History Main / TheDungAges

* Invoked by Ellie, word for word, in ''AvalonHigh''. While others may have romantic notions of the Middle Ages, this daughter of Medieval scholars has absolutely zero desire to be one of them.

* ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'': The TropeCodifier, in which practically everyone runs around bedraggled, shabby and covered in filth, as noted by one character's caustic observation: "He must be a king. He hasn't got shit all over him." In fact, according to backstage reports, the attention of the two Pythons who were directing (Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam) to keeping things authentic in this regard eventually began to take on slightly obsessive tones and really began to piss off the other Pythons (and the other cast and crew members, for that matter), who were having to seriously suffer for their art. This eventually made it a pretty difficult shoot at times and also perhaps provided a reminder of why this trope exists in the first place. This said, however, Gilliam at least was willing to go through what he was putting everyone else through; his two main characters are probably the filthiest main characters in the movie.
** Terry Jones admits on the commentary track that this was exaggerated in comparison to what history research has indicated, mentioning for instance that skeletons from the time can have surprisingly good teeth due to the lack of sugar consumption.

** Terry Gilliam's film ''Film/{{Jabberwocky}}'', overall depicting the Middle Ages the same way as ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''. Even the king's clothes are ragged and dirty.
** Another Python offshoot (see a pattern here?) ''Film/ErikTheViking'' (directed by Terry Jones) is also filthy dirty.

* ''Literature/{{Perfume}}'' depicts the [=18th=] century Paris as the grossest place in the world; the book even points out that, while our 2008 Paris has at most a faint smell of car exhaust, the [=18th=] century Paris smelled like crap, rot, sweat, rotten fish, urine, and any nasty odor you could imagine.
** Paris was also originally built on marshland, so it was pretty boggy until the swamp was drained in the [=19th=] century.
** This is how a visitor from today might perceive the Paris of that time. But whether or not you perceive a smell as unpleasant is very much determined by your social upbringing, so the people actually living there may have had a much different idea about it.

* Invoked in the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' book ''Elfangor's Secret'', which makes a big point about how bad the hygiene of the general populace was in medieval times. The Animorphs find the time traveling villain by looking for someone clean.
** Not just bad hygiene, bad ''health'' as well. They actually specifically call attention to the fact that even the really important kingy people have giant sores in their faces from smallpox and what have you. When they say "clean" they actually specifically mean "doesn't have a face full of holes".
* Averted in Leo Frankowski's ''Conrad Stargard'' series. Good hygiene doesn't show up in the medieval town of Okoitz until the titular [[TimeTravel time-traveling]] engineer's reforms start taking effect.

** Which is completely intentional. On the other hand, in his brilliantly acerbic critical essay ''The Pirog'', Sapkowski lampshaded the tendency of hiding behind the postmodernism by telling a story how after another author defended his decision to put a batiste panties on on of his characters as "postmodernist",[[note]]The Witcher's world is in a late Medieval/early Renaissance period historically, so batiste, invented in a XIII century, was perfectly accurate for the period.[[/note]] the said author dressed his own character into a mail made of scales of a giant catfish -- which doesn't have scales ''at all''. As Sapkowski noted, "creating a mail of something that doesn't exist requires ether exceptionally strong magic, or exceptionally strong postmodernism".
* Completely averted in the novel of ''Literature/{{Timeline}}'', by MichaelCrichton. After a hard day's work, sure, the people are dirty -- but then they go home and bathe. At least within the fortress walls, but that's where as many people as possible live, for the protection.
** And the introduction pulls no punches in criticizing the foundations of this stereotype.
* Averted to some extent in the ''Literature/AubreyMaturin'' series. Conditions ashore can often be pretty messy, but much is made throughout the course of the books about the Royal Navy's positive fetish for cleanliness on board ship (and the reasons why such an obsession was, in fact, very sensible indeed), and Jack Aubrey's home, Ashgrove Cottage, is kept shipshape by retired sailors.
** O'Brien has a great deal of fun playing with the expectations of a bachelor house in the books, to the point of doing a literary GilliganCut. Scene 1 -- rural English gentlewomen speculating how messy Aubrey's house must be (since he has no proper maid or servants). Scene 2 -- a description of how the sailors acting as servants clean the house just like they do the ship -- up before dawn, disassemble the entire house, mop, scrub, dry, put the house back together, THEN wake the Captain up. Spend most of the day polishing metal. And paint the whole thing at least once a week.

* Averted or subverted in the historical romances of Beatrice Small. While she points out the lack of sewers doesn't exactly contribute to city cleanliness, the main characters in her books do bath frequently, if not every day.

