Bath House Building / Landmark in The True Dark Ages | World Anvil

Bath House

Bath houses are quite common in many larger towns & cities, and in some smaller settlements with natural springs. Many monasteries have one attached in Europe. These are used as a means of relaxation and for hygiene. A leftover in many areas originally from the pagan Romans, the Roman Catholic church has took over a good few and issued guidance that they should be used as hygiene is proper. Many pagans use the bath houses too, and both the Jewish & Muslim communities have hem too, with the latter having them in their own countries. The latter two place even greater emphasis on cleanliness than others and have their own dedicated bath houses when in Christian & Pagan lands.   Many of these are unisex to keep the patrons from 'immoral behaviour' at mixing with the opposite sex in the nude, and to remove any potential  'sinful behaviour'. Each usually has baths and other amenities for cleaning a person, and quite a few are used to having both meals and business meetings in them. Some that don't have a connection to natural springs have carefully constructed pipes that drain water from attached bakeries (and even breweries) to heat up, or syphon off any hot water from the other building and into the bath house.   A few concerns are attached to bath houses. The main one is that it attracts prostitution to them, and prostitutes can do business at these if they paid the owners to look the other way, while a few ran such rackets quite openly. Also, a minority acted as fronts for homosexual behaviour that some religions and communities outright banned and / or are intolerant off. This is especially true in regions & bath houses that are attached to monasteries, and other Abrahamic religions. Quite a few that are mixed gender have a bad reputation for allowing adultery. Because of this the majority are run quite tightly by the owners so they don't get shut down, or at the least, raided by the authorities.

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