The use of water as an expressive trope of spiritual hygiene was widespread among monastic
writers of the twelfth century, adapted for different uses in different genres. Aqueous imagery was
particularly frequent within allegories or didactic figurae exploring the care of the soul as if it were
a material body, with a constitution that could be promoted or damaged, and a set of behaviors for
the encouragement of good health on all levels of Christian life. For monastics, the imagery of
bodily cleanliness was an important tool that encouraged a holistic view of the monk as a physical
and spiritual being shaped by a life of monastic vows. The moral topoi discussed in this essay,
expressed in different registers by three very different monastic genres, mapped out multi-faceted
guides to behavior and self-examination in which health was holistic—the body and the soul
combined. This article is an expansion of an existing essay on the rhetorical topos of spiritual
nutrition, and its argument that extremes such as hunger or satiety, cleanliness or dirt, exist as part
of a multifaceted vocabulary.