History Main / YeGoodeOldeDays

* ''ThePyrates'' is set firmly in a Ye Goode Olde Days version of TheCavalierYears. [[Creator/GeorgeMacDonaldFraser The author]] {{lampshaded}} this immediately following the idyllic introduction, saying that historians would no doubt point out the complete lack of sanitation, hygiene, or social services. He concluded that the historical characters, "happy conscienceless rabble that they were," likely wouldn't care, and urges the reader not to, either.

* ''AKidInKingArthursCourt'' had medieval England a pretty nice place. It's moderately clean, and unless you stand under a window while walking down the street, you won't be covered in filth [[note]] (watch out for the wives emptying the chamber pot!) [[/note]]. TheProtagonist notes that his Joust helmets smells something awful. Both the princesses are perfectly clean, but then again, ''they're princesses''.

* In SuperiorSpiderMan this is made into a plot point with a nascent superhero/villain calling herself Livewire believing that this was true. She brought New York into a massive blackout during an [[TooDumbToLive alien invasion]] to "bring mankind back to a purer era when they followed the moon." Superior Spiderman is quick to point out the problems.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* InUniverse in ''Tabletopgame/BattleTech''. The Star League, a FictionalUnitedNations of sorts which has been long dead for 300 years, had numerous secret civil wars between the founding Great Houses, and waged wars of aggression against the independent Periphery states, bringing them under the Star League's heel in brutal wars with numerous atrocities committed. After an EvilChancellor usurped power and inadvertently sparked [[ForeverWar 300 years of total war]] and the subsequent [[LostTechnology devastation of the technological base]], everyone ''not'' in the Periphery looks fondly upon the old days of the united peace of the Star League. The leaders of the Successor States all long to become the First Lord of a reborn Star League.

Wishful thinking about life in the past is also prevalent in fantasy literature, in which noble [[KnightInShiningArmor knights]] ride great distances to [[DamselInDistress save beautiful damsels]], who are never remotely bothered that their rescuers presumably smell of sweat, grease, and horses.

* The Gothic Revival style had been pushed UpToEleven in some German restored castles, and peaked when KingLudwigII of Bavaria commissioned the building of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle Neuschwanstein Castle]] replacing an earlier ruin - it was [[AwesomeButImpractical practically unusable as a political center]], all efforts being directed into making it as Medieval as possible, but it had poor connection to anything the Middle Ages might have been, being more or less a fairy tale setting with modern amenities as electricity, running warm water or central heating. To round off the trope and make things even worse, Ludwig's design was used as the basis for the original Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland.

* The people and environments in ''Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian'', mostly likely due to the practices of the Ancient Romans, and even one of the characters mentioned how sanitation and hygiene have improved since the Romans have been in charge. The fact that it's set in the warm, dry Middle East as opposed to squalid, damp and muddy old England also helps things a bit. Of course, the majority still live in disgusting, tiny hovels, begging lepers are a common sight (unless Jesus comes along) and people are executed horribly for minor offenses.

* ''[[Film/BillAndTed Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure]]'': our heroes travel to -- and pick up hitchhikers -- from ancient Greece, ancient Mongolia, and medieval Europe (among other eras), yet any and all unpleasant hygienic issues are ignored.
* ''AKidInKingArthursCourt''had medieval England a pretty nice place. It's moderately clean, and unless you stand under a window while walking down the street, you won't be covered in filth [[note]] (watch out for the wives emptying the chamber pot!) [[/note]]. TheProtagonist notes that his Joust helmets smells something awful. Both the princesses are perfectly clean, but then again, ''they're princesses''.

* Creator/MarkTwain wrote Literature/ThePrinceAndThePauper and Literature/AConnecticutYankeeInKingArthursCourt to point out that the Middle Ages and Renaissance were really not that great, as a TakeThat against Creator/WalterScott's book {{Literature/Ivanhoe}}, whose romanticizing of the Medieval knights with their code of chivalry (that in reality was mostly in principle, not practice) he blamed for corrupting the antebellum South, helping to cause the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar as they clung to their culture in the face of change.

