What the Lack of Sanitary Practices Did to Medieval Europe
Did you know that manners demand that when you go for a walk in the city, men are supposed to walk on the street side and woman to walk on the side closest to buildings? It’s an old custom that developed during medieval times in Europe. Some people have speculated that this practice was to keep the mud and slop from the unpaved streets from splashing up on the ladies. But, history tells us that the real reason was to protect the ladies from the chamber pots filled with excrement being emptied down on their heads from upper-story windows. Apparently the trajectory of the waste being thrown out caused it to land on the person closest to the street. The men got the brunt of the excrement, although the ladies didn’t entirely escape.
If you don’t know what a chamber pot is, here’s the scoop: It’s the large pot kept by the bed or under it for use by a person who had to eliminate during the night and didn’t want to leave the warm house to go to the outhouse in the backyard. So, come the morning, the habit was to empty it out the window on the pedestrians walking below. And then the sewage flowed down the streets, contaminating everyone and everything along the way, including the water.
Sanitation was not a thing medieval people thought much of. They superstitiously thought that disease was found in bathing (the water was contaminated), so they didn’t bathe. Queen Elizabeth I is said to have had an inch of makeup on her face when she died, having reapplied layers of makeup over old layers and blemishes for years without washing her face.
Not only did the medieval people not bathe, they seldom cleaned their houses. The floors of these houses were often covered with clay and then with leaves and rushes that were later covered with new layers as time passed. According to the writer Erasmus (1466-1536), layers of filth and dirt were often left undisturbed for up to twenty years, collecting the vomit and excrement of animals and people, food droppings, and “other abominations not fit to be mentioned.”
All of this made its way into the streets on the shoes of the towns’ and cities’ residents, dogs, cats, hogs, rats, and all the other creatures that visited the homes of these citizens. And from the streets, all of this made its way into the water that ran through the canals down into the streams and rivers, and contaminated everything downstream.
Cities in medieval Europe were dangerous places to live because of the diseases that abounded, including typhoid fever, cholera, and the plagues. Millions died from the particularly filthy conditions. And, it wasn’t only the poor people who suffered, it was everyone. In 1347, the “Black Death” or Bubonic Plague pandemic struck Europe. It was one of the deadliest plagues ever with approximately 20 to 50 million people dying.
Aren’t you glad we live in such healthy conditions today, with indoor bathrooms, toilets that flush, sewage systems, septic tanks, sewage treatment plants, and filtered water available at the kitchen sink?
Blog Resource: What Did the Ancients Know About Septic Tanks?
What Did the Ancients Know About Sepic Tanks
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Vivendum theophrastus eum ea. Rebum doming adversarium duo in, ex mel inani viderer apeirian. Ex iusto dolorem verterem mei. Quot viris quaestio te ius, vis vocent aperiam malorum at.
Est falli reprimique in. Eam eius error te, vis vidit labitur ad. Ex paulo detraxit erroribus has. Liber dissentias an eum. Ius at dicit dolore ignota, cum eius ocurreret cotidieque ex, ad vix vivendo persecuti.
Has ne malis iracundia, lorem facilisis ius an. Has facer munere cu, doctus euismod ornatus eum ea, audire tritani eligendi ut sed. Ut mel noluisse ocurreret, causae legimus at per, platonem laboramus voluptaria id nec. Eu duo aliquid torquatos, vel ne doming nemore tibique, vim nominati inciderint dissentiunt at.
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