Spoiler Warning: All officially-released show and book content allowed, EXCLUDING FUTURE SPOILERS FOR HOUSE OF THE DRAGON. No leaked information or paparazzi photos of the set. For more info please check the spoiler guide.
Just a small nitpick, winterfell has a sophisticated water piping system to transport warm water around the hold. It doesn't negate the point of your comment, just fun details from the world I enjoy.
Also Tyrion states at some point he was in charge of cisterns and drains at Casterly rock, so casterly rock would have some type of sewage system as well. Makes sense, where else would everything go when your castle is basically a giant mine dug into a hill.
Also not for sewage. Its more for diverting water away from buildings/mines/whatever (think storm drains/gutters). Human refuse was just dumped into the streets/wherever.
Depending on your definition of running water, Roman's actually had that too. They were masters at building aquaducts to transport water across valleys and hills, and had a sort of early pipe and draining systems in their bathhouses.
Running water was rare in the Middle Ages, but still available in some monasteries, bathhouses, and castles.
The basic idea of “water moves from higher to lower elevations, and you can force it through pipes” was neither invented by nor extinguished with the fall of the Roman Empire.
Showers were more like an artificial waterfall than a modern shower though, they didn’t have shower heads.
You can also bathe in a sink but no one is calling it a "bath". You can absolutely shower in a waterfall in which case you will also be bathing. Noun vs verb.
Nobody said a waterfall is a shower, and it doesn't need to be in order to shower in one. Noun vs verb. Do you think the showering didn't exist until showers were invented? Or are you able to understand showers were called showers because people started doing what they were doing in other way in them?
You stand in a place and are showered with water. You are showering. A waterfall, a leaky bucket, the rain, in front of your boyfriend after a few too many beers - you can shower in all of it, just as a bathtub isn't required for a bath.
False, the definition of a shower is it has to be in an enclosure. Even the verb version of a shower is “to wash oneself in a shower”. A waterfall does not qualify for these
How could you forget the bath scene Milisandre, and her perfumes? It certainly wasn't like we have today, and the commoners would have less access to ready made perfumes, but they aren't walking around totally unwashed. They would have used flowers, herbs, etc to help with the smell between bathing. Things like chewing mint leaves for the bad breath, and such. Outhouses would have communal rags, so not hygienic for that one. You can read up on medieval hygiene and they would be similar.
From my understanding, at the time of the War of the Five Kings, the society was nebulously medieval.
Showers, no. Baths, basins, and bodies of water. I can imagine somebody had the idea of sticking a bucket or something in the air and putting holes in it, though.
Tooth care, not like today. Certain plants and sticks would have made crude toothbrushes, but that's it.
Sinks, see showers. Not like today with indoor plumbing, but basins and bowls.
Toilet paper, nope. Rags, clothes, or leaves and corn cob.
Deodorant, kind of. Scented oils and perfumes were a thing.
They asked about showers specifically, then comment on teeth brushing, sinks(I'm assuming hand washing), deodorant, and toilet paper where they made the general hygiene comment. The post title that most here are responding to was showers, and answering yes because of the bath scenes.
A tersorium. Don't worry, they would rinse it between uses in a bucket with vinegar or salt brine and leave it in the bucket for the next person. Wealthier Romans who didn't need public latrines would often use wool soaked in rosewater. The Greeks would use smooth stones (pessoi) or smoothed pieces of broken ceramics (ostraca). The Chinese have the first recorded use of 'toilet paper': discarded pieces of parchment in the 6th century A.D. Before this, they would use bamboo/wood sticks in spatulate shape with cloth wrapped around the end. Toilet paper didn't hit Europe until the 16th century; before this, in many places, they used washbasin bidets. In North Africa, parts of Asia, and the Middle East, it was common to use your left hand to wipe, then clean it with water. This is why in those regions it was taboo to eat or greet people with the left, or "poo" hand. Early American settlers would use corncobs, a practice that continued after toilet paper became widely available. Sailors from the 16th-19th century would use a communal "tow rag," a rag or piece of frayed rope tied to a longer rope positioned near the 'head' and hung overboard. After use, it would be dropped back into the sea to be washed by the current.
Everyone saying yes because bath scenes. No, there aren't showers, at least not in the sense we use the word today. Same with deodorant, toothpaste, etc. similar to medieval times, there were things like scented oils. Not much sugar in the food for the vast majority, so that is a big help to dental hygiene as well.
