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Roman Baths

The Romans were famous for their baths, and they brought them even into Gaul and Britain. While Roman manors often had their own smaller private bath-houses, the Roman public generally frequented relatively inexpensive public baths. By the peak of their popularity, they included hot and cold rooms, and medium-temperature lounging rooms with a variety of extra services such as food, wine, exercise and/or personal training being offered.  At different points in the history of Rome, baths were gender segregated by place or time, while at other times the bathing was mixed.

Judaic Ritual Bathing

Ritual bathing is also part of ancient (and modern) Jewish culture. Ritual cleansing baths (mikvot) from the classical period have been found in archaeological digs at multiple sites, including Masada. Hanan Eshel summarized the rules for the construction of mikvot:

"A mikveh must hold at least 40 seahs of water (approximately 60 gallons). The whole body of the person or vessel to be purified must be totally immersed. And, most significant for our purposes, the water must be "living" water. That is, it must come directly from a river or a spring or from rainwater that flows into the pool; it may not be drawn. To meet this latter requirement, the rabbis permitted the use of an otter, a pool of living water that was connected by a plugged pipe to the main immersion pool. The main pool could be filled with drawn water (not qualified for use in ritual immersion), and when needed, the pipe between the otter and the main pool was unplugged, allowing the qualified, living water from the otter to come into contact with the water in the main pool, rendering it fit for immersions."(p. 43)

The distinctive nature of mikveh structures causes them to be regarded as archaeological markers of Jewish communities at classical and medieval sites. A mikveh dating from around 1150 has been uncovered by archaeologists in Bristol, England (Aldous, p. 27), and another in Cologne, Germany dates from around 1170.

Early Christians

In the 4th and 5th centuries CE, 'fathers of the Christian Church' such as Clement and Jerome condemned excessive attendance at the public baths, and attendance for pleasure. Because bathhouses had mixed facilities, church authorities condemned women's attendance at mixed gender bathhouses. Jerome, more strict than most, felt that female virgins should not bathe with other women (due to his distaste for pregnancy), and that they should not bathe naked.  However, Shahan argues that bathing was not forbidden: "The 'Apostolic Constitutions,' an old episcopal manual originally compiled about the beginning of the third century of our era, look upon the use of the bath as quite a manner of course, and only provide against certain abuses... The early Fathers, in general, had no objection to baths being used for cleanliness or healt

Eastern cultures

Roman-type baths were continued and/or re-established in Islamic countries through the medieval and Renaissance periods, and bathing was endorsed by Islamic writers. The hammam, referred to in modern times as the 'Turkish Bath,' was a major feature of Islamic culture, and preserved the Roman traditions of cleaning the body first, then soaking and socializing. Due to the Islamic religious requirements for frequent washing (when water was unavailable, dust or dirt could be used for ritual ablutions), baths and washing equipment remained popular. Some historians believe that the habit of the baths return to Western Europe from the Middle East with the Crusaders, but documentary evidence suggests that the resurgence of public baths in Western Europe may have been more a function of political and economic stability.