If somebody from the 15th Century was stood in front of you, wearing jeans and a top, do you think you’d be able to tell they were from a different era?!

[Parrotanne]

I’m bored! I know that people are said to have become taller as the centuries pass but I wondered if there would be any other discernible differences. Differences that would be obvious just by looking - the 15th C speech would most likely be a bit of a clue!

So if, for instance, 15th C person was stood in front of you at the bus stop, dressed in Boden/Primark/Next/Any High Street Shop would you realise something was a bit different?!

I also think the stink/dirt is being overstated. People did bathe in rivers after working all day and would have spot washed if not bathed. Clothing was a source of smell I imagine since laundry was hard work and most people didn't have many clothes but if they are in modern clothes (assuming they got to appear in new clothes)

I suspect their teeth might not be that bad, unless they were wealthy and had regular access to sugar.
They would probably be very slim, even malnourished-looking to our eyes. Not sure about height; apparently it was the Industrial Revolution later which resulted in a stunted urban poor.
Low-protein diet might result in physical signs such as poor skin/nails/hair.

I'd think they were on their way to a Jeremy Kyle audition.

Also an intriguing question. As an Asian, I think I would have been automatically enslaved or burnt at the stake for having Hindu religious items. I would have to hide my Ganesh idol and lie very low.

The Romany were around then and were descended from Punjabis and still look the part. I imagine back then many would even looked even more Indian and still worshipped the old way with idols, so if you look North Indian they would probably assume you were a gypsy. And if you looked South Indian they might have assumed you were a Moor.

@MareofBeasttown

I feel like I read somewhere that Queen Elizabeth bathed once a month, and was thought reckless and overly persnickety because commoners bathed once in six months!

I think that there was a belief that getting water on your skin was bad for your health and let disease in.

I reckon they would just look a bit different. I think they would stand or walk slightly differently.

I have no evidence for this theory.

@terrywynne

I think the look of bemusement or terror would be the main thing to stand out. Things like teeth are going to depend on social class as will physical deformities ie: skeletons of archers are affected by the years of practice. I think if you started to talk to them it would become obvious pretty quickly that whilst they have the same basic emotions - anger, jealous, love etc - they are grounded in a totally different world view.

Flip side. If you ended up in the 15th century how would you ensure you could fit in and not stand out whilst also ensuring you don't die due to not applying modern knowledge. For example, I'd want to practice hygiene and disease control but not be taken for a witch.

I think about this all the time! And the original post as well. I'm so so curious about daily life in past times yet I'm sure I'd hate the discomfort and disease (even amongst the wealthy).

This is highly recommended if you want to know what 16th century people were like and how they lived. I don’t know if there is an equivalent for the 15th century.

@Egghead68 I was about to post about the linen thing too.

People weren’t anywhere near as stinky as you might have thought, there have been experiments done. However someone who had just been teleported in from another era probably would have smelt different - of woodsmoke, for instance, because they’d have been using fires for cooking and heating. Or perhaps of livestock. But not necessarily of horrendous BO.

I wondered if you’d read that book too

Bad teeth*, bad body odour, home-haircut (men), no hair cut (women).
Smallpox scars?
Skinny as feck if like 95% of the population in that era.

Yeah, those things might be give-aways.

*There's a reason no one smiled in old portraits. Greek statues don't feature smiles. Roman coins don't feature smiles. Ancient Egyptians & Mexicans had dentures & a Roman had dental implant by age 30. No one had great teeth in adulthood.

OP you might be interested in this artist, she takes famous historical portraits and puts them in modern clothes! Some look quite normal, some don't
mymodernmet.com/royalty-now-historical-figures-modern-portraits/

You could probably tell from their hands, there would be scarring from fires, infections, countless nicks and splinters from physical graft. Probably a lot stronger, their posture might be different as they wouldn't be spending most of their lives either sitting or lying down.