Bruh they didn’t have showers till the 1760s. People literally shit and pissed in the bed then put it in the streets. There was a literal job of shit cleaner where a guy would pick up shit off the road onto a carriage and dump it. Everyone smelled terrible.
I mean, that’s the answer, though, plumbing for showers would be way more complicated than filling a bath. There seemingly were not showers, but there were baths.
Yes and no. It is largely a Victorian era exaggeration that medieval people were all filthy. By todays standard they did not bathe(full body immersion) very often.
I don't believe that they had showers, and Tywin doesn't appear to have a cloth, sponge or anything to wipe his bum. It couldn't have been pleasant for the person who found him dead on the crapper. Hygiene might not have been a thing back then although they did have baths. They may have had ways to brush their teeth but who knows.
There’s no plumbing so if it comes out of a pipe, it ain’t in Westeros. We do see people take baths though.
And yes, medieval Europeans didnt have great hygiene and usually smelled pretty bad. If you were rich, you could cake yourself in perfume to cover up the smell.
It probably varied widely due to wealth, just like medieval times. But people have been cleaning their teeth for a long time, just not how we do it today.
They probably had wash basins, using pitcher water and clothes to clean.
Deodorant was credited to be invented in the 1800's, they probably just used scented oils.
Showers? Maybe, but we mostly follow highborns or people living rough in the field. Baths are more luxurious than showers, so favored.
Tooth brushing? Yes via Linen cloths, chew sticks, and tooth picks. There was even types of toothpaste in the era GoT is based in.
Toilet paper, probably not, but cleaning your ass is not a new idea at all. Handfuls of straw, sponges soaked in water, and water cleaning (like bidet) should be available. Water cleaning is better than Toilet paper.
Sinks... kinda probably, but a wash basin serves the same purpose.
A building can also have running water without a city having a municipal pressured water system. Just put a water tank on the roof and boom you have water pressure.
Deodorant? Not like we do now.
Hygiene was different, and bathing was less frequent, but not nonexistent. Think that the Vikings bathed. It was a complaint that the Brittans made. Basically, these northmen are taking our women because the smell better! John of Wallingford conplained that they (Norse) were excessively clean about 150 years past the viking period.
Well, to be totally honest, medieval Europe did not understand hygiene as a medical concept, so a medieval-based world like Planetos would likely be only slightly more hygienic in that regard. Of course, bathhouses did exist, and people did wash themselves; however, these practices were primarily about comfort and not smelling unpleasant, rather than about preventing disease or prolonging life. Perfumes were often considered a perfectly acceptable alternative to washing, as their purpose was to mask odour rather than eliminate its source.
Even in the real world, if one had told a 19th-century doctor to wash his hands after surgery before seeing another patient, he would likely have dismissed the idea as unnecessary — his hands were believed to possess healing qualities, making washing them seem redundant.
Hygiene, which is one of the major factors in extending human life expectancy, is therefore a relatively modern concept. For most of history, cleanliness functioned more as a matter of comfort, social norms, or prestige than as a deliberate health practice. The same logic would almost certainly apply to Planetos as well: the importance of hygiene would vary by region and culture, with warmer and more urbanized areas such as Dorne plausibly placing greater emphasis on cleanliness than harsher regions like the North
The same way people in third world countries shower. They get large metal bucket of water, put it over a fire to heat it up, then use a smaller bucket to pour it over yourself. Then they use a rag to scrub any residue off their body.
Its crazy reading all the comments and yall have no idea how well off we are that we cant fathom bathing ourselves without using a shower.
'Natives' weren't killed by colonisers diseases because colonisers had worse hygiene, colonisers had more immunity because they are the survivors of the disease already whereas natives had no immunity so were more vulnerable.
Since you deleted your reply, for example measles, mumps, diptheria, typhoid and flu were brought to America in the 16th century from Europe. These diseases arent caused by poor hygiene.
These disease also killed many people in Europe, but the adults who went across on ships would have been exposed already in their lifetime, have some cellular immunity, unlike the native Americans whose immune system has never seen the diseases before and takes at least 1 month to gain adaptive immunity and fight infection.
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we see many people taking baths
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Showers didn't exist because there was no running water and piping to make it running. What makes a shower is the water falling from overhead.
Just a small nitpick, winterfell has a sophisticated water piping system to transport warm water around the hold. It doesn't negate the point of your comment, just fun details from the world I enjoy.
