Soap and washing: Did they have soap in medieval times?
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2019
- Jason investigates medieval soap and other techniques for cleaning your hands after a long day at work. #medieval #cleaning #ashes
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Direction, Camera, Sound, Editing Kasumi
Presenter Jason Kingsley OBE
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Takes me back to when the History Channel actually showed history
Yeah right! The History channel is nothing but alien shows and reality shows now.
That's because they want you to pay extra to get History Channel 2. It went from actual history to the nazi power hour (24 hours) to alien and reality.
This is way better, isn't it.
*Aliens*
They have NEVER showed history. Stay away from any type of tv!
Head: Go to sleep, it's 3am
Mind: But how did people in Mideval times clean themselves?
ohmyafy It’s 3:32am
Haha it's 4:22 AM 😅🤣🤣🤣
21:26... it's only evening, am I weird? But who knows, maybe I'll be around until 3am
just gotta know! now
Oh shit, it's really 3 am...
This channel has become my happy place. He's the Bob Ross of medieval history
Indeed, such passion for history, sometimes i just open one of his videos to see a man talking about what he loves, it never fails to put a smile on my face :)
Preach it dude
He is indeed a majestic man in his element.
Check out lindy beige too, a similar passion.
*medieval happiness noises*
Soap was invented by the Bubbleonians
Lol, good one.
Also known as Mesoapotamians
@@fakinyamo Both of you should be ASHaimed of yourselves.
Bubblelonians XD
Oh for the love of LOL 🤣🤣🤣
"let me explain"
*rides into frame on galloping horse
Very romance novel with the Michael Bolton hair😄😅
I cant wait to grow my hair out again just so i can look like a black knight with locs 😂
WHEN A... 🎵 MAN BATHES A WOMAN! 🎶🎵🎶
ya but like u can explain anything that way
And he sits quite well ! Very nice !
Cave man - has cold hands
Cave man - OOoo, I bet the ashes of the fire are still warm
*shoves hands into ashes*
Cave woman - "Wash that off!"
Cave man - does
Cave man - has clean hands
Some things never change, bet she had a headache that night as well.
Nice
@@AS-tg8xeNot when he had clean hands, I bet.
Theoretical archaeology?
@@AS-tg8xe And nothing on Netflix either...
Hi. Nerdy plant person here. The plant in the background at 5:05 with the white flower is Silene Latifolia, AKA White Campion, White Cockle, or Evening Lychnis. The root is used as a soap substitute and is obtained by simmering the root in water. I'm in the states but my grandmother is from Newcastle-under-Lyme and I've been wanting to learn more about my English heritage. This channel fits the bill. Thank you for everything you do! Knowledge and entertainment! Much love from Camas,Washington!✌
what an awesome synchronicity
Hey, do you know if pink campion. Can also be used? It’s really common where I live
Yees, i was waiting for the plant-soap connection and never saw it here!
Brilliant..
Apparently the mallow plant does too
It's also known as a grave flower in England since it's often found there. Reminds me of the flowers growing on the tomb of Theoden's son in the Lord of the Rings.
When I was doing American Civil War reenacting, we often dipped a damp rag into the campfire ash and then rubbed the ash on whatever rusty bit of gear we needed to clean. It works quite well and can bring a bright shine to rusted steel. A little ash in the bottom of your plate or tin cup, when wetted and scrubbed with a handful of dried weed stalks or clean straw will also clean those implements of food residue, reducing the likelihood of spoilage and sickness. 😊🌹
You can also snort the ash for a really intense high.
@@justicedemocrat9357 yeah no that's how you get Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcaniosis, its not pleasant 😁
@@justicedemocrat9357 I'm mostly joking because I had to type that put a million times for something, but seriously don't do that
That's really cool! And good to know! 👍
People used ash for washing clothes
When you're a big nerd with a load of money, have a games studios, comic book publisher, and free time - Makes History Channel content for free..... bless him. *tear streaks down*
RalphMarx That smacks of sour grapes .
Oh wow, seriously!? I didn’t know any of that about him, I thought he was just a hired narrator or something.
No Name Yeah he has done even more than just that, I believe. Yet he seems very genuinely interested in the details of history, esp the daily lives of people. So very enjoyable!
Wait. This guy makes Sniper Elite games?
@@ShindlerReal Yep. He owns the Rebellion game studio.
A stool in a nice shady spot, some water and a plate of ash: that's all you need to teach a little bit of history. Great video!
You forgot the other ingredient, the video camera
Dont forget the horse
The knowledge also helps.
Sione Fifita 😂
That how it started
This is actually a good tip for modern day camping
I was thinking the same thing!
When I was a girl scout in Poland many years ago we used to scrub pots and pans in the lake with sand and ash. It was very effective and quite environmentally neutral. Before watch this I expected you would talk about soapwort, or saponaria plant.
You can soak the leaves to make basic soaps. In fact it's even used today to clean some very delicate antique tapestries.
I came to look for this sort of comment
just found out he's the CEO of Rebellion. the guys that made the Sniper Elite series... holy shit.
Yep I didn't believe it at first but after some research it's true.
Oh, wow... Googled it, and yes.
Whaat?
Makes me happy knowing he’s well off, content like this is rare not to mention the dude seems like a real chill dude
@@DidntKnowWhatToPut1 when did he get knighted?
I`m from Ukraine and I'd like to tell you that in this part of Europe we traditionally used the ash for laundry. It was called zolinnia, and people used to put their clothes layer by layer into a special barrels. Each layer was sprinkled with ashes. This technique was commonly used in Ukraine till 1920th
Daria Antsybor Wow!
In Italy we did that too! In rural areas it was done up until late '50s
@@edraith actually now I think for Ukraine 1950s are also more relevant than 1920s because of the war issues. People definitely didn't have washing machines even in the cities.
