Concepts of Cleanliness: Changing Attitudes in France since the Middle Ages(Past and Present Publications)

This lucid and imaginative study uses the French experience to examine one fundamental aspect of the 'civilizing process': the way in which, over the past millennium, attitudes to and perceptions of human cleanliness, health and hygiene have changed, as have the moral properties attributed to the human body. Such changes are clearly manifest in the history of bathing, and Professor Vigarello demonstrates that the use of water for cleanliness has been by no means constant since the Middle Ages: the medieval ideal of visible purity (effectively meaning face and hands only) was replaced by modern notions of hygiene, which in turn reflected the growing concern for personal privacy. Clothes, in particular linen, assumed major importance in the creation of a new physical space for cleanliness; and scientific, bourgeois concepts of 'vigour' and bodily health, related to personal hygiene, gradually transformed the superficial aristocratic purity of earlier generations.

Table of Contents:
Part I. From Water for Pleasure to Water as Threat: 1. The Water That Infiltrated: The wide open skin, The dry wash; 2. The Disappearance of Certain Practices: Steam-baths and bath-houses, 'Getting out the bathtubs'; 3. The Old Pleasures of Water: Mingled bodies, Transgression, The 'multitude of God's goods'; Part II. The Linen That Washed: 4. What Was Covered and What Was Seen: Vermin, Hands and faces, Linen and the invisible, Bodies and spaces; 5. The Skin and White Linen: Linen and sweat, Linen and looking, Frequencies, A matter of surfaces; 6. Appearances: The cleanliness that distinguished, The perfume that 'cleansed'; Part III. From Water That Penetrated to Water That Strengthened: 7. A Pleasant Sensation on the Skin: A novel and rare type of bath, Sensibility, The 'conveniences'; 8. Cold and the New Vigour: Ideas about cold baths, What practices?, Visions of invigorated bodies; 9. Nature and Artifice: Health versus cosmetics, The deception of perfume, The internal versus appearance; 10. The Stench of Towns and People: The quantification of death, The localisation of unhealthiness, The water that improved the atmosphere; 11. All-Over Baths and Local Washing: More baths, Local washing; Part IV. The Water That Protected: 12. The Functions of the Skin: The new use of the word 'hygiene', The skin and the energetic balance, The resistance of prudery; 13. Water's Itineraries: Water and protection against epidemics, The circulation of water and public hygiene, Bathing and social hierarchy; 14. The Pastoral of Poverty: Making cleanliness moral, Education, Regenerating measures; 15. The Children of Pasteur: The 'invisible monsters', What could not be seen; 16. Installations and Privacy: Extending the bedroom, Cells, Dynamics.