Lucy Worsley: "Does it seem normal to you to share a bed with colleagues?"

Lucy Worsley (United Kingdom, 1973) began her career as a curator of historic houses and learned that history is not only explained through parliaments and battles, but also in the kitchens and bathrooms of the house. How was laundry done? What were the toilets like? These are questions she addresses in If These Walls Could Talk (Capitan Swing). By uniting small details, she achieves a reconstruction of the great changes that have occurred in our society. 

What has changed the most in the last 50 years?

— The bedroom. Does it seem normal to you to share a bed with colleagues?

Home… it depends on whether you get involved, doesn't it?

— What seems strange to us is sharing a room, or even a bed, with people we don't know or with whom we have no relationship. And this happened because the bedroom was not conceived as a private space.

What would someone from the Tudor era think if they came to our houses now and saw doors and locks?

— How strange we are. Before, people who liked solitude were considered strange. You could be a hermit monk, a witch, or a thief who had to hide. Because at that time what they wanted was to be together, for safety and warmth. That's why there was often a single space where they ate, slept, and did everything.

Why did it change?

— I think there are two reasons. The first, literacy. Reading books is an activity that can be done alone, you don't need company. 

And the second one?

— In the case of the United Kingdom, the rise of the Protestant religion. Because in the Catholic religion, to speak with God you have to go to church and ask the priest to speak with God for you. But in the Protestant religion you can do it directly. You don't need a priest or a church. Just a room and a book: the Bible. And it is here when the design of houses begins to change.

How do they change?

— Small rooms appear. Some beautiful. In the Tudor period there were some called wardrobe rooms where you could only leave your treasures, whether books or objects.

The bathroom has also changed: 200 years ago it did not exist.

— But what is interesting to me is that there was indeed technology to make it possible. The problem was the ideas they had about hygiene. The Romans knew about cistern toilets. The medieval monasteries knew about cistern toilets. But in Victorian London, cistern toilets took a long time to become popular because it was easier and cheaper to hire women to empty the chamber pot and wash it. In other words, it was easier to use women than to use pipes.

Bathing was considered dangerous.

— People misuse the word medieval and always associate it with something dirty or unpleasant. But if you were a rich Londoner, you could be very clean. The problem is that Henry VIII closed the baths, partly because he considered them a place of immorality, and partly because he believed they were spreading a new disease that had come from America: syphilis. And it was at a time when it was believed that the body was made up of four humors or liquids. 

Blood, yellow bile, phlegm and black bile.

— Exactly, and they thought that illnesses appeared when there were imbalances between these four fluids, and that putting the body in water could be dangerous because the water entered through the pores and unbalanced all the liquids. So many Tudors did not have a bath.

But how did they stay clean?

— The Tudors had no notion of personal hygiene. They thought a clean linen gown for a woman was the way to keep the body clean because it absorbed sweat. Cleanliness was in the clothes, not in the body. 

Let's talk about the kitchen, which has gone from a secluded place, considered dangerous due to smoke and fires, to a central space. Why? 

— I think it has a lot to do with the collapse of the business of having domestic maids. With the rise of the middle class, many people were not willing to work in houses for a tiny amount of money. That's why, after the First World War, and especially after the Second, many people entered the kitchen. Before, there were houses where, if you didn't work there, they hardly knew where it was. 

And they realized it was a dirty place?

— It always surprises me, when I think about the Industrial Revolution, the moment when they were building factories, railways, and doing all sorts of things, that no one bothered to improve the kitchens. It wasn't important. That's why the collapse of the maid business is one of the biggest changes that has occurred in society. And yes, they went back to the kitchen and saw what it was like. But you know what happened?

What?

— The status of cooking rose. They could no longer afford a cook, and suddenly magazines and elegant people were selling the idea of cooking as a choice. Perhaps it would be like doing Pilates or yoga today. In Victorian times they would have said: no, women of a certain status do not cook. 

How does life change with the boom of household appliances?

— In the 19th century, a woman invented the dishwasher, but it was not successful, and they were not manufactured. The boom did not arrive until the 1950s of the 20th century. Women were supposed to have more free time…

But…

— But what increased were the hygiene standards. The more time you have, the cleaner your house must be. 

It is when the extractor appears. Is it important in the change of location of the kitchen?

— It is a relevant factor, because you save yourself the bad smell. But the key is that now, cooking, is socially desirable. It gives you status. 

What is the living room?

— The power.

Why?

— The medieval person did not have a separate living room because they did not have the money to create an impression of themselves to share with other people. This is a luxury that is achieved as society becomes more prosperous. I think the living room is where you create yourself. You choose the posters. You have pictures of your grandparents on the walls. Maybe you have things that your children have made. It's like acting yourself on a stage because guests are supposed to come there. Guests should not go to the bedroom or the bathroom. They should come to the living room. And so you present them a bit like royalty, I suppose.

For space of power, the table.

— The most difficult to organize can be a dinner party with many people of similar rank. First comes the king, then the duke, the count, the baron… But what if you have three counts? Then you have a problem. 

You do a television program where we have seen you dress up and live as in past times. What does putting on, for example, a corset teach?

— Many people think it is uncomfortable. And you can hear actresses saying: "I hated the corset and how it squeezed me." But if you have a custom-made corset and it fits you well, it is very comfortable. It helps you to support the weight of heavy clothing. 

What would happen if someone from the future came? What would be strange to them, about us, if they saw our houses?

— I think the size, the waste, the … would surprise you

Size, why?

— Many people who live in the suburbs have huge houses where not so many people live either. And most people throughout history have lived in a much simpler place.