@@DariaAntsybor I have friends from Ukraine and, from what I am induced to think, outside big cities Ukraine was mainly rural and very poor even back in the eighties (I have no idea if this might have something to do with Chernobyl and the economical efforts in its aftermath).
Here in Italy, expecially in very secluded areas, we've had people who experienced a very similar way of life for millennias, with little variations from ancient roman conquest up to the late fifties...
@@edraith detergents also had ash in them, one of the commercials for AVA (the one with Calimero, the black chick) talked about the ash in their product as a selling point. I can only guess they stopped adding ash as people turned to gas heating and stoves so there wasn't much ash being thrown around any longer so getting it became more of a hassle than just using more modern and perhaps delicate chemicals
Okay, this feels kinda crazy. A while back, my family started using charcoal-based deodorant (to help with an unrelated medical issue in the family), and pretty quickly, I found the stuff started to leave burning rashes where I applied it. I had a feeling it was the charcoal doing it, but never really knew why-who'd'a thunk I'd learn it from a video about medieval soap? Great stuff, and thanks for the info!
Would love a full video on Medieval hygiene.
The idea that Medieval people were dirty and lived in dirt is still believed by so many people.
Isn't that absolutely absurd?🙊
I only take a bath once a week.... but there are also things like showers...
With other words, yes a bath was a big deal, it cost time and effort.
So it was a rare thing...
BUT.... people washed themselves from buckets probably daily and have done right up to the 1970s.
Just some water from a basin, a towel, some soap, done.
Which is how your grandparents did it.
Also, depending on where you lived of course, many people had their own well or source of fresh water.
Groundwater permitting, some houses, even simple farms and poor people
s hovels, had a hole in the garden for fresh, clean, sand filtered water.
Only people who lived where it took a LOT of digging to get to water sometimes lived in a town with just a few public wells.
Just because they didn't take a bath doesn't mean they didn't wash.
Medieval people washed, a lot.
And this is why we need more episodes on this subject, the myths are still strong.
@Mara A : Truth . I bathed every evening before bed after being in the stables all day ( I prefer ANY DAY a shower but there was none ) and the people I stayed with thought me quite strange and wasteful .
I bathed no matter what they thought . And left as soon as I'd gotten my exams .
@2010realitycheck : Yes ... some people DO live that way . I know them personally . Ugh . :(
@Mara A
It is almost unheard of to do that in England today; it would be something notable enough to be recorded in a magazine article.
How many times have I told you not to use the Castile soap?!?
It is only to be shown off to guests.
PickelJars ForHillary Even back then...kids and dads couldn’t win
@@melindamercier6811 😂
LOL! My mum had little soaps shaped like roses or shells that were only for visitors :)
PickelJars ForHillary LOL! And not the good linen towels! The rags in the cupboard!
@@kezkezooie8595 My grandmother, too. :D
Love these little glimpses into the old world. Thanks Jason.
@Charzey He's speculating but his speculations are based on historical sources. This isn't an idea he just made up!
www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/history-science-technology-and-medicine/history-science/the-history-soapmaking
Having said that, as a historian, he should be listing his sources.
@Charzey Historically, soap was used to clean, not kill bacteria. The former is as old a practice as cooking, while the latter is a result of modern science.
You don't need to be aware of germs or bacteria to keep clean. Mud, grease and blood are all visible, unpleasant and inconvenient stains which people would want to remove. They still valued appearance and presentation. Also, primitive people were aware of illness, bad smells, spoiled food etc. so they would use perfumes to combat these and incorporate them into their cleaning routine.
Without a "germ theory of medicine" they didn't understand the causes of disease, so relied on trial by error via experimentation combined with superstitious beliefs, which inevitably had mixed results.
Regardless, people have been experimenting with naturally derived substances for thousands of years, so it's possible they discovered different forms of soap, but if the ingredients were scarce or difficult to process, manufactured soap would be considered a luxury.
These videos are both entertaining and educational. My only issue is that he doesn't mention his sources.
I’m not an academic historian, I’m an historical scientist. I follow the method of research then actual testing out.
@@ModernKnight What's your science background?
(EDIT: Nevermind, I found it I think. Zoology from Oxford?)
Regardless, I think studying history makes you a historian (amateur or professional).
I appreciate you take a "hands on" approach unlike so called "armchair experts" and such experimental history is valuable. Frankly, we need more of it!
richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2007/07/experimental-history.html
@@ModernKnight Please ignore this Plebian, He is desperate. Keep going! everyone loves your work!
"Potassium" comes from "Pottasche" (old german: pot ash), potassium carbonate, a main component of wood ash, especially from pine cones.
Nowadays Pottasche is the pocket where the Krauts keep their marijuana.
Also if anyone was wondering why it's such a good degreaser, it reacts with water to produce potassium and carbonate, then the carbonate reacts with the water again to produce carbon dioxide and potassium hydroxide, which is a very strong base.
Hoped somebody would have said this :)
Olive oil and pot ash makes soooaaaappp
@@meowster101 Its a great explanation, but just to clarify, the carbonate doesn't react with the water spontaneously, the potassium carbonate itself its a very strong base because of potassium, so it increases the concentration of OH- in water
Notice that the more technologically advanced and crazy our world gets, the more popular and attractive these videos are.
That's a really good observation.
That's what makes us smile ... him galloping in on a horse !
