Why are medieval people always portrayed as dirty and filthy?.....................
Limited access to hot water and soap? Just speculating. As somebody who works on cars a lot, I know it’s difficult to clean up without warm water. Cold water just doesn’t work well.
The Celts and Vikings were famous for being fastidiously clean.
I think the ‘added tv crud’ is just to dehumanize them.
Even chicken butchering leaves you fairly dirty.
But a big portion of it is the idea that people did not bathe. Which of course, if you consider bathing as soaking in a big tub or having a shower, they did not.
Water is very heavy and toting enough water for a big tub would have been reserved for the wealthy.
But a good steam followed by a plunge in cold water or even just having a couple of buckets of well water poured over you was more then possible for even the poor.
And bathing does more then just make you stink less, it keeps your skin whole and that keeps you healthy.