KNIGHTS, CASTLES, AND BAD TEETH

The view of the medieval period as the “Dark Ages” is a stereotype, or oversimplified image; so, too, is the other extreme, which one might describe as the “knights in shining armor” viewpoint. This is the idea created by fairy tales and sustained by movies, an impression of the Middle Ages as a time of beauty, romance, and mystery. This view centers around images of chivalry — for instance, the knight rescuing the fair maiden from a dragon or an enemy, and carrying her on his horse to a castle gleaming in the distance.

In fact, if a modern person actually got a chance to meet a real medieval knight and his fair maiden, they would probably be more than a little disappointed — maybe even revolted. Whereas people in ancient Greece and Rome had been reasonably clean according to modern standards, by the time of the Middle Ages most of Western Europe had come to believe that baths were only good as a cure for sickness. If one were not sick, then there was no need for a bath. Therefore the knight and his maiden would be fairly smelly; furthermore, no one had any concept of brushing their teeth, let alone the idea of preventing tooth decay. Teeth simply fell out, and therefore the smile of the fair maiden would indeed be a sight to behold.

At some point, either the knight or his maiden were likely to come into contact with a terrible illness for which there was no cure. Certainly if one got sick, it was a bad idea to visit a so-called “doctor.” Doctors in medieval Europe were actually just moonlighting barbers, and they proposed all sorts of hideous “cures” such as bleeding the patient to release impurities from the body. Not surprisingly, life expectancy during much of the Early Middle Ages was only about twenty-five or thirty years. Not only were lives short; people were short. Due to a number of factors, most notably poor diet and medical care, the average sized  man was between five and five-and-a half feet tall, as opposed to six feet tall today. There were also far more people with physical problems of one kind or another: hunchbacks, persons with the dreaded disease leprosy, and others.

In "Middle Ages. Almanac" Judson Knight and Judy Galens, editors, U.X.L, An imprint of the Gale Group USA, 2001, excerpts volume 1 p.5. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.