For most Romans, the baths were a part of daily life, a place to socialize and conduct business. Baths were even open to the poor with a few variations in services. Ground lentils often took the place of olive oil and sand, and they performed their own scraping or swapped services with a friend. Even prisoners were brought to the baths.
The Romans had the Greeks to thank for the experience of bathing. Centuries before the time of the Roman Empire, Greeks often built baths over thermal springs or connected them to gymnasiums, where workouts were followed by a quick bath. Even in the 4th century B.C., many Greek homes had tiled bathrooms with small tubs that allowed one person to sit upright. The Romans adapted these bathrooms into balnea, small neighborhood baths, which evolved into the colossal baths they’re known for. The Greek view of bathing could be summarized in three words: quick, cold, and functional. While the Romans made bathing a recreational activity, the Greeks focused on health and personal hygiene. For them, a bucket of cold water over the head was more than enough. The use of warm water was a sign of weakness – especially with those Spartans.
The Romans insisted on warm water and developed elaborate heating systems. Floors were built in two levels, and furnaces forced air between the floors and through ceramic piping in the walls. Sophisticated plumbing helped heat the water quickly as well as move it into the right pools.
Ironically, the plumbing may have been a factor in the fall of the Roman Empire. Lead-lined pipes supplied the Romans’ drinking water. One theory contends that lead poisoning led to a general malaise of the populace and perhaps the lunacy of its leaders.
With the fall of the Roman Empire, baths declined. As Christianity grew, bathing was looked upon as an unnecessary vanity. It was also widely held that bathing stripped the body of its natural defenses and caused sickness.
As towns formed and some semblance of organized civilization appeared during the early Middle Ages, communal baths returned. To get a sense of bathing customs from that period, I visited the public bath at the annual medieval marketplace in Heidelberg, Germany.
The baths consisted of two seven-foot-wide wooden tubs on a platform. I bravely climbed the steps, handed over the equivalent of a few bucks, removed my clothing behind a narrow curtain, and joined six other people sitting naked in the steaming water. My new best friends.
From time to time, one bather used a brush to scrub a friend’s back. At one point, we all sat counterclockwise and massaged our neighbors’ shoulders. Then we turned around and returned the favor. For a dollar or so more, the bath mistress gave shampoos and shoulder-to-waist back massages. She also fetched cups of mead.
My bath partners and I chatted away the afternoon sun, and the bath mistress lit the overhead oil lamps. More mead followed, as did mellower moods and soft singing. A lute joined in and then a recorder. As darkness fell over the marketplace, all signs of modern times disappeared. The 15th century had returned.
For most of the Middle Ages, this was a typical bathing experience. Almost every town had a public bathhouse, not just for scrubbing away the grit and grime of a week’s or month’s worth of toiling but also for socializing. Peasants who couldn’t afford a warm bath had the option of “sweat baths” akin to saunas. The bath master then poured cold water over the bather’s head to rinse away the sweat and dirt. Even small villages built bathhouses, some of them large brick structures that still stand.
Many knights returned from the Crusades with knowledge of more sophisticated bathing practices from the Arab world – and with serious cases of bath envy. Private bathhouses appeared in castles and monasteries across Europe, some large enough to hold medieval versions of 1970s hot tub parties.
The bath master also engaged in bloodletting, setting bones and pulling teeth – activities thankfully absent from my Heidelberg experiences.
In the 16th century, frequent wars reduced the availability of firewood and fears of disease forced many baths to close. By 1600, few remained, with the exception of those sited over thermal springs, since these baths benefited from a limitless supply of heated – and clean – water.
As roads, rails, and steamships made travel easier, many towns capitalized on the increasing popularity of their thermal waters and baths by promoting themselves as travel destinations. By the middle of the 19th century, grand new bath buildings like the Friedrichsbad were being built across Europe.
In the 19th century bathing also become a formal medical discipline with the advent of balneology, the practice of using natural mineral water for the treatment and cure of disease. Over time, therapy actually overtook recreation in many countries and remains the primary use today. Balneological treatments aren’t a relaxing afternoon or even three-day respite from the world. More often than not, patients stay three weeks or more and follow treatments prescribed by a doctor and paid for by health insurance.
Different towns are known for different treatments, in great part due to the varying concentrations of elements like lithium, natrium, calcium, and chloride found in the water. For example, Podebrady in the Czech Republic treats cardiac and vascular diseases. The Sandanski Center in Bulgaria helps patients with lung, kidney, and bladder diseases and digestion problems. The Sovata Clinic in Transylvania (no blood-bath jokes, please) treats respiratory diseases. Bad Krozingen, on the fringe of the Black Forest, specializes in cardiac disease, circulatory disorders, and rheumatism.
However they are not all work and no play. In Bad Krozingen, for example, I spent an afternoon at the Vita Classica spa, where some areas are restricted to patients but others open to the public. After three hours in a private Japanese bath (including a sea-salt rub-down, tranquil float in a spacious marble tub, and Ayurveda massage), I toured the “Sauna World,” with a choice of steam rooms ranging in temperature from 140 – 212℉, and splashed around in pools cooled to 84 – 97℉.
For those in search of more recreational bathing, most towns have at least one public pool – either as a freestanding building or as part of a water megaplex – most with adjacent sauna facilities. These, however, aren’t your basic YMCA lap pools. Outside Nuremberg, Germany, Club Kristall Palm Beach features wave pools, indoor and outdoor pools, giant water slides, and an extensive selection of saunas and steam baths. I went there one Friday evening during the summer, not knowing that Friday nights were clothing-free. Families, couples, and singles mingled without a care in the world. My only concern came as my body hurtled down a 150-foot waterslide: What if I hit a dry spot?
Technology is helping raise the bar on bathing. In a pool lined with dozens of underwater speakers, Berlin’s Liquidrom has integrated music into the bathing experience. On Friday night, in warm, heavily salinated water, bathers lean back and listen to “Underwater Classics” from Gregorian chants to Vivaldi. On Saturdays, DJs put together a “Relax Mix” that might include whale songs and ethno-pop with an overhead light show. Several times a month, the “Wet Stage” features live performers like chamber choirs and string quartets.
Nero would have been proud.
address book
Friedrichsbad, Baden-Baden, Germany
Three hours $22
49 7221 2759-20
Vita Classica, Bad Krozingen, Germany
Baths and sauna, $17; day pass, $73
49 7633 / 40 08 40 vita-classica@bad-krozingen.de
Club Kristall Palm Beach, Nürnberg, Germany
2 hours, $12
49 911/6887980 www.kristall-palm-beach.de
Liquidrom, Berlin, Germany
2 hours, $1649 30-74737171 liquidromberlin@aol.com
July/August 2003
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