* Most of the [[http://www.prydein.com/pipes/mnu1/index.html art]] of the Middle Ages does not depict the poor as emaciated or dirty. Thus the artist(s) imply that everyone was well fed and clean back then [[note]] In years with good harvest, no plague, no war, then maybe. [[/note]]

* [[http://www.oldstagecoachstop.org/webgeezer/Backhouse.pdf Or the flush toilet]]. The invention of the Sears catalog was a Godsend for this reason.

* The Gothic Revival style had been pushed UpToEleven in some German restored castles, and peaked when KingLudwigII of Bavaria commissioned the building of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle Neuschwanstein Castle]] replacing an earlier ruin - it was [[AwesomeButImpractical practically unusable as a political center]], all efforts being directed into making it as Medieval as possible, but it had poor connection to anything the Middle Ages might have been, being more or less a fairy tale setting with modern amenities as electricity, running warm water or central heating.
** To round off the trope and make things even worse, Ludwig's design was used as the basis for the original Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland.

* Highlighted in "Sunday Mourning", an issue of ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' in which the immortal Hob Gadling, who has been around since Medieval times, visits a Renaissance Faire and complains that in the real Renaissance he would see people with cancers that ate their faces away.
--> ''You know what's wrong with this place? Well, the first thing that's wrong is there's no shit. I mean, that's the thing about the past people forget. All the shit. Animal shit. People shit. Cow shit. Horse shit. You waded through the stuff. You should spray 'em all with shit as they come through the gates.''

* KeiraKnightley's Guinevere in ''KingArthur'' was immaculately manicured despite the fact that the audience is told that she had had her fingers broken while in captivity -- during a closeup on her perfect nails.

* Played straight in ''[[Film/BillAndTed Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure]]''; our heroes travel to -- and pick up hitchhikers -- from ancient Greece, ancient Mongolia, and medieval Europe (among other eras), yet any and all unpleasant hygienic issues are ignored.
* ''AKidInKingArthursCourt'' had medieval England a pretty nice place where women can learn how to fight. (Some TruthInTelevision, surprisingly -- some noblewomen were indeed taught the basics of combat and siege defense, in case the enemy attacked when their husbands weren't around.)
* Nearly [[TheWildWest every Western]] ever made has immaculately clean townships, even when the characters have the appropriate sweaty, weary and dusty appearance ([[FridgeLogic which makes one wonder]] where did they get that dirty in the first place). Horse dung, mud and flies, patched and ragged wooden buildings, straw on the pub floors to absorb spittle and spilled drinks and occasional drunken vomit were the norm rather than an exception in RealLife. On the other hand, it's very often {{averted}} in another manner, as the violence sometimes gets very exaggerated-most towns actually had strict gun laws, requiring that visitors check them with the sheriff. This is shown in very few depictions, ''{{Film/Unforgiven}}'' being the only example that comes to mind.

* Ancient Japan seemed awfully tidy in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', although there is a degree of accuracy here; cleanliness and hygiene were both quite advanced and socially important in Japan. Of course the punishments for failing to uphold the proper level of cleaning etiquette could be pretty draconian.
* In James Clavell's ''{{Shogun}}'', both book and TV series, Blackthorne's Dutch crew insist on maintaining European standards of hygiene and housekeeping, utterly appalling their Japanese hosts. Men not at home with the idea of daily baths, who throw their intimate refuse out into the street in accordance with European custom, soon find themselves demoted to the ''eto'' class - lowly, despised and untouchable dregs of humanity. This is meant as both condemnation and judgment, but they simply do not notice...