These vids are beautiful, their attractiveness would make me want to lay with them in a heartbeat
Relax this is all part of humanity things change but you can keep a history in our minds and video
Modern conveniences make life more comfortable, but life shouldn't always be comfortable, as those comforts also deprive humans of a very basic need that they need to feel happy - work. Mind, I do not mean work as in your typical 9-5 bureaucratic stuff that's mind-numbing and overall pointless. I mean work as in cooking, cleaning, sewing and the like. It is these things that give humans satisfaction, that ground them in reality and satisfy them with feelings of accomplishment. Our modern world, with all of it's conveniences bring with them loads and loads of troubles and nature-removed worries that poison the mind and body. People like and prefer simplicity and for good reason.
The reason I like this is video is there is no rubbish music playin in the background and unrelated photos. Just what I came to learn, perfect!
Same here. Some channels stretch their videos a lot, with a long ass intro, then some random talk semi-related to the topic, battle scenes, pop-culture references, etc.
what kind of shitty channels are you guys watching lol
Agreed with@Evi1M4chine. Background music could be good if used right. Of course, background music that's too loud, unfitting, etc. is bad.
Bashar Qaraqush EXACTLY!
When I was a little boy in Indonesia in the 80's, I used to clean my hand with 'Abu gosok' meaning 'scrubbing ash' I didn't know it is actually a precursor of soap. I used 'Abu gosok' not for day to day shower but only when my hands was very dirty and greasy from engine oil. Never use 'Abu gosok' to clean faces and regular showers. Interesting thousand years old technology still being used in Indonesia.
My grandma still used it until late 90s XD I still remember she stored it near kitchen sink! :3
We filipino people call ash abu too
when the pan is greasy my uncle will use ash to remove it.
What about when it's mixed with oil?
Occam's razor: The simplest solution is usually the right solution
@MUHAMMAD THE PEDOPHILE Go back to your time out chair with all that petty hate till you feel better enough to see how unnecessary it is to say bs to people you know nothing about. Nobody wants to hear some whiny toddler fussing at strangers online for no reason. You're pooping crap everywhere like someone asked you to.
1:06
This is still common in Saami culture. We wipe our hands and knives on ground until we can get to water.
Also, literally just sand from a stream is very effective for de-greasing your pans. It doesn't beat soap but when in nature it's more than good enough.
Lovely to hear, and thanks.
Yep I use sand and dirt mud from the creek
Yeah, sand is really good for cleaning. I accidentally discovered the ash thing when I got some cigerette ash on my phone screen, which was smudgy and kinda dirty. I rubbed it off and noticed that area of the phone was smooth and clean.
I remember being at a lake as a kid. It was time to go, but when we got out of the water we were immediately covered in wet sand. My parents said to use the dry sand to wash off the wet sand. It actually worked really well. And we ended up surprisingly clean.
Other people: do not try this at home
This guy: if you want to try this just be very careful
😂😂
Honestly this is better advice.
Modern History - not for idiots.
If you do try it, you need to rinse it with a lot of water to dilute the solution and lower its pH as our body gets burned if the pH is too high (alkaline), just like it would burn if the pH is too low (acidic). If you get a high concentration of corrosive chemicals on your skin, recommended washing time is at least 10 minutes.
My Granny used to make her own soap. She saved "drippings" from the cooking of bacon, roasts, etc. in a coffee can and had an old china tea cup with the handle broke off she used to measure out the lye. She's been gone now for more than 10 years, but I still have a few pieces of her last batch of hard white soap left.
Could you share the recipe? That would be splendid! Already too much old knowledge disappeared from the world.
Yeah if you could share, it would be appreciated!
Gamer Named Darvit could we see the recipe?
*Making soap with that is still a thing where I live*
Gamer Named Darvit: I suspect you realize just how lucky you are to have that knowledge, first-hand from your grandmother. My grandmothers both passed in their 90s, in the mid-1970s. They both made soap and used it for every type of cleaning - LOVED their ringer washers! I was the only grand who listened to the stories, but even I wouldn’t have been interested in soap making. Hindsight is 20:20; kicking myself now. If you ever feel generous and decide to share that knowledge, I would be honored to accept. I am using my retirement to reconnect with those women whom I descend from by learning about their mad skills. For me, it’s an educational experience; for them, it was a necessary way of life.
I have already commented that my great grandmother used to make soap. Let me write down the process as I remember. First of all she was a peasant woman in all her life and lived in a small village. She died about 35 years ago, lived well into her nineties. My grandmother said she made finer soap when she was younger, but the time I remember she made very alkaline washing soap that was very hard. She sold them in big bricks (1 lb - 2 lb) and people grated it into the washing water. For washing our hands or bathing we used commercial soap at that time. That was in Hungary in the early 80's. At that time only a very few old people bought or used home made soap.
The process was the following.
She used clay pot with small holes on the bottom. I guess earthenware is the term. It was an crude un-glazed terracotta thing. Put sand in the bottom for filter then filled the pot with ash ( from false acacia trees).
Dripped water through the pot and the water or lye was collected in an other pot. The lye was then concentrated by repeating the process and occasionally replacing the wood ash.
She tested the lye by dipping a feather into it. When then lye was strong enough the feather burned away quickly.
The animal fat was melted and filtered through a cloth. It was cooled down to body temperature.
Then she mixed the lye with the fat (I dont know the ratios) then set the soap aside to solidify.
thank you for this valuable information.
Evi1M4chine I grew up using Dove soap. In the 50’s and 60’s I grew up in mid-Michigan,with well water. We used Dove because it was gentle (no rashes or dry skin) and produced a nice foam when used with ‘hard’ well water.
Yes... It's called Lye Soap. Very common.
@@nigel900 Every soap is made of lye and fat. The interesting bit here is how the lye was made to the desired concentration, what tools were used.
And to point out that it is a simple process that anybody could do with a few clay pots.
Yes... Very common and easy to make.
