CLEANLINESS AND GODLINESS (326 pp.) Reginald Reynolds Doubleday ($2.75).
Wine, Women, Baths, by art or Nature warm,
Used or abused do men much good or harm. Sir John Harington.
To keep on the safe side, King John bathed only three times a year (before the principal festivals) and Queen Elizabeth only once a month"whether she required it or not." Medieval community baths were highly respected ("there could be no better [place] for ladies desiring children," remarked an old chronicler), but the Church was so lukewarm toward cleanliness that, says the author, St. Agnes was canonized for flatly refusing ever to bathe...
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