* Some - no, many - people (tend to) overestimate how ''idyllic'' the olden days were in many, if not most respects. This is basically a case of LuddWasRight crossed with NostalgiaFilter. Or for times not actually in one's living memory, simple lack of knowledge.
* Most of the [[http://www.prydein.com/pipes/mnu1/index.html art]] of the Middle Ages does not depict the poor as particularly emaciated or horribly dirty.
* The untreatable, disfiguring, omnipresent diseases of the time are remarkably absent from almost all portrayals of the past.
* Don't forget plague. You could expect a new outbreak every couple of decades to wipe out somewhere between one in twenty and one in five of everyone. [[AllOfThem Everyone.]]
* Infant mortality is also remarkable by its absence.

* TheRenaissance is often portrayed as too clean, when in reality hygiene had a marked decline in that era due to it being seen as unchristian to bathe (as in "in a bathtub") since it was an activity embraced by non-Christian societies like the Ottoman Empire. Taking what we call a spongebath, with a basin and washcloth, wasn't nearly as frowned upon, and can be just as effective.
* Washing your ''clothes'', however, was more difficult. Modern men and women have very little idea just what women had to go through before the invention of the washing machine and dryer.
* [[http://www.oldstagecoachstop.org/webgeezer/Backhouse.pdf Or the flush toilet]]. The invention of the Sears catalog was a Godsend for this reason.

!!Notable Subversions

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''TheLeagueOfGentlemen's [[BigDamnMovie Apocalypse]]'', where Steve Pemberton starts writing a screenplay for a movie about a plot to assassinate William III, called ''The King's Evil'' (after the disease, which isn't a promising sign), and Geoff Tipps writes himself into the plot so he can heroically save the day and live at the royal court. After he gets there, though, he's horrified to learn that there's a man living in his toilet, waiting to dispose of his "nightsoil".
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Film/BlackKnight'' starring MartinLawrence, where he finds out firsthand how gross life is in the Middle Ages without modern plumbing (straw to wipe your ass), hygiene, medicine (leeches), or dinner etiquette, even applying to royalty. We're shown each of these a total of one time before it seemingly stops being a problem for Jamal.
* ''TheLordOfTheRings'' films depict appropriately the dirty environment in practically all places except The Shire: Bree, for example, has Elizabethan-British architecture and the expectable muddy and dirty streets.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* ''Literature/HardToBeAGod'' by the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers. The plot centers around historians from a 22nd Century, socialist utopian Earth going deep undercover on a planet whose human-like society is going though an equivalent of the early Renaissance. The heroes have to deal with all the discomforts and prejudices of that age, and, over time, some become so engrossed in their roles that they begin to lose sight of their idealism.
* In the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' novel ''Elfangor's Secret'', the soldiers and villagers of Europe circa the Hundred Years' War are notably ridden with diseases and parasites. This becomes a plot point when the Animorphs need to figure out which soldier of the massed armies is a fellow time traveler; they eventually look for the one person who is as healthy and unmarked as they are.
* The ''{{Outlander}}'' series by Diana Gabaldon. The protagonist is sent back in time to 1745 Scotland from 1945 post-war Scotland. She's generally horrified by the sanitation and hygiene of the day (not to mention the morality), but she does admit that they're better off in some respects than she might have thought (judicious use of leeches to ease bruising, for example; Claire would have suspected them of being used for fevers.)
* Otto Bettmann's (non-fiction) book ''The Good Old Days -- They Were Terrible!'' is dedicated to debunking this trope, in regards to American society in the late 19th/early 20th century. Child-labor sweatshops, streets filled with manure and trash, malnutrition amongst frontiersmen, etc.
* Pamela Dean, while making an effort to keep most things realistic, took care of this in ''Literature/TheSecretCountry'' by providing the palace with garderobes.