Soapwort ( Saponaria officinalis) was found in neolithic sites. It had an anti-bacterial element to it; however, this was not known in the stone age. Stone age people found this plant throughout Europe and threw some of its flowers into water, with which they washed their hands. The water had a 'soapy' feel to it has the hands were cleaned during experiments.
This is actually very helpful. As a fantasy writer, I try to add in historically accurate information, and this is something I’ve always wondered about.
I'm here for the same reason. Thank goodness for channels like this.
Same! And also curiosity since I'm germophobe and people keep telling me I couldn't have survived in the past due to the lack of soap...
This comment made me smile, I'm here for the same reason. Or, to admit, I ended up here after a couple of his videos in a row. Which is why I don't do research while writing anymore, but rather when I'm done for the day, haha. What he's doing is excellent.
It makes me wonder if little gift baskets of fancy soaps were a thing back then, too, haha.
It maybe worth mentioning here then that he completely overlooked the use of soapwort - a common herb that was used to make a rudimentary soap.
I see it everywhere but I must say it too, this truly is a hidden gem of a channel. Really outdoor, original content that I haven’t really seen other than on tv documentaries and in nowhere near as much detail and inconsequential themes. Great job
That guy who likes Bathory ...cannot... resist...
Fuck yeah, Bathory! 🤘
You should check out Townsend he picks up historically where this dude stops.
Nyar 23 Bathory are fantastic! Glad to see another admirer
Thank god you didnt stop uploading, love your videos, congratulations.
The more our society is becoming hyper technological the MORE I am attracted to our past. Such an interesting channel. Greetings from Italy.
@Nebby Scumbold They did not have Moore's Law in 1335.
@Nebby Scumbold
Our society is definitivly more technological than the past.
This is how history should be introduced to kids. If done the right way, it is fascinating....and not the dry boring stuff I remember having being taught in school.
When you "live" history like this, suddenly it makes morse sense and is much more relatable.
And of course trying out such things "in the field" is fun too!
It's what drew me to the medieval re-enactment scene. It's interesting!
@@TheMurlocKeeper
That comes with costs and time. Priorities must be made and medieval soap is a low priority.
@@Ninjaananas - oh for sure!
Possibly not soap making as such (lye is dangerous stuff, and will blind you if you get it in your eyes) but maybe just....other stuff?
Like maybe get some medieval re-enactors involved in making school visits with stuff to show and tell, all costumed up, of course, or have half a day out somewhere, learning how to make a fire from scratch, or making a hat or something. Anything hands on would do.
Axe throwing in particular I'm sure would be popular, or even the basics of some sword fighting. Kids love that shit! :D
My grandma said she used ash as shampoo until around late 1950s in Urals. We live in small village
I wonder how well it works
I was so immersed in the medieval context that I loled when a wild John Deere tractor appeared
Love the videos. No nonsense, no filler, all well-researched and even tested! Fantastic content. Give this man more subs!
@Dindo Nuffin Not just medieval times; History's Worst Jobs gives you an idea of just *how much* it was utilised before artificial chemicals became ubiquitous - to use the quote: 'There was money in muck.'
No filler? You are so gullible. There is a reason why nowdays every video on YT has at least 10 minutes mark.
@@DUNDOM5 But the question is: were any of those 10 minutes filled with useless fluff? I would say no because he gave useful information the entire time.
Bro. That's actually the most useful thing I've learned in two years. Thank you. I wish you were my father.
You are very welcome
In my grandmother's house there was a piece of paper with a recipe for soap, still from the war or just after the war. It was very simple, it was made of soda base and tallow, and you probably could have used pork fat as well. I know that my grandma used to add a small amount of rosin, the amber-yellow nuggets of which were also in some box. Apparently the whole soap boiling operation was long and awfully smelly, there was a smell all over the house.
Informative video. This knowledge should never be forgotten.
Dear PREPFORIT: Corporate Capitalism Wants You To Forget knowledge like this to make you more dependent on their distribution network (grid). Since the Industrial Revolution, the common person has lost his survival skills for the "convenience" of being supplied all his needs by a centralized grid. Some "experts" believe that in the aftermath of a nuclear war or a meteor strike many of the survivors would starve to death because they wouldn't even know how to put a seed into the ground to grow a vegetable. ... jkulik919@gmail.com
Love your uploads! One addition (I am a herbalist/soapmaker with an interest in history in the Netherlands), the Romans actually knew soap and used it..but not for their body (like you said, they used olive oil), but to wash fabrics. Syria was part of the Roman Empire and was already known for their soap (now known as Aleppo soap). In Pompei they did found a 'soap factory', so the technique to make soap was also available to the Romans themselves in the first century. The Germanic tribes also made a soap from tallow, according to Tacitus and this was as well imported to wash fabrics. The Romans thought the Germans where a bunch of sissies for using soap to wash their bodies. Thank you so much for the work you put into this, and I love how you work with your horses.
A history professor in college told us that the fact that the Germanic tribes washed their bodies with soap is actually why the Romans called them barbarians.
@@beth8775 Same with the Scoti and Britons. They bathed once a week or more in the river or pond or what have you and used alkaline soap to wash their very fair skin. This ''soap'' caused their already fair hair to lighten. It was essentially fats soap, and the Romans thought they were weird because they were so clean
My dad taught me this when we where out camping - it was something his grandfather taught him to clean up.
he said only use the white ash and sprinkle that in the fat caked pan. (we'd caught and cooked a lamb earlier so their was a nice bit of cooled fat in the pan) and then wash it out with just your hands or the spatula
Nearly forgot about that trip til i watched this video - thanks :)
I can just picture some medieval house mistress shouting across the fields: "For the last time, the scented ash in the red plate by the basin is for DECORATIVE purposes only! STOP STICKING YOUR MANURE FINGERS IN IT!"