* HBO's ''Series/{{Rome}}'' has The Dung Ages for the plebs, and GorgeousPeriodDress for the patricians. Which is pretty close to the way it would really have been.
** Even the plebs aren't that badly off in terms of cleanliness, at least while in the titular city; Rome had plenty of public bathhouses that were cheap or free for citizens (but not slaves).

* ''Series/HorribleHistories'' would be an example if it was ''only'' the Middle Ages they portrayed this way, but they point out gross things from every area of history, including how the Roman baths were only cleaned once a day and how the enlisted men in WWI had to find unusual uses for urine (or, as the advertising voice said, "New! World War 1 Wee-Wee!")

* A program on TheHistoryChannel called "Going Medieval" devoted a section to disproving this trope. There were soaps (both personal and laundry) that were cheap enough to be made by any peasant. They even had primitive dental care. Naturally, the upperclass could afford better stuff and had more time for it but "unwashed masses" the lowerclasses were not.

* Averted [[RuleOfFunny humorously]] on ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' in an early episode showing the Griffins attending a medieval festival featuring EternalSexualFreedom, plenty of good food, and a chorus of monks grunting Gary Glitter's "Rock 'N' Roll Part One." (Peter even sarcastically remarks that the characters at the festival act so hoity-toity that they remind him of the TV show ''{{Frasier}}''.) This from the same series that regularly portrays TheFifties unflatteringly, with iron-toothed racial segregation (even in the North!) and people so grotesquely gluttonous that they [[ExtremeOmnivore literally]] ''[[ExtremeOmnivore eat]]'' [[ExtremeOmnivore cigarettes]].

** However, instead of bathing, people kept clean by becoming more diligent with clothewashing, with particularly strong attention paid to the linen underclothes -- it was said that linen draws out bad humors from the body and must cleaned well and often.
* After the fall of the Roman Empire, bringing in the [[DarkAgeEurope Dark Ages]], Rome might as well have been known as Malaria City.

*** Though malaria is not, we now know, so much an issue with cleanliness per se as having a lot of undisturbed standing water about, as there used to be on low-lying coasts of Italy (mostly drained in the 1950s for exactly this reason- more troops on the Italian peninsula ended up in military hospitals suffering from malaria than any other cause.)
** During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, malaria outbreaks were common in WashingtonDC what with its humid climate. In 1882, a prominent doctor named Albert Freeman Africanus King theorized (correctly, it would later turn out) that mosquitoes were responsible and proposed that a giant mosquito net be built around the city. The idea went nowhere.

** The reason why is often cited for the same reason mothers still warn their children not to get wet in the rain. The guy who gets cold and wet is more likely to get sick. Showers involve getting cold and wet. So logically, those who don't shower don't get sick.
** The pale yellow color called "Isaballine" is said (falsely) to derive from another version of the story about Queen Isabella, see TheOtherWiki's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelline_(colour)#Usage_and_origins entry]] for details.

** It should be noted that the queen would be bathing far less than anyone else. That is why she bragged about it, because she was an exception that proves the rule. Commoners who worked had to bathe far more often to clean off dirt, sweat, and other things that made them smell. She was showing off that she was rich and powerful enough that people did everything for her; she didn't work up a sweat, so she didn't need to bathe. Moreover, she had oodles of servants who could give her ''sponge'' baths whenever she wished. Bathing in a tub like a villager, or a pond like a peasant, meant doing the work of scrubbing yourself.

* Following horses to clean up after them is relatively recent. Before then, wherever they wanted to go, they went. Even if the horse died right in the street, it was left there to rot. It was only moved if it was blocking traffic. But the horses went quickly even if the street cleaners didn't do anything. They would get grabbed up by butchers.

** This is true for most of history, actually; water is rarely entirely safe to drink, regardless of man-made contaminants. The reason has little to do with the alcohol content (which could be as low as 1% for "small beer") and everything to do with the very first step in making beer: ''boiling the water.''
*** The same goes for tea. When it first became popular in England, it was advertised as not killing you, and moreover being good for your health. Of course, the germ theory of disease hadn't been developed yet, so no one realized the health benefit came from the boiling water.
** Fermentation also made anything that was growing in the wort that shouldn't be there easy to detect, by smell during the process and by taste afterwards. Both the boiling and the smell and taste were very important in places where the ground water was stagnant and undrinkable on its own, such as a large portion of France (the original place where it was said you didn't want to drink the water).
** In some less developed third world countries, even today it's ''still'' safer to drink beer than the local water.
** In most of the heavily-populated parts of the Marshall Islands, there is very little clean drinking water, so they mostly drink beer and soft drinks imported cheaply from the United States. The result of drinking so much sugary soda? The worst diabetes epidemic of any country on earth.