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* ''{{Candorville}}'' averts this in the bluntest way possible--the first instance of time travel in the strip is to the pre-Civil War American South, and the main character is black.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* PBS ran a series of reality-based programs (the names varied from series to series but were generally ''[Decade] House'' (1900 House, 1940's House) or ''[Setting] House'' (Frontier House, Manor House, Colonial House)) in the early 2000s, where modern families with an interest in, but no great knowledge of, another era were asked to live in a expertly-crafted recreation of that time for several months.
** The Victorian era family did better than most as they were set up as upper-middle class, but still were shocked at how long household work took and got increasingly squicked by the lack of shampoo.
** The Pioneer era families very quickly got tired of scrubbing pots and chopping wood. When their winter stores were inspected at the end of the series all but one (young and childless) couple were deemed to have insufficient food and firewood to survive.
** The Texas Ranch house families had fun riding horses for a day, then realized it took weeks to get the cows anywhere. Meanwhile the house was infested with flies (and no insecticide).
** The early 17th century New England colonial era community did surprisingly well. There was plenty of strife, emotional and otherwise, but they pulled through and eventually gathered enough supplies and started exporting enough to be deemed survivable through the winter.
* The "[Decade/Setting]House" genre was neatly parodied by ''[[Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook The Mitchell and Webb Situation]]'', with "1990s House". Which was then done for real (to an extent) by BBC Four in 2009.
* ''TheDailyShow'' once had John Oliver try to track down when "The Good Ol' Days" ''were'', after hearing the likes of GlennBeck, SeanHannity, and BillOReilly lament their passing. He proceeded to interview people who'd grown up in each preceding decade (starting at the '70s), all of whom disproved the notion by [[LongList listing the things that were screwy]] during that period, culminating in a woman who'd lived in the '20s describing TheGreatDepression. He concluded they all felt the good old days were when they'd been children, since everything usually seems better at that point, largely because parents will go to great lengths to protect their children form poor circumstances.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* ''[[VideoGame/PeasantsQuest Peasant's Quest]]''. Most of the game is spent trying to convince a guard that you are indeed a peasant; one of his three issues is that the protagonist "doesn't smell like" one. Also, note that all the thatched-roof cottages are realistically one-roomed and have mud floors.

YeGoodeOldeDays comes into play when a historical or quasi-historical work makes things much nicer than they would really have been. Usually it stems from only partly Doing The Research: they might get the big stuff right -- authentic plate armour, the right kind of architecture, all that -- but the details of life in the past can be lost. So the farm village has nicely kept gravel paths, and everyone in the medieval village lives in a lovely half-timbered house with two bedrooms and a stone fireplace. The Renaissance maiden never gets mudstains on the train of her beautiful gowns, the Roman Senator has magnificent pearly white teeth, there's no infant mortality unless the plot requires it, no one ever needs to empty a chamberpot, and horses never take a dump in the street. It falls somewhere between subtle nostalgia and outright hilarity when dealing with ages closer to modernity, like the RoaringTwenties being an age of wild parties and shiny classic cars for ''everyone'' and not just the upper classes, or the [[SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Stalinist Soviet Union]] being a nice place where people happily work, [[VodkaDrunkenski drink]], have fun and never have to worry. In short, it's {{Disneyfication}} of history.

Something to keep in mind is that neither TheDungAges nor YeGoodeOldeDays is "more" accurate than the other. The reality is that while hygiene was not good by modern standards, and living conditions were not what we'd call "comfortable" (what with the lack of air conditioning, flush toilets, and weekly garbage pick-up), neither did most people walk around barefoot, caked in filth, eating rotten food and living in tumble-down huts made of sticks. Many supposedly modern conveniences are thousands of years old: the Romans had central heating, for instance, and the Minoans had a plumbing system with flush toilets.

* ''ThePyrates'' is set firmly in a YeGoodeOldeDays version of TheCavalierYears. [[Creator/GeorgeMacDonaldFraser The author]] {{lampshaded}} this immediately following the idyllic introduction, saying that historians would no doubt point out the complete lack of sanitation, hygiene, or social services. He concluded that the historical characters, "happy conscienceless rabble that they were," likely wouldn't care, and urges the reader not to, either.

