• 1: Digging the dirt in the pursuit of cleanliness


• PART I - Advice


• 2: Manners and health


• 3: Clothing and Disease


• 4: Clean Bodies


• PART II - Practice


• 5: Wearing linens


• 6: Owning linens


• 7: Manufacturing linens


• 8: Sewing linens


• 9: Washing linen


• 10: More washing


• 11: Washing Bodies


• 12: Conclusion: Sweet and clean


• Appendix

Susan North is the Curator of Fashion, 1550-1800 at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has a BA in Art History from Carleton University, Ottawa, an MA in Dress History from the Courtauld Institute, London, and a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. North worked for the National Gallery of Canada and the National Archives of Canada, before joining the V&A Museum in 1995. She has published articles and book chapters, co-authored several V&A publications relating to early modern dress, as well as co-curating Style and Splendour: Queen Maud of Norway's Wardrobe in 2005 and Splendour of the Tsars in 2008. As a museum curator, North in particularly interested in the material culture of surviving historical clothing, the stories revealed in its materials, methods of construction, and alterations, and how these contribute to broader narratives of early modern history.

How dirty were our ancestors, really? Academic history has persuaded us that everyone in the early modern era thought bathing was unhealthy, so they didn't do it. Sweet and Clean? challenges this view, using a range of fascinating evidence to tell a different story about the washing of bodies and scrubbing of clothes in early modern England.