Lol
"IF IT'S FOR DECORATIVE PURPOSES ONLY, WHY IS IT SOMEWHERE MY MANURE FINGERS CAN REACH SO EASILY?!"
Aaahahahhahahahaa!
Easiest way to clean pots when camping: mix the grease in the leftovers with the ash from the campfire.
Galastel this is basically how my grandma made soap back on the farm. She’s boil ashes to make lye and then mix in proportions of pork fat from a yearly hog killing. She’d have an all purpose soap for the entire year.
There is a herb in Central Europe which can be used to clean metal pots: horsetail.
@@PewPewPlasmagun jep, it doesnt contain lignin (the stuff wood is build with), but tiny needles of silica, wich scrape dirt away in a decend, but mild way
in german we call it also "Zinnkraut" because of it, but beware, the most common types are toxic, use ALOT ot water afterwards
very old plant by the way, there were tree-types in the carboniferous
it polishes metal very well, i use it too, but can't really get rid of grease
I'm absolutely gonna try that on my next camping trip. This channel is so good and I feel like I learn something valuable to the modern day each time I watch it.
I love this channel because instead of focusing on broad questions about what battle was fought where and which general hated which king, you focus on little things. Questions we all have but most people assume is too boring for CZcams. But realisticly I can sit through a video about medieval soap and have so much more fun learning than a video about battle tactics. I love learning about the day to day lives of our ancestors! Thank you for all the work you do
In India, we still use ash to clean dishes. My grandmother used to use it
Ash has many uses. The first one I learned about was cleanign silverware with ash. As a teenager metalhead I had all sorts of silver rings and trinkets that would tarnish with constant wearing and grandma showed me how to shine them up with ash.
If you have a metal sink you can also use aluminum foil, hot water and salt. Put the foil in the bottom, add some salt, add some hot water, put in silver objects and lave for a bit (cannot remember how long, but I think you could see the effect quite fast)
Oh hey I remember, way back in the day, my grandmother using fresh ash and coconut husk to wash large greasy pots and pans! Never made sense to me back then but now I know!
in philippines, we still use ash to clean the bottom of the pan. we use shrubs though, because rubbing your hands in the pots will damage your skin and it is irritating since you have ash. what we do is, we dip the shrub (coconut shrubs) in the ash. sometimes, we use a combination of ash and fine sand.
qwerty link same here in Somalia
in america we use dish soap because our land is too beautiful and must be poisoned or something idk if it was ever explained to me i got the adhd. i just got my first and second and third and fourth gun, boy this nation is a riot, plz dont come here.
Horsetails are quite good also. They have a natural silica which scrubs the pots well. ( If you don't know, they are a kind of swamp plant which have been around since the early period of plant evolution.)
qwerty link Wow. I’m from the Philippines and I didn’t even know.
So true. My childhood days..
Finally 'abu gosok' makes sense to me. 'Abu gosok' means 'rubbing ash' in Indonesian and I heard it's an old thing to wash dishes. I've always wondered why did they associate cleaning dishes with ash, so thanks a lot for this!
wtf learned more off this and online than my entire schooling education
@Roger Dodger literally, its logic and understanding how our ancestors progressed and understood this world
I'm so tired of seeing this comment everywhere
@wait wot This video is entertainment. School isn't supposed to teach you stuff like this.
When CZcams actually recommends you something informative
Paul Denino yoooooo ice XD
Even though you will never make Any soap
Must be your search history sucks. They give me what I'm curios about.
@@illuminated1640 Because of the outbreak I've had to make my own. Never say never ;)
Cleaning your hands with ash might have first occurred just after humans became comfortable with fire.
Cave man - has cold hands
Cave man - OOoo, I bet the ashes of the fire are still warm
*shoves hands into ashes*
Cave woman - "Wash that off!"
Cave man - does
Cave man - has clean hands
I have a pretty intense aversion to greasy hands which has, at times, kept me from pursuing activities where I know my hands will get greasy and I won't have soap and water immediately available (i.e. long camping trips). This video has completely taken away that concern and opened up entire new categories of activities for me - thank you sooo much! 🙏
wonderful!
@Milk Thistle Imagine being so ignorant that basic cleanliness seems "spoiled"...
It’s nice having a straight cut lesson in history without a 50$ gift card give away or an adderall riddled brat demanding you like and subscribe.. keep it up friend 👍🏻
I'm giving away $50 worth of adderall if you like and subscribe right now!
No Name HA I HAVE VYVANSE
Check out the "Townsends" channel
Well it also helps that he's filthy stinking rich and this is basically a hobby for him.
Notifications are so broken.. Iv just received a single mention that someone commented 😂jeeezus CZcams.
This channel is a continuously informative and entertaining resource. What makes it especially great is how all levels of society are examined. Living history at its finest.
Yeah, I remember that my grandmother and my great aunt used ashes from their fireplace to do laundry at the public wash houses. Ash can also be used to clean pots and dishes but there is an alternative for personal hygiene, it's plants extracts. Various plants contain natural saponins like Saponaria Officinalis which is common in Europe, near lakes and rivers too; leaves and roots can be used to extract a form of liquid soap. Anyway I've also used this "trick" some times and it works not bad at all.
"..and I bet you this has been used for thousands of years."
Literally the Bible:
“‘A clean man will gather up the ashes of the cow and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and they should be kept by the assembly of the Israelites to prepare water that will be used for cleansing...
- Numbers 19:9 -
True!
Nice video! ☺
Wow! Nice find!
ah... yes but it was for water purification for ceremonial purposes. But they could have found a connection and used it for soap making and bathing. Babylonians did invent the process and could of taught the Israelites during their occupation.
That is very interesting.
What are the "ashes of a cow"??
@@ladywisewolf3942 When they sacrificed cows and bulls by burning their corpse, ashes would develop.
