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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1758606" data-attributes="member: 151">Medieval folks loved to take baths.  The idea that they never bathed <a href="http://historymedren.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.godecookery.com/mtales/mtales08.htm" target="_blank">is a myth</a>. There are a lot of misconceptions about medieval life. The feudal system was quite flexible, at points. Commoners often elected their own officials to govern internal town affairs, and the rights and powers of women varied widely throughout Europe. While medieval folks were much less concerned with the same degree or kind of hygiene, they did engage in lots of it. A classic example was dinner in many medieval households. The family ate on one side of the table, and the tablecloth was draped off of the table to be used, essentially, as a large communal napkin. When dinner was finished, the water bowl was passed about so that they could clean themselves off from dinner.  I highly recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060920467/qid=1095251723/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/103-7875430-3060627?v=glance&s=books&n=507846" target="_blank">this book</a>, for example, for some insights into day to day life.    People didn't really get disgusting until the industrial revolution. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />   The concept of complete gender equality certainly is more modern, as is the modern theory of economics and markets, a high availability of raw materials (not the least of which is steel), a stable economy, a consistent currency, ease of travel, a universal common tongue and so on and so forth.   Many of these are just game conceits, really. I don't think they were ever intended as intentional, they just sort of appeared to facilitate gameplay, in many cases. I mean, how often do the PCs actually find the need to read, other than ancient scrawlings, spellbooks and historical records? And let's not forget, there's a big difference between literacy and total illiteracy. Most tradesmen needed to keep records for their work. The may not have been able to read an illuminated text and understand it, but they could remember who ordered what, and how much they were owed.  Mind you, lots of folks tend to forget that Medieval Europe involved more than the U.K. and possibly France (and even less often, Germany).</blockquote>

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