Strewing Herbs and The Great Unwashed

If you were a wealthy English noble in the Middle Ages, you bathed right on schedule every three weeks. But a peasant who had to haul and heat his water found this frequency quite excessive. It was also believed that bathing, particularly in winter, led to chills and ultimately death by pneumonia. This abhorrence for water caused historians to dub this period the “age of the great unwashed.”

Imagine the cold winter nights when many slept two or three to a bed for warmth, enclosed by a shroud of thick bed curtains. Body odor became so strong that everyone who could pay for it wore heavy doses of perfume. If you couldn’t afford such a luxury you simply slept among cuttings from very strong-smelling plants.

Plants with suitably aromatic foliage became known as strewing herbs. They were liberally strewn about in beds, floors and even in outhouses. King James II was crowned on a throne surrounded by six bushels of fresh herbs.

Rosetta Clarkson describes in her book Magic Gardens a scene from this era:
“It was the custom to throw bones and other scraps from the table to the dogs, whose shaggy coats were none too clean. In time the decaying food, rushes and other filth caused all manner of disease-breeding vermin.” So we encounter the second reason for strewing herbs—as pesticide. Many contain potent oils that deter fleas, lice, weevils and other undesirables.

In Thomas Tusser’s famous 1557 book, A Hundreth Good Points of Husbandrie, he includes a list of 21 strewing herbs. Among the more well-known today are basil, lemon balm, sweet fennel, germander, hyssop, lavender, santolina, marjoram, pennyroyal, sage, tansy and winter savory.

Pennyroyal, also known as fleabane or Menta pulegium, is a pungent member of the mint family. In homes where it was grown and liberally used for strewing, there were fewer incidences of the Black Death. That is explained by the fact that plague was spread by fleabites. The plants are still used today for stuffing dog beds and doghouses to discourage these pests from taking up residence there.

Lavender is an herb we inherited from bath-loving Romans, and its name is rooted in the Latin verb to wash, “lavare.” By medieval times, they had ceased using it to scent the bath and applied it as an odor-covering strewing herb. It was also quilted into hats and other clothing for an on-the-go masking fragrance.

During this era of the great unwashed, there evolved unique means of scenting clothing. Women’s long, voluminous skirts trailed behind them on the floor. In castle gardens, it was not uncommon to find a thyme lawn composed of a ground-hugging mat of aromatic Thymus serphyllum. When walked upon, plants were crushed, and then skirts trailed over them to soak up any oils exuded from the foliage.

The planted seat was also designed to scent clothing. It was created of carved stone and appeared much like a heavy church pew. The seat was hollowed out into a cavity about 6 inches deep and into this was packed earth planted with either chamomile or thyme. When a person sat down and crushed the plants, resulting oils soaked into breeches or skirts. In the herb garden of Sissinghurst, England, the 20th-century gardener Vita Sackville-West created both a thyme lawn and authentic planted seat.

At the root of our most favored aromatic plants of the modern herb garden are the fragrances used to disguise aromas of the great unwashed. It was not until the dawn of the 20th century that bathing became a frequent practice. Let us rejoice in the luxury of bathing every day, knowing we no longer have to douse ourselves in perfume or live amid a pile of wilted herbs to abide each other’s company.