and this was a common thing 1000 years ago. no toilet paper back then.
Ahh yes, the joys of ancient bathroom technology. In old times, before bathroom tissue going to the bathroom was nothing like today. Public toilets, in Greece for example, would have a communal sponge or wetcloth for what you hand couldn't handle. Just dip it in the water and squeeze a few times before your turn. Hopefully the water in the bucket isn't too dirty. Be sure to check before you do your business. Of course, sometimes the communal sponge might be missing or worn out...I'm sure that made a bunch of people happy. The very first person to use the communal sponge wouldn't exactly be loving life either as sponges are rather coarse before they are broken in properly. And those jerks who wouldn't rinse out the sponge after their turn, I'm sure there were a few duels to the death over that.. Then there would be the pranksters that think it would be funny to dump the rinse water on the the person in the stall while their pants are down or hide the bucket while the person is busy.
They might have some scented water nearby if you are at some noble's house, but in most cultures you can forget about soap. It's amazing how many cultures didn't even have soap at all. If you live in an area where water is scarce, you could always plunge your hand in the sand a few times, until it looked good enough.
Of course soap changed a lot of thing, but have you ever noticed that soap doesn't always eliminate the smell of whatever inspired you to wash in the first place? It's not as if their soap was anti-bacterial either.