Also Tyrion states at some point he was in charge of cisterns and drains at Casterly rock, so casterly rock would have some type of sewage system as well. Makes sense, where else would everything go when your castle is basically a giant mine dug into a hill.
Cisterns and drains are not the type of piping required for a shower.
Also not for sewage. Its more for diverting water away from buildings/mines/whatever (think storm drains/gutters). Human refuse was just dumped into the streets/wherever.
Tyrion probaly had golden showers made from his father.
Winterfell was built by Bran the Builder though, so it’s a special case.
Showers predate running water by hundreds of years. The Greeks and Romans had mechanisms to create showers.
There are still places all over the world that have showers without running water. Never been camping?
Edit: In fact reading up on it running water also dates back thousands of years to Ancient Egypt and earlier
Depending on your definition of running water, Roman's actually had that too. They were masters at building aquaducts to transport water across valleys and hills, and had a sort of early pipe and draining systems in their bathhouses.
The Aztec had aquaducts at tenochtetilan as well
Fun aqueduct fact: they were built with lead. Romans were out there injesting lead before baby boomers made it uncool.
They also had some problems due to the pipes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_lead_poisoning_theory
Maybe the valyrian freehold had showers.
You know I always wondered where the concept of showers came from. Like who thought it was a cool idea?
The rain
You can have showers with a tank above you. Don’t need running water.
What do you think running water is more than likely a tank somewhere
Campers do it all the time.
https://a.co/d/4PMkA4T
Get outta' here with your real-life know-how, it's making the pedanticism here look pedantic!!!!
Iirc in the books, winterfell has some sort of plumbing due to the heat source its on top of,
And plumbing via pipes has been around in various cultures since 3000bc
Greece had running water coming through pipes at head and shoulder height
Running water was rare in the Middle Ages, but still available in some monasteries, bathhouses, and castles.
The basic idea of “water moves from higher to lower elevations, and you can force it through pipes” was neither invented by nor extinguished with the fall of the Roman Empire.
Showers were more like an artificial waterfall than a modern shower though, they didn’t have shower heads.
Real talk: yes. Winterfell specifically even had hot running water since it was built over hot springs.
There were also roman styled baths in both continents. The show alone showed five scenes of them.
Of showers? I don't remember any showers in GoT.
yeah no not showers. just baths. I think bathing was more about luxury than hygeine generally
OP specifically asked about showers
cool story bro. I'm going to pontificate about loofas next if you have a minute
I like you because you are a crazy person
have I got a deal on avocados you're not going to believe. because it's actually a deal on ottomans... which is what I call avocados
Thats amazing I love avocados especially when they are like ravens which are like writing desks.
That's why they call it the Home Depot!
Avocados are like Home Depot except they're full of the good kind of fat
Especially when they have fleas!
Idk what ur being downvoted
Reddit
:)
We see a number of baths throughout the series.
Showers are also not exclusively modern. Waterfalls do exist after all.
I mean....you can bathe in a waterfall, but no one is calling it a "shower". It's still a waterfall.
You can also bathe in a sink but no one is calling it a "bath". You can absolutely shower in a waterfall in which case you will also be bathing. Noun vs verb.
and you can shower one is praise, but lets be more serious than precise here. a waterfall is not a shower. It may be, but it definitely isnt.
Nobody said a waterfall is a shower, and it doesn't need to be in order to shower in one. Noun vs verb. Do you think the showering didn't exist until showers were invented? Or are you able to understand showers were called showers because people started doing what they were doing in other way in them?
You stand in a place and are showered with water. You are showering. A waterfall, a leaky bucket, the rain, in front of your boyfriend after a few too many beers - you can shower in all of it, just as a bathtub isn't required for a bath.
False, the definition of a shower is it has to be in an enclosure. Even the verb version of a shower is “to wash oneself in a shower”. A waterfall does not qualify for these
What about a rain shower?
“Let’s go on a hike down to the shower tomorrow.”
No, wrong grammar.
It would be “let’s go shower in the waterfall” or “let’s bathe in the river”
You see, etymologically speaking, you don’t define the act of cleaning by the method.
Like “dust” it’s the verb “to dust” which is to remove the dust from surfaces…you aren’t becoming dust when you say you’re going to dust.
No one cares dude
How could you forget the bath scene Milisandre, and her perfumes? It certainly wasn't like we have today, and the commoners would have less access to ready made perfumes, but they aren't walking around totally unwashed. They would have used flowers, herbs, etc to help with the smell between bathing. Things like chewing mint leaves for the bad breath, and such. Outhouses would have communal rags, so not hygienic for that one. You can read up on medieval hygiene and they would be similar.