I doubt jeans would feel comfortable to them, a modern brassiere would feel strange, and modern shoes doubly so! They would probably stand out, but you might not clock exactly why.

@DuckonaBike

I reckon they would just look a bit different. I think they would stand or walk slightly differently.

I have no evidence for this theory.

Medieval people did apparently walk differently as their shoes were totally different to ours!

www.mentalfloss.com/article/505105/why-people-walked-differently-medieval-times

I’m always fascinated by this sort of thing although I tend to reverse the OP’s scenario - I imagine what people I see in the street might have looked like centuries ago, with the different clothing, hair and so on.

Has anyone worn 100% linen underwear? I have because it’s traditional in the part of India half my family is from (thin and sturdier). They absolutely stink after a day as there isn’t much in the way of absorbancy so I imagine they would be even worse if you left it a while between changes & didn’t wipe or wash yourself after a wee.

OMG I wonder about this A LOT. And about lots of different eras. Like if I was born 5/6/700 years ago, I would have been fucked. Very short sighted, so no good at hunting etc. Terrible crooked teeth which are fine now thanks to orthodontists but would definitely have put off any suitors . Plus I would have died in labour with DC1. I'm also very tall (5'10") so presumably would have been a circus freak in the 15th century .

But I don't think you could tell a 15th century person unless they spoke. Teeth probably ok or at least no worse than the average Brit in the 60s, as very little sugar. I believe they did wash although more a strip wash than a soak in the tub. Any scars could be acne. And it's not like people of 'yore' wouldn't have figured out how to delouse themselves right?
Great question OP

I think i might mistake them either for one of the nuns from the local convent or one of the Plymouth brethren as they look very natural.

I agree Teddy - their teeth wouldn't have been too bad, they'd have strip washed and louse combs have been around for millennia.

I sort of thought medieval Europeans didn't wear underpants at all.
This says commando was the norm for poor & most women until 1800

Most people had undergarments they slept in & overgarments they wore in day time they had little or no spares of either, so washing clothes was unusual. Why bother if you can't wash yourself & you need to spend all your time getting & cooking food, in a lifestyle that is very grubby there's no safe drinking water, after all, to wash your hands in.

In the 24th century public bathhouses were really common and the idea that people rarely washed is a bit of a myth. Clothes may not have been washed as frequently and they might not have had a full body bath every day but mostly people outside of the very poor would have had a full body wash with a wet cloth at least once a week (if not more often), it was the done thing to be clean to enter church and it was considered polite to clean your hands and face daily as well as when needed. So they wouldn't have smelled great by today's standards - no deodorant, no perfume, no soap powder, etc - but it wouldn't have been knock your socks off horrendous. As a PP said too, most people would have at least a faint aroma of smoke too. The idea of water getting in your pores and making you ill didn't appear until around the 16th century, coincidentally around the same time the bathhouses disappeared. Breath wouldn't have been that minging either due to lack of refined sugar and they had ways to clean their teeth, evidence exists of toothbrushes and other teeth cleaning tools dating back over 2000 years. They'd have been crude by today's standards and wouldn't have produced the same results but they did have ways to do it. A popular method was using a cloth to rub the teeth and gums along with a paste made from whatever you had available in your area/for the season, there are recipes from contemporary sources showing that things like salt, charcoal, herbs, etc were all commonly used in cleaning pastes.

Typo, 24th should say 14th

Medieval hygiene and parasites.

That's still about townies. Not what illiterate peasants had to do.

There was a TV programme some years ago where they used make up artistry and prosthetics to make Alan Titchmarsh look like a Neanderthal and then sent him to walk along a high street in modern clothes. Iirc most people didn't bat an eyelid.

Not medieval but American Civil War - he looks pretty contemporary.

I was going to add too that the Tudors washed their undergarments regularly, although I’m not so sure about outerwear, given it might be heavy cloth that’s not so easily laundered.

Are they in modern shoes? Tudor shoes didn’t differentiate between L and R unless you were wealthy.