** An old legend about the Crusades tells the story of a wounded soldier, first tended by a cleaner, wiser Islamic doctor whose work is undone by a filthy Frank physician: he simply amputated the injured limb, obviously leading to infection and death.
* Similarly averted by the Slavs, who were living in much the same condition as Norsemen, had a pretty similar culture, and frequently intermingled. Every weekend was a bath day, and the house didn't count as such if it hadn't an adjacent bath built up close.
** In the North, where the winters were brutal and forests abundant, they even had heated outhouses, built up to the back wall of the house, where the stove was installed, and heated by its warmth. The outhouse was connected to the main building by the special gallery that kept the filth and smells away and was also used for storage. And to stress the point: Norwegians had more running water available than most.

* When the automobile was invented, it was thought by many that this would ''reduce'' pollution, because the city streets would no longer be filled with horse dung (and the occasional dead horse). It can be argued that the Dung Ages in New York City lasted ''until the 20th century.''
** Arguably it did reduce pollution, as the enviromental impact of providing for horses in modern-day New York City would be great.
** The Italians performed an enquiry in 2006 (which ''QUATTRORUOTE'' magazine cited briefly) to get an answer to the question: "Did the pollution in cities increase or decrease during the last 30 years?" ([[CaptainObvious That is, 1976 to 2006.]]) The result, rather surprising for [[StrawmanPolitical the modern Greens]], was: ''it decreased''. Modern cars have catalytic converters, modern power plants burn clean natural gas instead of heavy fuel oils, modern locomotives are mostly electric and fewer are Diesels, modern homes have better insulation and require less heat during winter, modern power appliances use less electricity ([[ScienceMarchesOn modern green fridges]] are ages away from ammonia fridges only one generation old). A man aged 50 could have seen the world getting cleaner in his own lifetime.
*** Unfortunately, while the pollution output of individuals in industrialized countries is going down, the number of people contributing to pollution is rapidly increasing as poor countries finally industrialize, often without utilizing more efficient designs. China has already surpassed the United States as the world's biggest source of carbon dioxide, and that's with only half the population having access to modern technology. India and Africa promise to follow suit.
* The exploding populations of poor countries means that safe drinking water supplies, already rare in countries that lack the infrastructure for it, become more and more strained everyday. 780 million people don't have access to safe water. They live in a modern Dung Age.

* ''BlackAdder''. The couple decide to buy Blackadder's house specifically because it doesn't have an indoor toilet.

* ''BlackAdder''. The first series, anyway.
** The second series as well, the couple decide to buy Blackadder's house specifically because it doesn't have an indoor toilet.

** ''Herbert Wells'' once wrote a pretty apocalyptic article where he pictured London covered to the roofs in the horse dung -- due to rapidly increasing traffic.

The convention to show the [[TheMiddleAges Medieval Era]] as a [[CrapsackWorld crapsack time populated by]] [[ThePigPen pustule-faced, cat-beating, dung-caked, mud-farming peasants]]. Popularized by films created by the [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus Monty Python]] team. This was partially for RuleOfFunny--Monty Python's Terry Jones is a historian and knows better--and partially as [[GenreDeconstruction a reaction against]] the flowery King Arthur-inspired romances that had shaped popular views of the era up until then.

* Completely averted in the novel of ''Literature/{{Timeline}}'', by MichaelCrichton. After a hard day's work, sure, the people are dirty--but then they go home and bathe. At least within the fortress walls, but that's where as many people as possible live, for the protection.

* Sometimes averted, sometimes upheld in Creator/EricFlint's ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series. The "downtime" Germans of the 17th century are notable in their day and age as having some of the cleanest cities and towns in Europe, but some other places - Edinburgh, for one - are every bit as filthy as stereotype would have it. [[spoiler:Indeed, Julie Sims Mackay's infant daughter contracts a severe infection while passing through Edinburgh from which she almost dies.]]

** However, instead of bathing, people kept clean by becoming more diligent with clothewashing, with particularly strong attention paid to the linen underclothes--it was said that linen draws out bad humors from the body and must cleaned well and often.

** Queen Elizabeth I was said to have bathed regularly - four times annually.

* An interesting subversion in ancient Rome - there is the story of a nobleman who was very proud of his gleaming smile (by virtue of cleaning them with the acidic properties of urine). A rival nobleman called him out on it, saying "You brag about having the whitest teeth, but this only means that you drink the most piss."