YeGoodeOldeDays comes into play when a historical or quasi-historical work makes things much nicer than they would really have been. Usually it stems from only partly Doing The Research: they might get the big stuff right -- authentic plate armour, the right kind of architecture, all that -- but the details of life in the past can be lost. So the farm village has nicely kept gravel paths, and everyone in the medieval village lives in a lovely half-timbered house with two bedrooms and a stone fireplace. The Renaissance maiden never gets mudstains on the train of her beautiful gowns, the Roman Senator has magnificent pearly white teeth, there's no infant mortality unless the plot requires it, no one ever needs to empty a chamberpot, and horses never take a dump in the street. It falls somewhere between subtle nostalgia and outright hilarity when dealing with ages closer to modernity, like the RoaringTwenties being an age of wild parties and shiny classic cars for ''everyone'' and not just the upper classes, poverty, unemployment and pollution from coal-burning industry and railroads aside, or the [[SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Stalinist Soviet Union]] being a nice place where people happily work, [[VodkaDrunkenski drink]], have fun and never have to worry. In short, it's {{Disneyfication}} of history.

** Well, not quite. There were overshoes called clogs or pattens, kind of like platform shoes, specifically to lift your feet off the ground and keep you from stepping in ye mucke & mire.

* ''AKidInKingArthursCourt'' had medieval England a pretty nice place where women can learn how to fight.
** Some TruthInTelevision, surprisingly -- noblewomen were indeed taught the basics of combat and siege defense, in case the enemy attacked when their husbands weren't around. Passive princesses were the ideal of a later age.

* Averted in Literature/TimeScout. In fact, the suggestions given in the first paragraph are taken up by people in the book! They get multiple shots, they take many, many preparations against death and disease, they understand that they may have to be quarantined when they return, and men intending to go brothel-hopping downtime even get ''surgically restored'' '''''foreskins.'''''

* The film version of Irish Potato Famine novel ''Under the Hawthorn Tree'' featured three starving, destitute orphans walking the width of Ireland to reach their aunts' home. For malnourished vagrants, their skin and hair were immaculate.

* Infant mortality is also remarkable by its absence. Also, attitudes to infant mortality; it wasn't any easier losing a child back then than it is now.
** That's not entirely true. When your child only had a 50% chance (or less) of reaching the age of 5, many parents would find ways to psychologically distance themselves from the inevitable - for instance, colonial Americans would only call their child "the little visitor," refusing to name them until they turned two. This was standard operating procedure until the advent of antibiotics in the 1920's. At a societal level the detachment was even more pronounced.

* TheRenaissance is often portrayed as too clean, when in reality hygiene had a marked decline in that era due to it being seen as unchristian to bathe since it was an activity embraced by non-Christian societies like the Ottoman Empire.
** Yes and no. Bath houses, usually built on holy sites or springs, were very popular from the Renaissance up to the end of the [[VictorianBritain Victorian Age]], but bathing in non-sanctified water was believed to be the easiest way to spread the plague. It was believed that completely submerging one's self in water unbalanced the four humors, the four fluids that Medieval doctors believed made up the body. It was an educated guess, and not too far off, but it didn't have much religious stigma attached to it. People who could afford it kept clean by basically taking sponge baths, which gets the job done, I guess.
*** "Good Queen Bess took a bath once a month whether she needed it or nay" is apocryphal, however. Elizabeth I was known to be fastidious and wouldn't allow "smelly" people in her presence. Writings from that period show that bathing once a week and even brushing your teeth and chewing herbs for your breath was normal for everyone above the most menial serf level. There were public bathing places and soap existed.
*** The reason bathhouses (which used to be found in every Medieval town and dated back to the Romans) became disfavored is they ''did'' in fact spread the plague. Bathhouses were communal, and with the plague being a skin disease, well... The attitude towards bathing thus took a right turn for a reason, though unfortunately it went too far over this.

* [[http://www.oldstagecoachstop.org/webgeezer/Backhouse.pdf Or the flush toilet]].

The invention of the Sears catalog was a Godsend for this reason.

* ''Literature/HardToBeAGod'' by the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers. The plot centers around historians from a 22nd Century, socialist utopian Earth going deep undercover on a planet those human-like society is going though an equivalent of the early Renaissance. The heroes have to deal with all the discomforts and prejudices of that age, and, over time, some become so engrossed in their roles that they begin to lose sight of their idealism.

