Exploring Hygiene, Hunger, and Heresy in Medieval Stories

Modern readers often enter medieval fiction with a set of expectations—swords, banners, battles, kings. But when I write, it is the overlooked details that matter most. The stink of an unwashed body. The feel of frostbitten fingers when food runs out. The whispered doctrine behind a chapel wall. These are not incidental. They are central.

In my novels, siege is not just strategy; it’s starvation. War is not only violence; it’s waste. And heresy is not merely theological error—it’s a lived hunger for meaning when the visible Church feels absent or compromised. This post explores how I weave hygiene, hunger, and heresy into my historical fiction—not for shock value, but because they are historically real and spiritually essential.

Hygiene: The Odor of Reality

Medieval hygiene was neither uniformly primitive nor an unbroken line of filth. Monastic communities practiced ritual washing. Bathhouses—public and private—existed in many towns. But in times of war, especially during sieges or in winter, all such customs collapsed.

In The Siege of Château Gaillard, sanitation is not decorative—it decays alongside morale. The latrine tower becomes a contested feature. Waste backs up in frozen pits. Soldiers cough blood into rags. Wives and daughters urinate in corners with strangers watching. This is not exaggeration. It reflects accounts from other medieval sieges, where disease often killed more than combat.

But I go further. Declining hygiene is also spiritual. The body reflects the soul, not allegorically, but sacramentally. A commander’s refusal to wash becomes a form of penance. A monk’s effort to keep clean amid filth becomes an act of holy defiance. In this sense, filth is not only historical—it is theological.

Hunger: More Than Empty Stomachs

Starvation is a narrative device in many war stories, but in medieval Christendom, hunger carried deeper significance. To go without food was not only a punishment—it was a spiritual state. From monastic fasting to Lenten abstinence, hunger shaped the religious imagination.

In my work, hunger does not only thin the body; it sharpens or distorts the soul. A boy hoards stale bread and forgets how to pray. A priest breaks fast during a funeral and cannot finish the rite. A mercenary feeds his dying friend with a stolen host—and wonders if it counted.

During the siege of Château Gaillard, hundreds were expelled from the fortress to conserve food—mostly women, children, and the elderly. Trapped in the no-man’s-land between English walls and French siege lines, they starved in full view of both armies. This is not fiction. It happened. The Church was present. So was silence.

And so in my novels, hunger functions as judgment—but also as invitation. To need food is human. To refuse to share it is damnable. And to offer it, especially when it means your own death, is Christlike. These are the stakes of historical hunger.

Heresy: The Theology of the Desperate

When the Church fails—through corruption, silence, or compromise—heresy often arises not from rebellion, but from thirst. In 13th-century Europe, the Cathars preached dualism not because they hated Christ, but because they saw too much rot in Rome to believe He was still there.

In my novels, heresy appears not as debate, but as temptation. A widow begins lighting candles to the dead, not the saints. A routier mutters that the Host is just “flour in a lie.” A young monk wonders if Judas was right. These doubts are not posed to be answered—they are endured.

I do not write theological treatises. I write characters under pressure. And in siege, the old certainties falter. Men confess to each other instead of priests. Women take up relics with mixed faith and fear. Heresy, in these moments, is not a doctrine—it is a form of grief.

And yet, I never vilify the Church. My fiction is not anti-clerical. Rather, it takes seriously the human limits of institutional holiness, the silence of God during historical horror, and the perseverance of grace even in doctrinal shadows.

Conclusion: The Flesh of History

Medieval history is not abstract. It is flesh and filth, doubt and discipline, hunger and hope. In my writing, I do not dress the era in nostalgic chivalry or tidy sainthood. I descend with the characters into trench rot and theological collapse. Because that is where grace must go if it is to be believed.

So when I write about hygiene, I mean both bodily decay and sacramental disintegration. When I write about hunger, I mean both the belly and the soul. And when I write about heresy, I mean not only error—but a cry for meaning when God seems most absent.

This is not just historical fiction. It is incarnational fiction. And I offer it not as escape—but as witness.