It always bothered me that she takes her amulet off for that bath and doesn't revert into the old saggy woman like she does later in the series.
D&D kinda forgot about her amulet.
There's a scene with Sansa bathing while Myranda was attending to her.
I love this scene. “I’m Sansa Stark of Winterfell, you can’t frighten me here”.
From my understanding, at the time of the War of the Five Kings, the society was nebulously medieval.
Showers, no. Baths, basins, and bodies of water. I can imagine somebody had the idea of sticking a bucket or something in the air and putting holes in it, though.
Tooth care, not like today. Certain plants and sticks would have made crude toothbrushes, but that's it.
Sinks, see showers. Not like today with indoor plumbing, but basins and bowls.
Toilet paper, nope. Rags, clothes, or leaves and corn cob.
Deodorant, kind of. Scented oils and perfumes were a thing.
There's literally a bath scene with Jaime and Brienne. One of the most iconic scenes.
Also a pretty famous one with Dany and her brother
And Davos, Salvador Saan, and friends
OP didn't ask about baths.
This is brought up all the time. And I don’t ever really understand why. They are shown taking baths all the time. Lol.
They asked abour showers not baths
“I feel like these people had no hygiene” we all know what the post was getting at lol.
They asked about showers specifically, then comment on teeth brushing, sinks(I'm assuming hand washing), deodorant, and toilet paper where they made the general hygiene comment. The post title that most here are responding to was showers, and answering yes because of the bath scenes.
Sounds good 👍🏽
No one answered the toilet paper thing. Tywin doesn't seem to have any. How was he expecting to wipe?
In roman bathhouses they had a communal sponge on a stick, I'd imagine a similar idea is used in Westeros.
Yuck
A tersorium. Don't worry, they would rinse it between uses in a bucket with vinegar or salt brine and leave it in the bucket for the next person. Wealthier Romans who didn't need public latrines would often use wool soaked in rosewater. The Greeks would use smooth stones (pessoi) or smoothed pieces of broken ceramics (ostraca). The Chinese have the first recorded use of 'toilet paper': discarded pieces of parchment in the 6th century A.D. Before this, they would use bamboo/wood sticks in spatulate shape with cloth wrapped around the end. Toilet paper didn't hit Europe until the 16th century; before this, in many places, they used washbasin bidets. In North Africa, parts of Asia, and the Middle East, it was common to use your left hand to wipe, then clean it with water. This is why in those regions it was taboo to eat or greet people with the left, or "poo" hand. Early American settlers would use corncobs, a practice that continued after toilet paper became widely available. Sailors from the 16th-19th century would use a communal "tow rag," a rag or piece of frayed rope tied to a longer rope positioned near the 'head' and hung overboard. After use, it would be dropped back into the sea to be washed by the current.
Don’t forget about seashells
He doesn't know how to use the three seashell!
Maybe they wear extra socks, one to wipe and a spare for their feet.
Or maybe thats what his extra long shirt was for. Tear pieces off for toilet paper
I think they were just buttons for a bidet.
Still better than not wiping.
water and hand. maybe sand if theyre in the desert.
Everyone saying yes because bath scenes. No, there aren't showers, at least not in the sense we use the word today. Same with deodorant, toothpaste, etc. similar to medieval times, there were things like scented oils. Not much sugar in the food for the vast majority, so that is a big help to dental hygiene as well.
Bruh they didn’t have showers till the 1760s. People literally shit and pissed in the bed then put it in the streets. There was a literal job of shit cleaner where a guy would pick up shit off the road onto a carriage and dump it. Everyone smelled terrible.
"Were there showers?"
Absolutely standard-intellect Redditors: "There were baths."
I mean, that’s the answer, though, plumbing for showers would be way more complicated than filling a bath. There seemingly were not showers, but there were baths.
They had bathes but I’m pretty sure they didn’t change the water often so they were bathing in filth.
I think baths have a water flow from a spring so it's always refreshing itself.
They had flowing water though.
Why...?
It’s a myth that people didn’t bathe much in medieval society. Logically, people in Westeros cleaned theirselves.
Baths maybe if you were wealthy and had a lot of time…I think it was more common to wash oneself with a basin of water (or stream, etc) and cloth.