** The above genre was neatly parodied by ''[[Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook The Mitchell and Webb Situation]]'', with "1990s House". Which was then done for real (to an extent) by BBC Four in 2009.
* ''TheDailyShow'' once had John Oliver try to track down when "The Good Ol' Days" ''were'', after hearing the likes of GlennBeck, SeanHannity, and BillOReilly lament their passing. He proceeded to interview people who'd grown up in each preceding decade (starting at the '70s), all of whom disproved the notion by [[LongList listing the things that were screwy]] during that period, culminating in a woman who'd lived in the '20s describing TheGreatDepression. He concluded they all felt the good old days were when they'd been children, since everything usually seems better at that point.

* Nearly [[TheWildWest every Western]] ever made has immaculately clean townships, even when the characters have the appropriate sweaty, weary and dusty appearance ([[FridgeLogic which makes one wonder]] where did they get that dirty in the first place). Horse dung, mud and flies, patched and ragged wooden buildings, straw on the pub floors to absorb spittle and spilled drinks and occasional drunken vomit were the norm rather than an exception in RealLife. On the other hand, it's very often {{averted}} in another manner, as the violence sometimes gets very exaggerated-most towns actually had strict gun laws, requiring that visitors check them with the sheriff. This is shown in very few depictions, ''[[Film/Unforgiven]]'' being the only example that comes to mind.

YeGoodeOldeDays comes into play when a historical or quasi-historical work makes things much nicer than they would really have been. Usually it stems from only partly Doing The Research: they might get the big stuff right -- authentic plate armour, the right kind of architecture, all that -- but the details of life in the past can be lost. So the farm village has nicely kept gravel paths, and everyone in the medieval village lives in a lovely half-timbered house with two bedrooms and a stone fireplace. The Renaissance maiden never gets mudstains on the train of her beautiful gowns, the Roman Senator has magnificent pearly white teeth, there's no infant mortality unless the plot requires it, no one ever needs to empty a chamberpot, and horses never take a dump in the street. It falls somewhere between subtle nostalgia and outright hilarity when dealing with ages closer to modernity, like the RoaringTwenties being an age of wild parties and shiny classic cars for ''everyone'' and not just the upper classes, poverty, unemployment and pollution from coal-burning industry and railroads aside, or the [[SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Stalinist Soviet Union]] being a nice place where people happily work, [[VodkaDrunkenski drink]], have fun and never have to worry.\\
In short, it's {{Disneyfication}} of history.

Wishful thinking about life in the past is also prevalent in fantasy literature, in which noble [[KnightInShiningArmor knights]] ride great distances to [[DamselInDistress save beautiful damsels]], who are never remotely bothered that their rescuers presumably smell of sweat, grease, and horse.

Something to keep in mind is that neither TheDungAges nor YeGoodeOldeDays is "more" accurate than the other. The reality is that while hygiene was not good by modern standards, and living conditions were not what we'd call "comfortable" (what with the lack of air conditioning, flush toilets, and weekly garbage pick-up); neither did most people walk around barefoot, caked in filth, eating rotten food and living in tumble-down huts made of sticks. Many supposedly modern conveniences are thousands of years old: the Romans had central heating, for instance, and the Minoans had a plumbing system with flush toilets.

* In the film of ''Film/{{Eragon}}'' the hero, an ordinary farmboy, lives in a house roughly the size of an aircraft hangar despite the fact that his family is portrayed as ''so poor he has to sleep in the barn with the animals'' rather than having a bedroom of his own.

* Nearly [[TheWildWest every Western]] ever made has immaculately clean townships, even when the characters have the appropriate sweaty, weary and dusty appearance ([[FridgeLogic which makes one wonder]] where did they get that dirty in the first place). Horse dung, mud and flies, patched and ragged wooden buildings, straw on the pub floors to absorb spittle and spilled drinks and occasional drunken vomit were the norm rather than an exception in RealLife.

