![]() ![]() On a report which has reached the ears of the bishop that the heavenly gift of warm and healing waters with which the city of Bath has been endowed from of old is turned into an abuse by the shamelessness and uncleanness of the people of that city, insomuch that, when any persons, whether male or female, go to the said waters to bathe and recover their health, and through modesty and shame try to cover their privy parts, the men with drawers (femoralibus) and the women with smocks (subunculis), they, the said people, by what they say is an established custom of the city, barbarously and shamelessly strip them of their said garments and reveal them to the gaze of the bystanders, and inflict on them not only the loss of their garments but a heavy monetary fine, - during mass on Sundays, solemn days and feast days, to admonish all the citizens of Bath, and all others staying there, that they abstain from such excesses under penalty of the greater excommunication, and to enjoin on them, under a like penalty, that henceforth no males or females who have reached puberty go to the baths without wearing such drawers and smocks or other linen garments. ![]() Illustration from Everard Digby's The Art of Swimming (De Arte Natandi) (1587). ![]()
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