Yes and no. It is largely a Victorian era exaggeration that medieval people were all filthy. By todays standard they did not bathe(full body immersion) very often.
No, the technology didn’t exist. They still heated the baths by constantly bucketing in hot water boiled over a fire
I don't believe that they had showers, and Tywin doesn't appear to have a cloth, sponge or anything to wipe his bum. It couldn't have been pleasant for the person who found him dead on the crapper. Hygiene might not have been a thing back then although they did have baths. They may have had ways to brush their teeth but who knows.
There’s no plumbing so if it comes out of a pipe, it ain’t in Westeros. We do see people take baths though.
And yes, medieval Europeans didnt have great hygiene and usually smelled pretty bad. If you were rich, you could cake yourself in perfume to cover up the smell.
In the books hot volcanic spring water was piped throughout Winterfell to keep it warm so Ned may have had a shower.
Showers lol what
The real reason dragons died out nobody wanted to smell them up close.
No showers. Just baths, oils, and a lot of nose-blindness.
What is this post?
It probably varied widely due to wealth, just like medieval times. But people have been cleaning their teeth for a long time, just not how we do it today.
They probably had wash basins, using pitcher water and clothes to clean.
Deodorant was credited to be invented in the 1800's, they probably just used scented oils.
Showers? Maybe, but we mostly follow highborns or people living rough in the field. Baths are more luxurious than showers, so favored.
Tooth brushing? Yes via Linen cloths, chew sticks, and tooth picks. There was even types of toothpaste in the era GoT is based in.
Toilet paper, probably not, but cleaning your ass is not a new idea at all. Handfuls of straw, sponges soaked in water, and water cleaning (like bidet) should be available. Water cleaning is better than Toilet paper.
Sinks... kinda probably, but a wash basin serves the same purpose.
A building can also have running water without a city having a municipal pressured water system. Just put a water tank on the roof and boom you have water pressure.
Deodorant? Not like we do now.
Hygiene was different, and bathing was less frequent, but not nonexistent. Think that the Vikings bathed. It was a complaint that the Brittans made. Basically, these northmen are taking our women because the smell better! John of Wallingford conplained that they (Norse) were excessively clean about 150 years past the viking period.
He was preparing to get rimmed by Shae until that monster Tyrion ruined it.
Well, to be totally honest, medieval Europe did not understand hygiene as a medical concept, so a medieval-based world like Planetos would likely be only slightly more hygienic in that regard. Of course, bathhouses did exist, and people did wash themselves; however, these practices were primarily about comfort and not smelling unpleasant, rather than about preventing disease or prolonging life. Perfumes were often considered a perfectly acceptable alternative to washing, as their purpose was to mask odour rather than eliminate its source.
Even in the real world, if one had told a 19th-century doctor to wash his hands after surgery before seeing another patient, he would likely have dismissed the idea as unnecessary — his hands were believed to possess healing qualities, making washing them seem redundant.
Hygiene, which is one of the major factors in extending human life expectancy, is therefore a relatively modern concept. For most of history, cleanliness functioned more as a matter of comfort, social norms, or prestige than as a deliberate health practice. The same logic would almost certainly apply to Planetos as well: the importance of hygiene would vary by region and culture, with warmer and more urbanized areas such as Dorne plausibly placing greater emphasis on cleanliness than harsher regions like the North
The same way people in third world countries shower. They get large metal bucket of water, put it over a fire to heat it up, then use a smaller bucket to pour it over yourself. Then they use a rag to scrub any residue off their body.
Its crazy reading all the comments and yall have no idea how well off we are that we cant fathom bathing ourselves without using a shower.
I read this as show-ers....as in growers vs showers 😅 got me thinking about male frontal nudity. Then Reeks sausage.
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this is completely fake news. jfc learn history.
Someone who uses the term 'fake news' in earnest is not going to be taken seriously.
Incorrect facts.
'Natives' weren't killed by colonisers diseases because colonisers had worse hygiene, colonisers had more immunity because they are the survivors of the disease already whereas natives had no immunity so were more vulnerable.
Since you deleted your reply, for example measles, mumps, diptheria, typhoid and flu were brought to America in the 16th century from Europe. These diseases arent caused by poor hygiene.
These disease also killed many people in Europe, but the adults who went across on ships would have been exposed already in their lifetime, have some cellular immunity, unlike the native Americans whose immune system has never seen the diseases before and takes at least 1 month to gain adaptive immunity and fight infection.