Bathhouse - Yuya

Originally, temples had bathhouses, and other buildings set up as public purification baths, called large bathhouses. There were two types of bathing: a steam bath, where the body was steamed with steam, and a water-washing style, where the body was immersed in warm water. Temples had long used a separate tub filled with water from a kettle for monks and nuns to purify themselves, but the common people had a long history of steam baths. The modern method of immersing the body in a bathtub did not begin until the early Edo period. Bathhouses of this type were established and operated for a fee, and bathers formed associations to protect their rights to operate, and in May 1810, the bathhouse association was officially recognized in Edo. At the time, very few households had their own bathhouses, and the number of bathhouses was increased for reasons of health and hygiene, as well as for the development of urban areas. Also, based on how they first came about, bathhouses and baths were different things, but with the development of public baths, they gradually became confused, and while in Kyoto and Osaka they were called bathhouses, in Edo they were called bathhouses or public baths, and sometimes even yu-furoya.

[Fumio Inagaki]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

もと寺院には浴堂というものがあり、そのほかに大衆用の潔斎浴場として別に設けた建物があって、これを大湯屋と称した。沐浴(もくよく)には、湯気で身体を蒸す蒸し風呂(ぶろ)形式と、温湯に身体を浸す行水形式があった。寺院では僧尼の潔斎のため、釜(かま)湯を別の湯槽に入れて行水することも早くから行われたが、庶民は長く蒸し風呂形式であった。現代のような浴槽に身体を浸す方式に変わったのは江戸初期からである。この式の浴場を設けて湯銭をとり営業するのが湯屋で、仲間に類するものをつくって営業権擁護を図っていたが、江戸では文化(ぶんか)7年（1810）5月、湯屋組合として公認された。当時は各戸で湯殿(ゆどの)をもつところがきわめて少なく、保健衛生面からも、また市街地発展のためからも湯屋の増加が必要であった。また発生の経緯からいって湯屋と風呂とは別のものであったが、銭湯の発達とともにしだいに混同され、京坂では風呂屋とよんだのに対し、江戸では湯屋とか銭湯と称し、また湯風呂屋とよんだこともある。

［稲垣史生］

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