Looking for fitness tips? Here’s how people stayed in shape in the 15th century.
By Cait Stevenson
Sports, military training, and, well, running after potential food probably bring us closer to “since the dawn of mankind” being accurate than most topics of papers beginning with that phrase. But surely the time and caloric luxury of a stationary bike or a CrossFit workout—fitness for the sake of Instagram fitness—is a modern invention? Not quite!
A curious document, folded into a 15th-century medical manuscript from France, claims to be a letter of advice from an Iberian physician to his sons studying at university in Toulouse. Regardless of its origins, it became a friendly, homey set of basic guidelines for staying healthy day to day. Some advice is as sensible to the modern reader as “comb your hair after you wash it” and “don’t wear a silly hat just because other boys are; wear one that will actually keep you warm.” Other recommendations are, well, distinctly medieval—such as “don’t drink milk and wine at the same meal, or you’ll get leprosy.”
The daily life of university students, of course, was not known to include chasing down food or training with swords like soldiers. Yet the author includes a surprisingly detailed and well-thought-out exercise plan that fits into a student’s lifestyle and living space:
If you cannot go outside your lodgings, either because the weather does not permit or it is raining, climb the stairs rapidly three or four times, and have in your room a big heavy stick like a sword and wield it now with one hand, now with the other, as if in a scrimmage, until you are almost winded… Jumping is a similar exercise.
On fair-weather days, the recommended exercise depends on the temperature:
If you will, walk daily somewhere morning and evening. And if the weather is cold, if you can run, run on an empty stomach, or at least walk rapidly… However, it is not advisable to run on a full stomach, but to saunter slowly in order to settle the food in the stomach.
It’s important to remember that what seems like “common sense” exercise advice to us actually isn’t. Today, we understand cardiovascular exercise—how it benefits the heart and lungs and the biological pathways behind it.
Walking with your kids – British Library MS Royal 10 E IV f. 231
What makes this particular text so fascinating is that, staying true to its supposed physician author, it also dives into the biological reasons behind its fitness advice—except these explanations are rooted squarely in Galenic medicine. All of the exercises are predicated on restoring the body’s natural heat/cool balance, expelling bad air, and regulating the humours. Running in the winter “revives” the “natural heat.” Working so hard that you’re out of breath—such as during practice broom-sword exercises—means exerting yourself until you literally run out of noxious fumes to exhale.
Even with, let’s say, dated ideas of human biology, medieval fitness advice aligns surprisingly well with some of our modern concepts. But was it ever followed? A final line in the passage offers a clue:
All these were invented not for sport but for exercise. Moreover, too much effort is to be avoided as a continual practice.
By scolding readers to do it right, with health in mind, the author suggests that whether or not students were actually mock swordfighting in their university bedrooms, some people were definitely keeping fit—because it was fun.
Looking for fitness tips? Here’s how people stayed in shape in the 15th century.
By Cait Stevenson
Sports, military training, and, well, running after potential food probably bring us closer to “since the dawn of mankind” being accurate than most topics of papers beginning with that phrase. But surely the time and caloric luxury of a stationary bike or a CrossFit workout—fitness for the sake of
Instagramfitness—is a modern invention? Not quite!A curious document, folded into a 15th-century medical manuscript from France, claims to be a letter of advice from an Iberian physician to his sons studying at university in Toulouse. Regardless of its origins, it became a friendly, homey set of basic guidelines for staying healthy day to day. Some advice is as sensible to the modern reader as “comb your hair after you wash it” and “don’t wear a silly hat just because other boys are; wear one that will actually keep you warm.” Other recommendations are, well, distinctly medieval—such as “don’t drink milk and wine at the same meal, or you’ll get leprosy.”
The daily life of university students, of course, was not known to include chasing down food or training with swords like soldiers. Yet the author includes a surprisingly detailed and well-thought-out exercise plan that fits into a student’s lifestyle and living space:
If you cannot go outside your lodgings, either because the weather does not permit or it is raining, climb the stairs rapidly three or four times, and have in your room a big heavy stick like a sword and wield it now with one hand, now with the other, as if in a scrimmage, until you are almost winded… Jumping is a similar exercise.
On fair-weather days, the recommended exercise depends on the temperature:
If you will, walk daily somewhere morning and evening. And if the weather is cold, if you can run, run on an empty stomach, or at least walk rapidly… However, it is not advisable to run on a full stomach, but to saunter slowly in order to settle the food in the stomach.
It’s important to remember that what seems like “common sense” exercise advice to us actually isn’t. Today, we understand cardiovascular exercise—how it benefits the heart and lungs and the biological pathways behind it.
What makes this particular text so fascinating is that, staying true to its supposed physician author, it also dives into the biological reasons behind its fitness advice—except these explanations are rooted squarely in Galenic medicine. All of the exercises are predicated on restoring the body’s natural heat/cool balance, expelling bad air, and regulating the humours. Running in the winter “revives” the “natural heat.” Working so hard that you’re out of breath—such as during practice broom-sword exercises—means exerting yourself until you literally run out of noxious fumes to exhale.
Even with, let’s say, dated ideas of human biology, medieval fitness advice aligns surprisingly well with some of our modern concepts. But was it ever followed? A final line in the passage offers a clue:
All these were invented not for sport but for exercise. Moreover, too much effort is to be avoided as a continual practice.
By scolding readers to do it right, with health in mind, the author suggests that whether or not students were actually mock swordfighting in their university bedrooms, some people were definitely keeping fit—because it was fun.
Cait Stevenson earned her PhD in medieval history from the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of How to Slay a Dragon: A Fantasy Hero’s Guide to the Real Middle Ages. You can follow her on BlueSky @anyfourcastles.bsky.social
Top Image: Scene from a fencing manual written in 1459 by Hans Talhoffer – Ms.Thott.290.2º
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