I love his accent and voice. I could listen to him all day.
The moment I saw what you had with you, I was sure that it was ash! "Potassium carbonate" is called "potassium", because it was made from "pot ash" (we still use "Pott-Asche" written as "Pottasche" here in Germany as the trivial name for this chemical), and yes, this was used for cleaning and soap-making for a very long time. So, looking into history is actually "practical chemistry", and knowing where things come from it generally a good thing!
I made soap as a home based business for about 15 years. Soap is made through a chemical process called saponification by combining a strong reactive alkaline such as lye (sodium hydroxide) with oils of varying types.
The water strained through ashes was quite strongly alkaline, but often dark colored from the ash, depending upon the quality of the ash. I would suspect that black soap would have resulted from getting lye from wood ashes. Leave and twigs burned might result in a gray color, giving that color to soap.
Thank you👍🏼
Thanks for spreading the knowledge! Do you think that the ash and water method would work well for cleaning clothes, or would that have been too damaging to the linen?
Celticelery, I am a hystorical reenactor and have been researching this stuff for many years. The mideaval folks would have used quite a bit of water. The soap for laundry purposes was often a soft goopy stuff and might happen to have some free alkali left in it.
It is doubtful that the soft soaps made for laundry would have been just glopped onto the fabric directly. It would probably been diluted in water first. One might do a bit of spot cleaning to remove stains before washing the entire garment. They did heat water in kettles to clean clothing and putting in that sift soap would allow
Putting in that soft soap would allow the clothing to be cleaned in the kettles with hot water after spot removing is done. Then they would rinse the clothing in plain water tubs. The water might or might not be heated for rinsing.
Sheila Mayer thank you, this is really intresting🙂👍🏼
Discovered this channel yesterday... Been binge-watching since.
Jason at start: "I have some ideas. Let me explain."
Me: "YESSSS!" with the biggest smile I can possibly manage. :D
I recall being cautioned against using this method by my chemistry teacher as a youngster fo the very reasons you stated. It consumes the fat in your own skin.
Also, in a vaguely related note which I can't forget:
Little Johnny's dead and gone, his smile we'll see no more,
For what he thought was H20,
Was H2So4.
"When the tallows harden you skim-off a layer of glycerine, if you were to add nitric acid, you got nitroglycerine, if you were to add sodium nitrol and a dash of sawdust you got dynamite - Yeh, with enough soap we can blow up just about anything."
I grow a plant called Saponaria officinalis, also known as soapwort or bouncing bet. As its name suggests, it can be used as a soap. It produces an alkaline lather when rubbed in water, and is used in textile conservation. I don't know when it was introduced into the UK, but the fact that it is called a wort (old name for plant) suggests it was a long time ago. Although it would probably be pretty ineffectual at doing the dishes, I have used it as a face and hair wash. It's an extremely pretty, garden worthy plant.
Opinions differ widely on the time of introduction of soapwort into England - it is native to northern Europe and may have been brought here in Roman times, or possibly it was brought by Cluniac or other "alien" monks establishing their monastic gardens here in the 12th/13th centuries. Either way it has been naturalised long enough to have a long list of common names: Bouncing bet, Bruisewort, Dog cloves, Fuller's herb, Lady's-washbowl, Latherwort, Old-maid's-pink, among others. The reference to fullers is very significant, since fulling woollen cloth was a major industry throughout the medieval period and having a natural source of saponin growing in the wild or in gardens would have been a free and effective system. The "officinalis" part of its Latin name refers to those herbs commonly used by monastic herbalists for medicinal or other purposes - this usually indicates a medieval or earlier origin for a plant.
@@tichburyfan I couldn't have put it better myself! Seriously, that's excellent, thanks. Funnily enough, I live not far from a Cluniac monastery, among many other medieval monasteries etc. (Norfolk) I suspect that's why there are a lot of very useful wild and naturalized plants in the area. I always think that, come the apocalypse, I would be one of those who could survive. Do wonders for my waistline!
I am a former 12th century living history monk and I spent many days at Castle Acre Priory showing the uses of herbs to the visitors. I recall one particular person who asked many questions, then said that he was a writer researching for a book on post-apocalypse survival; he was convinced that re-enactors would be the ones to survive most successfully since they have the skills and knowledge of pre-machine age lifestyles that did not depend on electricity or other modern systems.
@@tichburyfan Now that's very interesting. You definitely get a better class of contributor on here, don't you? My husband wants to know if you had a tonsure?
My wife threatened to divorce me if I came home with a Roman tonsure, but I still managed to do it on a few occasions. I did an event at Rochester cathedral priory and got their cleaning lady to "open my sunroof" with a pair of scissors; arriving home I wore a baseball cap for several days . . . I think I got away with it as we are still married.
my grandma use to wash sheets with ash . White and perfumed still flagging in my memories
This was common knowledge of my youth...I am tickled to hear it being reviewed. You are so fun. Your horses are amazing.
This is actually very helpful information for me today. I am headed out to the forest to cook some mushrooms and will use Ash to clean my pots and hands when I’m done thank you!
@Charles Gusto How so? As toxic shock is caused by bacteria growing in the absence of oxygen and occurs mostly in menstruating women using tampons. How is that in any way related to using ash to clean pots
Man, I only just found out that Jason is also the CEO of Rebellion, who make the Sniper Elite games (amongst other things). A man of many talents. This channel is great.
Holy crap that's amazing! I love Sniper Elite games.
Aretak I wish I didn’t know that. :(
Neat fact, am quite the fan of the series since ps2 days.
I've used ashes from my camp fire to clean a frying pan in the woods many times. Very cool.
