're already seeing, I think, this backlash where we are getting like thinner and thinner women. Now, again, being posited as, you know, I know, I know, I know, girl. I know. And again, we're doing the same thing now with the way that we talk about diet or the way that we talk about fat as medieval people. do with beauty, right? Where we really associate fatness with like some kind of moral inferiority. Control. Yeah. Oh, well, you lack self-control and you're unable. Oh, I would just, ooh, yeah,

as though that has anything to do with how bodies work. And like, all of the science tells you that that's absolute junk. Well, thank you for fixing that, Steve. Yeah. And it's just like, but we love to do it. You know, there's something that our society just really enjoys to do, which is place a moral weight on what we consider attractive, as though what we consider attractive doesn't change. Yeah, that's so true. Fat shape. Yeah, when you look at our attitude with fat today, I think you can actually get your head around

a lot of historical attitudes with this linking of moral worth with how you look. And what about race? One of the interesting things to come out of historical research in the past 30 years or so is that historians suddenly went, did anyone check on the black? people. And then someone went, oh, no, we didn't. They're all here. Damn. Shit. Well, you know, a really great place to go see hot black people is one of my favorite paintings of all time, which is Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights. Well, that is, that is a scene that he paints. Yeah, it is, it really, really is. And you can see very many hot naked people,

some of whom are black. And it's hilarious because they're just like, they look exactly the same, but they are black. I love that. Yeah. It's not true. I'm being very flippant, but it's not true that people in the middle ages would have only thought that white people existed. They were much more multicultural and diverse than we give them credit for. Oh, God, yeah. And I mean, like especially places here like London, we know that there are lots of Africans around the shop. And honestly, it just makes us look like we suck here in Europe if you think that there aren't black people about. I'm like, dude, people wanted to come here.

Like, you know, there's a lot of trade back and forth. People are moving around all the time. And all you have to do is like sit down and read a medieval book and they'll be like, oh, and then this person went on a voyage to wherever. And they talk about it all the time in these really matter-of-fact ways. They talk about what the trade routes are. And people move along those routes just as much as goods do. So we know that 100% you're coming into contact with other races.

You know, probably they will do some light racism at you if you are black, especially because there is such a premium put. on light skin, but we also know that they clearly think that these people are hot, which is why they get included in stuff like the Garden of Earthly Delights, where they're like, I want to make a big hot fruit orgy scene. There's going to be birds, real birds, and like women, birds, and some of them are black, and they are also hot and sexy, and in my ideal garden orgy with giant berries, there will be black women as well, so there you go. So there might have been a sort of, it is still type of,

racism, but an eroticizing of people that weren't white. Yeah, I mean, 100%, like, I'm not, like, please do not say, don't let anyone say that I said Heronimus Bosh as perfect racial politics. But, you know, certainly he posits these people as people who can be attractive and certainly, like, on par. But of course, also, you know, the Garden of Earthly Delights exists as in theory in admonishment. Like, don't you do it. He does also paint, like, frogs eating people's bottoms. Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, you paint the big, you paint big garden. or Ruggie to be like, and you shouldn't like this. Don't threaten me with a good too.

Which is how you get away with it, right? You gotta be like, oh no, it's very bad. Stop looking at it. This is an awful scene. Oh, wow, I can't believe. Wow, gotcha. I bet you think this is sexy, you pervert. Thanks for listening and thank you so much to Ella for joining us.

And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like with you and follow along, whatever it is that you get your podcasts. Coming up, we've got episodes on the contraceptive pill. and the third in this mini-series, What Made You an Ugo in Tudor times? This podcast was edited by Tim Astell and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

Join me again, Betwixte the History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.