Handmade Soap Musk Rose

After the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, there was little soap making done or use of it in the European Dark Ages. In the Byzantine Empire, the remains of the Roman world in the eastern Mediterranean area, and in the expanding Arab world soap was made and used.

Around the 8th century soap making was revived in Italy and Spain. By the 13th century, France also became a producer of soap for the European market.

This is when the history of soap making becomes more concrete. Merseilles emerged as the first great center of soap making and remained an important producer through the Middle Ages. Genoa, Venice, and Bari in italy came to rival it, as did Castila in Spain. Each of these regions had a plentiful supply of olive oil and barilla (a fleshy plant whose ashes were used to make lye).

This formulation became the standard through the 17th century. During the 14th century, soap making was started in England. Soaps produced in the south of Europe, Italy, Spain, and the southern ports of France (Marseilles and Castle soaps) were made from olive oils.

These soaps made using olive oils were of a higher quality than those made by the soap producers of England and northern France. These northern soap makers, not being able to obtain the olive oil, made their soaps with only animal fats. Tallow, the fat from cattle, was the chief fat used. Northern European soap makers even resorted to making soap from fish oils.

Soaps made from the poor quality animals fats and oils, while adequate for laundry and textile usage, were not desirable for bathing and washing. The soap from southern Europe with their olive oils were superior. This resulted in a lively trade of exporting fine soaps from southern Europe.

It is a popular misconception that people did not take baths in the Middle Ages.. There were public bath houses, called stews, where the patrons bathe in large wooden tubs and were given bars of soap to use. Nobles and rich merchants had their own private baths. It was later when bathing was thought to promote the spread of the Plague. In general, people of the Renaissance moved away from the idea of keeping the body clean. They preferred to cover the body with heavy scents.