Garderobe is a type of toilet that was usually used in the castle. Nobles and kings built privies called garderobes in their castle that were hidden in the thick wall and directly dropped the waste into the moat. Through the development of pipe systems and technology, the position and environment of the garderobes became better and more flexible, and the amounts of the garderobes increased as well. Unfortunately, after years of using the garderobes, it might cause water pollution and bad odors of the moat.

• Reviving of Sewage Systems

Sewage systems in the monastery at Canterbury, England

People stoped using sewage system for about a thousand years after Roman culture, and the monastery in England resurrected in extremely organized compounds with rational arrangement and techniques in 1167. For example, they used lead pipes to provide running water, rainwater drainage, settling tanks for purification, and using drainage pipes as well at the same time. Moreover, these sewage system highly influenced the whole sanitation system all around the England, no matter the privies or the public latrines.

• Association between Private Bathroom And Wealth

Garderobes details

Garderobes located in the corner of tower in Castle

Even though most of English people in London used public bathrooms like latrines in the Medieval, Antiquarians found that London citizens never stop developing to bring the convenience in toilets. And these tries of developments highly depend on their wealthy statues.  There is rarely a private Garderobe in the residential houses in Medieval England. However, antiquarians founded a large number of garderobes in old English monasteries and in the ancient establishments of the wealthy landed nobility. Some nobles built toilets in each story, even in each room. And for this purpose, they had to give over one of the principal towers of the castle.

• Arrangement and connection to the cesspools of Garderobes

At the very start, designers put the garderobes in the secret chambers in the towers at the corners of the castle. In that way, it’s easy to build a connection between the toilets and the moat to help release the excrements from the castle. But for some exceptions, there were also examples to have a garderobes that disposal the wastes into an underground cesspool. In this case, the cesspool needs to be cleaned by servants. In conclusion, there are four typologies of garderobes: (1) fall in cesspit, (2) be conveyed into a moat, (3) breteche-style garderobes, (4) evacuated in different styles. (Figure 2) Through the development of technologies and strategies in drainage and pipe systems, architects built underground sewage to help release the excrements and waste. This development made the arrangement of garderobes more flexible. There are eight types of privies were mentioned by Sabine, which are the followings: (1) within the thickness of castle walls, as in London Tower; (2) within towers; (3) within turrets; (4) within chimneys; (5) within chambers corbelled out over the water of the moats; (6) within chambers on arches over the water; (7) with pipe drains to the moats; and (8) with cesspools to receive their filth. Due to these developments, the using feeling of the toilet also developed. For example, the garderobes within chimneys absorb the heat from the chimneys, which give a warmer environment in the garderobes. In the earlier period, there were no pipes and sewage systems in the castle. This absence of pipe led innovation of the arrangement of garderobes. Due to the gravity, these garderobes could not be arranged in the same vertical level. One way to solve this problem is to stagger the vertical orientation. The other way is to alley in a horizontal way. (Figure 3)

• The Weak Point Of The Castle vs. The Defending Strategy

Koolhaas and Horn have totally different ideas about the garderobes in defending level.  Koolhaas states that garderobes were the weak points of the castle. They are open and directly connect the moat or the cesspool, which gives a good opportunity for the enemy to enter the castle. And Koolhaas gives an example of the siege of Chateau Gaillard, a French soldier climbed into the castle by an unguarded garderobe. Owners of the castle used to add some iron bars to the chutes to prevent the castle from attack by enemy. On the other hand, Horn has a contrast idea. She mentioned the water pollution of the moat. After years of using the garderobes, an unpredictable amount of waste was released to the moat. It has more difficulty to clean and maintain. In that way, the water became disgusting in the moat. There was lots of excrement in the moat with bad smells. The bad situation of moat increased the defense ability of the moat, because nobody wants to swim in this kind of dirty water. However she also points out that the underground cesspool and pipe systems gave an opportunity for prisoners to escape from the castle through the pipe system.   Bibliography Sabine, Ernest L. “Latrines and Cesspools of Mediaeval London.” Speculum 9.3 (1934): 303-21. Web. Koolhaas, Rem. “Elements”. Toilets. (2014): 12-33. Horn, Julie L. “The Porcelain God – A Social History of Toilets.” The Middle Ages: Sir Lancelot’s Toilet. (2000): 21-42.