er home. The statement of the historian
Michelet, therefore, that Percival, Iseult, and the other
ethereal personages of mediaeval times "certainly never washed"
(_La Sorciere_, 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
reputation, leper, or vagabond was at this time allowed to
frequent the baths, which were closed on Sundays and feast-days.
By the fourteenth century, however, the baths began to have a
reputation for immorality, as well as luxury, and, according to
Dufour, the baths of Paris "rivaled those of imperial Rome: love,
prostitution, and debauchery attracted the majority to the
bathing establishments, where everything was covered by a decent
veil." He adds that, notwithstanding the scandal thus caused and
the invectives of preachers, all went to the baths, young and
old, rich and poor, and he makes the statement, which seems to
echo the constant assertion of the early Fathers, that "a woman
who frequented the baths returned home physically pure only at
the expense of her moral purity."

In Germany there was even greater freedom of manners in bathing,
though, it would seem, less real licentiousness. Even the
smallest towns had their baths, which were frequented by all
classes. As soon as the horn blew to announce that the baths were
ready all hastened along the street, the poorer folk almost
completely undressing themselves before leaving their homes.
Bathing was nearly always in common without any garment being
worn, women attendants commonly rubbed and massaged both sexes,
and the dressing room was frequently used by men and women in
common; this led to obvious evils. The Germans, as Weinhold
points out (_Die Deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter_, 1882, bd. ii,
pp. 112 et seq.), have been fond of bathing in the open air in
streams from the days of Tacitus and Caesar until comparatively
modern times, when the police have interfered. It was the same in
Switzerland. Poggio, early in the sixteenth century, found it the
custom for men and women to bathe together at Baden, and said
that he seemed to be assisting at the _floralia_