* ''ThePyrates'' is set firmly in a YeGoodeOldeDays version of TheCavalierYears. [[Creator/GeorgeMacDonaldFraser The Author]] lampshades this immediately following the idyllic introduction, saying that historians would no doubt point out the complete lack of sanitation, hygiene, or social services. He concludes that the historical characters, "happy conscienceless rabble that they were," likely wouldn't care, and urges the reader not to, either.

** In James Clavell's ''{{Shogun}}'', both book and TV series, Blackthorne's Dutch crew insist on maintaining European standards of hygiene and housekeeping, utterly appalling their Japanese hosts. Men not at home with the idea of daily baths, who throw their intimate refuse out into the street in accordance with European custom, soon find themselves demoted to the ''eto'' class - lowly, despised and untouchable dregs of humanity. This is meant as both condemnation and judgment, but they simply do not notice...

* ''TheDailyShow'' once had John Oliver try to track down when "The Good Ol' Days" ''were'', after hearing the likes of GlennBeck, SeanHannity, and BillOReilly lament their passing. He proceeded to interview people who'd grown up in each preceding decade (starting at the '70s), all of whom disproved the notion by [[LongList listing the things that were screwy]] during that period, culminating in a woman who'd lived in the '20s describing TheGreatDepression.

So said LP Hartley at the start of his novel ''The Go-Between''. Any prospective time travellers should also add the following: "make sure you get your shots before you go -- and ''don't drink the water''. Also, pack your own toilet paper!" The fact is that while we like to think that the past was just like the modern day but with funny hats and folk music, many of the things we take for granted just weren't common -- or even available -- back then.

** Some TruthInTelevision, surprisingly -- noblewomen were indeed taught the basics of combat and siege defense, in the case the enemy attacked when their husbands weren't around. Passive princesses were the ideal of a later age.
* Nearly [[TheWildWest every Western]] ever made has immaculately clean townships, even when the characters have the appropriate sweaty, weary and dusty appearance ([[FridgeLogic which makes one wonder]] where did they get that dirty in the first place). Horse dung, mud and flies, patched and ragged wooden buildings, straw on the pub floors to absorb spittle and spilled drinks and occasional drunken vomit were the norm rather than exception in RealLife.

* Creator/GKChesterton was often accused of making the past look better than the current age. He responded by saying he was correcting the "Whiggish" view of history. That being the view that all the mistakes of the past lead towards a better future.

* Averted in Literature/TimeScout. In fact, the suggestions given in the first paragraph of are taken up by people in the book! They get multiple shots, they take many, many preparations against death and disease, they understand that they may have to be quarantined when they return, and men intending to go brothel-hopping downtime even get ''surgically restored'' '''''foreskins.'''''

** In James Clavell's ''{{Shogun}}'', both book and TV series, Blackthorne's Dutch crew insist on maintaining European standards of hygiene and housekeeping, utterly appalling their Japanese hosts. Men not at home with the idea of daily baths, who throw their intimate refuse out into the street in accordance with European custom, soon find themselves demoted to the ''eto'' class - lowly, despised and untouchable dregs of humanity. This is meant as both condemnation and judgement, but they simply do not notice...

* ''TheLordOfTheRings'' films depict appropriately the dirty environment practically in all places except The Shire: Bree, for example, has Elizabethan-British architecture and the expectable muddy and dirty streets.

* ''Literature/HardToBeAGod'' by the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers. The plot centers around historians from a 22nd Century, Socialist Utopian Earth going deep undercover on a planet those human-like society is going though an equivalent of early Renaissance. The heroes have to deal with all the discomforts and prejudices of that age, and, over time, some become so engrossed in their roles that they begin to lose sight of their idealism.
* In the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' novel ''Elfangor's Secret'', the soldiers and villagers of Europe circa the Hundred Years' War are notably ridden with diseases and parasites. This becomes a plot point when the Animorphs need to figure out which soldier of the massed armies is a fellow time traveller, and they eventually look for the one person who is as healthy and unmarked as they are.
* The ''{{Outlander}}'' series by Diana Gabaldon. The protagonist is sent back in time to 1745 Scotland from 1945 post-war Scotland. She's generally horrified by the sanitation and hygiene of the day (not to mention the morality), but she does admit that they're better off in some respects than she might have thought. (Judicious use of leeches to ease bruising, for example; Claire would have suspected them of being used for fevers.)

