Explain Henry VIII's role in the resurgence of hydrotherapy in Western culture

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

During the reign of Henry VIII (1491-1547), people still visited hot springs for health reasons, although there were strict regulations on their use due to unsanitary conditions and lack of moral decency. In fact, many warm springs were still considered pagan during this time (for being part of the Roman custom of bathing), so they were renamed as holy wells where saints of the Catholic Church had performed miracles. They became pilgrimage sites where pilgrims could be cured of ills by drinking or bathing in the water. Henry VIII closed most of the wells because the pilgrimages seemed to be superstitious and pagan in nature, resembling too closely the methods used to worship Roman gods. These wells were also sometimes gathering sites for political dissidents, so the English government chose to limit the number of people traveling to wells outside England and to encourage the use of public baths, which had been forbidden for many years. England's Privy Council encouraged bathing at several places, notably Bath in the west, Buxton and Harrogate in the north, and a spring located in central England whose location has been lost.