I'm recently obsessed with this channel 🤣❤️ this is literally EVERY question I had as a young girl who both loved the middle ages, but was also aware that chamber pots and plagues were real 😂
Welcome!!
My great grandmother used to make soap from wood ash and fat when I was a child. It is a simple process. She made soap once a year after sloughtering the pigs. That was enough for the year for the family and some to sell.
The thought that often goes through my head when learning things like this is essentially, "How on earth did they think of this *in the first place* ! LOL
Likely just scrubbing anything they could to get stuff off tbh; they probably assumed ash, because it was hot like fire and fire melts fat, would work along similar lines and were pleasantly correct (but for different reasons).
In time they likely ventured away from warm or hot ash and tested cold, found it worked, and had far fewer accidental ember burns.
There is a theory: in the olden days people used to do lots of sacrifices. People also used to live close to rivers (since they didnt know how to transport water, they didnt even know how to make water-sealed containers until pottery and still water was heavy anyways) and also fire produces ash. Ash + fat mixing in a river going towards people that are washing their clothes in the river; also this happening for years and eventually people go "hmm, Khazim, why your cloth more clean then my cloth huh?". Pretty sure they didnt "invent" soap in the sense that they had no clue about chemistry and therefore couldnt understand whats really happening, but they can still observe that there is something about the fat+ash mix that makes 'better-clean' then just using water. Also I dont believe when he says romans didnt use soap since there is a latin word for soap so idk, but then again you cant really be sure about anything in history unless you were there.
@@cAc0alex "they didnt even know how to make water-sealed containers until pottery"
Gourds were used to carry water, and you can make waterproof baskets with tar, or lining with leaves, seaweed, or skin/leather.
@@mindstalk alright good point, but still water is heavy and therfore a bit pointless to transport compared to just living next to it
Who would have thought that a video about soap would be so amazingly interesting!
Ash and water - Medieval soap-dispenser.
And this was fascinating.
Fascinating stuff, Sir Jason. I'm hoping that at some point you explore how medieval soldiers cleaned, polished & maintained their uniforms (metal/leather armor, mail, tack, tunics etc.).
Ohhh yes that would be interesting!
That's a fantastic idea!!!
You might want to browse through KnygthErrant's and Skallagrim's channel. Especially the former has many, many videos on medieval clothes and armor, how they were made and maintained.
Mail was apparently cleaned in a barrel with vinegar and sand. Neat's foot oil from cows is I do not know how ancient but softens and preserves leather. Tallow from sheep . The fat around slaughtered animals kidneys is flaky,white and the most desired fat product. Heated with various other ingredients, it would form a basis for other leather goods dressings.
No doubt many other items made there way into village life,depending on local availability.
@@paulmanson253 Right then. As a former soldier myself, I'm curious how a soldier did this. Especially on a soldier's wage. Surcoats seem like just as much a nightmare to keep clean & shiny as horse tack, armor and the like. How they got dried blood out of heavy wool garmets has interested me since military school. Knights had squires & money. Grunts had themselves.
I adore this channel! It helps me know and learn more about my favorite time era. It also helps me when it comes to writing my story!! Keep up the tremendous work!
i love channels like this and Shadiversity to learn about how people in the medieval era actually lived (and not how Hollywood portrays them). There are so many inventions that are way older then most people think, and people back then lived very similar to how we lived today in many ways.
Arthas Menethil preach!! The way Hollywood portrays the medieval era is awful for the majority of the time. I love to learn about literally everything from this era!!
Since young times when we went on a bbq with family, we were taught to clean our hands by first getting them wet, and rubbing them with soil and sand and then washing them. Always did a good job
Funny how I felt learning history in school was boring, and now here I am learning about what people first used as soap.
I am so happy that this channel is slowly growing. It's truly an underrated gem.
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Yes, ash and fat. My grandmother made her own soap that way. It wasn't pretty, sort of gray+yellow. It worked.
Where did she live?
@@hamboer1 Virginia. My Grandparents were born in the late 1800's, lived into the 1960's with very little change in lifestyle. They owned 200 or so acres on a creek that fed into the Potomac and lived off the land. Raised 8 children, some become PhD's and some like my mother, just became housewives.
@@sawahtb Informative and appreciated. With respect, please don't use "just" with "housewives". A complex, difficult and important job!
@@learntocrochet1 True. My mother was legally blind, which is to say, she could see but very poorly. She read large print with a magnifying glass. She was a dedicated mother who raised 4 of her own and was stepmother to two older children. She was a very decent cook and managed the household with dignity. I always had a birthday cake made with care and lovely Christmas cakes every year. Her speciality was baked pork chops with scalloped potatoes. A lovely dish to smell when coming home from school on a cold day.
I still make soap this way.
This channel 's videos consist in a nice man dishing tons of valuable information in the most amiable way ever. It enriches me while relaxing me at the same time. Thank you!
thanks for both watching and subscribing!
@@ModernKnight Thank you for your great comment!
This has dispelled many myths I’ve believed about people living in the Middle Ages. It’s a very fascinating series and fairly entertaining.
It's amazing, the simple things that we've forgotten over the centuries of "advancement."
We didn't forget it. Ash from fires was the origin of soapmaking. We refined the process, made better soap, made more soap more cheaply, and so on until it became a ubiquitous commodity over the centuries. We stopped using ash, because we got better alternatives. And you yourself will have been taught in school how saponification and soap making works (it is part of middle school curriculum world over).
@@tylisirn Not when I was in school. And there are TENS OF THOUSANDS of people unfamiliar with this simple technique.
The average person my have forgotten, but anyone with an academic background in biochemistry should be able to produce soap from things found in nature without much difficulty.
@@rookmaster7502 You and I have two very different perspectives. You care that some, what?, five thousand people know this? I care that seven BILLION people do not. I'm sure that you play the games, so: In your apocalyptic world of zombies . . . no one is going to know how to make soap.