* PBS ran a series of reality based programs (the names varied from series to series but were generally ''[Decade] House'' (1900 House, 1940's House) or ''[Setting] House'' (Frontier House, Manor House, Colonial House)) in the early 2000s, where modern families with an interest in, but no great knowledge of, another era were asked to live in a expertly-crafted recreation of that time for several months.

** The Texas Ranch house families had fun riding horses for a day, then realized it took weeks to get the cows anywhere. Meanwhile the house was infested with flies (and no insecticide)

Something to keep in mind is that neither TheDungAges nor YeGoodeOldeDays is "more" accurate than the other. The reality is that while hygiene was not good by modern standards, and living conditions were not what we'd call "comfortable" (what with the lack of air conditioning, flush toilets, and weekly garbage pick-up); neither did most people walk around barefoot, caked in filth, eating rotten food and living in tumble-down huts made of sticks. Many supposedly modern conveniences are thousands of years old: the Romans had central heating, for instance.

** In James Clavell's ''{{Shogun}}'', both book and TV series, Blackthorne's Dutch crew insist on maintaining European standards of hygeine and housekeeping, utterly appalling their Japanese hosts. Men not at home with the idea of daily baths, who throw their intimate refuse out into the street in accordance with European custom, soon find themselves demoted to the ''eto'' class - lowly, despised and untouchable dregs of humanity. This is meant as both condemnation and judgement, but they simply do not notice...

** Yes and no. Bath houses, usually built on holy sites or springs, were very popular from the Renaissance up to the end of the [[VictorianBritain Victorian Age]], but bathing in non-sanctified water was believed to be the easiest way to spread the plague. It was believed that completely submerging one's self in water set the four humors, the four fluids that Medieval doctors believed made up the body, off balance. It was an educated guess, and not too far off, but it didn't have much religious stigma attached to it. People who could afford it kept clean by basically taking sponge baths, which gets the job done, I guess.

* The Renaissance is often portrayed as too clean, when in reality hygiene had a marked decline in that era due to it being seen as unchristian to bathe since it was an activity embraced by non-christian societies like the Ottoman Empire.
** Yes and no. Bath houses, usually built on holy sites or springs, were very popular from the Renaissance up to the end of the Victorian Age, but bathing in non-sanctified water was believed to be the easiest way to spread the plague. It was believed that completely submerging one's self in water set the four humors, the four fluids that Medieval doctors believed made up the body, off balance. It was an educated guess, and not too far off, but it didn't have much religious stigma attached to it. People who could afford it kept clean by basically taking sponge baths, which gets the job done, I guess.

** That's not entirely true. When your child only had a 50% chance (or less) of reaching the age of 5, many parents would find ways to psychologically distance themselves from the inevitable. This was standard operating procedure until the advent of antibiotics in the 1920's. At a societal level the detachment was even more pronounced.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* Averted in K.A. Applegate's ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' book ''Elfangor's Secret''.

* The Rennaisance is often portrayed as too clean, when in reality hygiene had a marked decline in that era due to it being seen as unchristian to bathe since it was an activity embraced by non-christian societies like the Ottoman Empire.

* ThePyrates is set firmly in a YeGoodeOldeDays version of TheCavalierYears. [[GeorgeMacdonaldFraser The Author]] lampshades this immediately following the idyllic introduction, saying that historians would no doubt point out the complete lack of sanitation, hygiene, or social services. He concludes that the historical characters, "happy conscienceless rabble that they were," likely wouldn't care, and urges the reader not to, either.