-->-- '''[[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld Hob Gadling]]''' critiques a [[SocietyForCreativeAnachronism Renaissance Faire]], ''ComicBook/TheSandman''

* Refugee camps in ''any'' era are usually reminiscent of this trope, as hygiene is the ''last'' thing that desperate, weary people fleeing starvation and violence are going to worry about. No shortage of displaced people in medieval times.

** The Italians performed an enquiry in 2006 (which ''QUATTRORUOTE'' cited briefly) to get an answer to the question: "Did the pollution in cities increase or decrease during the last 30 years?" ([[CaptainObvious That is, 1976 to 2006.]]) The result, rather surprising for [[StrawmanPolitical the modern Greens]], was: ''it decreased''. Modern cars have catalytic converters, modern power plants burn clean natural gas instead of heavy fuel oils, modern locomotives are mostly electric and fewer are Diesels, modern homes have better insulation and require less heat during winter, modern power appliances use less electricity ([[ScienceMarchesOn modern green fridges]] are ages away from ammonia fridges only one generation old). A man aged 50 could have seen the world getting cleaner in his own lifetime.

** The Italians performed an enquiry in 2006 to get an answer to the question: "Did the pollution in cities increase or decrease during the last 30 years?" ([[CaptainObvious That is, 1976 to 2006.]]) The result, rather surprising for [[StrawmanPolitical the modern Greens]], was: ''it decreased''. Modern cars have catalytic converters, modern power plants burn clean natural gas instead of heavy fuel oils, modern locomotives are mostly electric and fewer are Diesels, modern homes have better insulation and require less heat during winter, modern power appliances use less electricity ([[ScienceMarchesOn modern green fridges]] are ages away from ammonia fridges only one generation old). A man aged 50 could have seen the world getting cleaner in his own lifetime.

* Ridley Scott did this with his grittier, dung-ier take on ''[[Film/RobinHood2010 Robin Hood]]''. Lampshaded in the scene when the children capture Robin and he mentions that he can teach them to keep clean so they won't get sick.

* During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, malaria outbreaks were common in WashingtonDC what with its humid climate. In 1882, a prominent doctor named Albert Freeman Africanus King theorized (correctly, it would later turn out) that mosquitoes were responsible and proposed that a giant mosquito net be built around the city. The idea went nowhere.

* During the brief Post-Crisis 'Team-Up' phase of Action Comics, {{Superman}} is sent back in time by TheDemon Etrigan in order to stop a mystic plot that is killing Metropolis in the present. JohnByrne had recently established Superman's costume as not being invulnerable, but mostly protected under a skin-tight force field his power generated. As a result, his walk through a medieval mudscape is no bother to him, and two passing peasants say [[ShoutOut "That one walks as a King." "Why say you this?" "Look! His Robes Are Untouched By Filth."]]

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Mary_Montagu Lady Mary Montagu]] (1689-1762) had once been approached (at the London Opera, no less) by a fellow nobleman, who ironically told her she had dirty hands. Her answer: "[[RefugeInAudacity You should see my feet]]." This counts more as a LampshadeHanging, even [[TheCavalierYears as the 18th century]] had been renowned as the age of curly wigs and outstanding dresses covering utmost filth and lice: in those times, the only way to see a society lady`s bare feet was to be her lover and in bed with her, so she was taunting him for being unworthy of this.

* HBO's ''{{Rome}}'' has The Dung Ages for the plebs, and GorgeousPeriodDress for the patricians. Which is pretty close to the way it would really have been.

* The perception then was bathing was sinful. In Roman Empire times, bathing was a social activity when people would go to public bathhouses and gymnasiums not just to keep clean, but also to relax, socialize with peers, and engage in prostitution. These places were seen as places of decadences (opponents claiming they were essentially swinger clubs or brothels in all but name), together with the gladiatorial games. Hence, Queen Isabella and some saints got the "holy" credit for not bathing.

* Played with in GeorgeMacDonaldFraser's novel ''ThePyrates''. The opening pages describe an idealized picture of England during TheCavalierYears with buxom wenches and lots of GorgeousPeriodDress, but then refer to scholars' conclusion that the actual standard of living and cleanliness of the time made it closer to The Dung Ages. Fraser then dismisses these conclusions in a tongue-in-cheek way as PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad and announces that he would prefer to write about 17th century England as it should have been.

* Completely averted in the novel of ''{{Timeline}}'', by MichaelCrichton. After a hard day's work, sure, the people are dirty--but then they go home and bathe. At least within the fortress walls, but that's where as many people as possible live, for the protection.