@@anthonyhargis6855 Five thousand is a gross understatement... there are millions of people throughout the world today who have degrees in chemistry and biology. I can't really speculate about the impact of zombies taking over, as that is mostly fictional, not reality based.
i remember my grandmother making cleaning powder from ashes.
they clean clothes quite nicely.
Hardwood ash makes the best soap. If you're out camping and you need to wash your dishes, throw a little ash in your pan and enough water to form a paste. Scour it out, then rinse. Boom, clean.
I’m Albanian and my great grandmother told me (when I was about 8 years old) that they washed clothes with ash at the stream! She said they used ash and sand together to wash their hands.
Soap was expensive so they used it only for bathing once a week in winter times and once every 3 or 4 days in summer times.
We are talking about 80 to 100 years ago.
Thanks for sharing!!
While Hitchhiking around Western Canada I used a handful of dry grass, some sand and campfire ashes to clean my cookware. It worked AMAZINGLY well, better than the modern dish detergent everyone else used around the campgrounds. I used regular soap on my skin, though.
If you add any scrubbing component to "soap" it becomes more effective than just the liquid soap by default.
Interesting enough this is basically what agricultural suppliers here still sell in big batches. It’s basically a mix of wood ash, linseed-oil, and sawdust as an abrasive. It’s a rather dry mix we use after caring for animals or working with oily machine parts. All the cleaning happens in this dry state, water is only used to rinse it off afterwards.
Also, pure wood-ash still is the best cleaner for steel stove tops. Works best applied with an old newspaper - I bet there is some hidden chemistry hidden in there, too ;-)
Kind of like the mechanics soap, sounds like
Working in automotive and volunteering in various other bits of Victorian era mechanical engineering with lots of grease, oil and metal shavings we often use sand and any basic cheap hand soap if any of the modern fancy combination industrial grit/degreaser soaps have ran out or aren't available. It's surprising how much you can get off with just water and sand (at the expense of potentially blocking a modern sink)
The ash tip is something you learn as a hairdresser. You can’t do it on clients obviously, but it works really well when you dye your own hair and need to clean up your forehead 😅
I remember getting ink all over my hands when I was a kid and soap wasn't helping. Someone in my family told me to wet my hands, grab some dirt and scrub my hands with dirt then rinse it off again... I didn't believe them but I tried it, and to my surprise it took off almost all the ink.
I learned more science in a ten minute video than in all of high school... For reference, I have a few degrees and I just learnt some awesome new information... And the best part is that it came with a history lesson!!
I remember when I was a kid, I was having my summer vacations at my grandma and she used to make a lot of home made soap. Basically, she would have this huge cauldron in the backyard, filled it with water, stirred in caustic soda and the added some fats which were not going to be eaten anymore as they were going a bit rancid or there wasn't space for them anymore. She would then create these big blocks of white yellowish soap that didn't smell that nice, but boy they could clean. Grandma was actually a bit of a "ocd" with cleaning and would then boil all bed sheets, table sheets anything in a cauldron with pieces of this soap. I guarantee they were cleaner than hospital sheets. They didn't have a fragrance, though
Water is quite effective at removing soil from hands, especially with a little scrubbing. I am a landscaper and I get lots of soil on my hands. When I take my lunch break I drain some melted ice from my cooler and use that for washing my hands and it works fairly well. I suppose field workers may have had canteens of some sort. Using the buddy system, one person could pour a little water on the hands of another.
In the winter, snow is quite effective for washing skin.
If you have grease on your hands, it is much harder to remove than soil. This would require some sort of soap.
This was fascinating, to think such simple ingredients could be used so effectively. I’d love to see more videos themed around daily medieval living. Wonderful work!
Actually at few of the villages in my country in the Balkans plenty of old folks still make hand-made soap from pig's fat, it's very cheap and they are usually using it for cleaning tools or bath animals.
While it does stink a little bit (completely different from modern aromated soaps sold in the shop), it's not bad at all, but keep in mind that the place where they made it or if you keep in under direct sunlight it will start stink a lot.
It actually works really well. I remember going camping with my Grandparents when I was younger, my Grandmother would always wash the pots and pans and even our little coffee pot with ashes from the fire pit. Before we would get the fire going again to cook breakfast she would always go and grab some. Then after we ate, we would clean the dishes with them. I always thought it was amazing. Something most people would consider being dirty, or something that will get you dirty being used to clean things. Sometimes it actually works better than dish soap depending on what kind you have. Really quite interesting and amazing.
In Spain we use ashes mixed with water to protect our pots or pans basis from fire. Further, after having a tasty paella, we use that mixture to clean the iron pan. Thanks for another great video!!
I am a soapmaker and a fan of the channel so I found this episode exciting to watch. The saponification process is truly an interesting thing.
I imagine that people doing hard physical labor every day would have much thicker skin and calluses on their hands than most modern people which would make them more resistant to the irritating/burning effects of the ash.
Perhaps a little bit, but as strong as the ash 'soap' would be it'd probably soften the calluses pretty easily as well. It wouldn't be much different than working with bleach or other harsh detergents.
I had pretty huge calluses on my hands from lifting weights and as part of my line of work involves working with all sorts of caustic and bleach solutions, let me tell you, it doesn't really work that way. A caustic solution softens up the calluses in no time...
My nana grew up in the slums in liverpool in the 1920 and she said they used to use ash from the fire to brush their teeth. Her teeth where pretty health right into her 70’s
Washing dishes with ash in India is almost universal. Until at least the 80s, it was very common, even in the biggest cities. Of course, it was the maid who went to collect the ash from the Tandoor, then washed the dishes . . .