Feb 1, 2021 | mediaeval, Research |
Medieval London started like most societies with little technology for sewer systems. This leads to many unique and interesting ways to alleviate waste in day to day life. Many of these ways included Latrines that were over flowing water, cesspools and many other ways. These allowed for waste to be taken away and avoid odor, however accessibility was limited for the lower class. While nobility created latrines for many floors, others were left without. This created public latrines more popular and many buildings were left without latrines readily accessible. Soon nobility would have access to garderobes these would typically be on the wall of castles. Through technology we see the use of pipes and how they gradually allow privies to be more flexible.
England from Medieval to 18th Century
In medieval London, prior to the advent of closed sewer systems and indoor flush toilets, latrines became a creative addition to castles, palaces, and the public sphere. With what would be considered now as no technology to flush waste, flowing water became an integral part to latrines. Latrines focused on accessibility and odor control, first among the private households of nobility, then into the public streets of London. Waste in medieval London was dealt with in a variety of manners including latrines and privies attached to systems of flowing water or cesspools, embedded in walls, near chimneys for warmth, attached to cisterns of rainwater.
England from Medieval to 18th Century
Latrines and Cesspools had many fundamental issues associated with it. Some of these issues included senses such as sight and smell. In addition to sight and smell, Latrines and cesspools also discussed class and how played a major role in day to day use. In sight of this nobility had access to multiple in one building whereas lower class citizens may be limited to one per complex. While later Latrines became more accessible, the cost of building and maintaining them added an extra level of complexity to allow for these to be accessible to those who may have a lower income.
England from Medieval to 18th Century
People stopped 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. And these sewage system highly influenced the whole sanitation system all around the England, no matter the privies or the public latrines. Sabine introduced the development and history of two types of toilets that were widely used in Medieval London. For nobles and kings, they built privies called garderobes in their castle. Through the development of pipe systems and technology, the position and environment of the garderobes became better and more flexible. The other type, the public latrines, were widely for common citizens. This kind of toilet was spread for building a better sanitation system, but finally was banned because of the river pollution.
Feb 1, 2021 | mediaeval, Research |
L0009845 Lodging House in Field Lane.Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Imagesimages@wellcome.ac.ukhttp://wellcomeimages.orgLodging House in Field Lane.Sanitary ramblingsHector GavinPublished: 1848Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The usage of waste was quite fascinating, “as towns grew, so did urban- rural manure trade” (Angus, pg. 32). This was how many people created sources of income, they would clean out cesspools for a fee, and then later trade to nearby farmers. However, as cities began to grow, such as Cities like London with a million or more people at the time, many farmers could not take on the large amounts of waste that the city was producing.(Angus, Pg. 33). As water became more mainstream, there was a tendency to overflow cesspools which would cause “…many homeowners and builders to connect household drains to public sewers that were supposed to carry only rainwater.” (Angus, PG. 36) or many would dispose of such waste into the street gutters (Geels, Pg.1073). In addition to public cesspools, “Middle and upper class families had in-house privies, where excrements fell down a tube into privy vaults. Cesspools and privy vaults were cleaned by private contractors” (Geels, Pg. 1073). It wasn’t until 1851 when public health hygiene and social order was addressed. This could be majorly contributed to the fact of the epidemics of cholera that struck in the 1830’s (Geels, Pg 1073). It wasn’t until 1842, when Chadwick proposed a plan to streamline manure to farmers with a sewer system that would allow for London to charge for the manure while having it be transported by this new system (Angus, Pg. 41).
Due to the lack of sanitation that cesspools and lack of a sewer system, many people living in poverty were likely to fall ill more frequently. In 1842, Edwin Chadwick wrote a report The Sanitary Condition of the Laboring Population, this highlighted the conditions in which poorer neighborhoods as well as health conditions they may face as well. (Angus, Pg. 39). Chadwick research led him to believe that the illness was not caused by physical contact, but “illness was caused by miasma, the foul air emitted by rotting organic matter” (Angus, Pg. 40). He proposed the following solutions, every dwelling has a water closet and is able to revive freshwater and take waste away from the city itself (Angus, Pg. 41). However, this proposal was passed on and in 1847, 30,000 people were killed due to a typhus epidemic. It wasn’t until the 1850’s weather water closets and houses with running water were in homes (Angus, Pg. 50).
Angus, Ian. Cesspols, Sewage, and Social Murder: Environmental Crisis and Metabolic Rift in Nineteenth-Century London.
Geels, Frank W. The Hygenic Transition from Cesspools to Sewer Systems (1840-1930): The Dynamics of Regime Transformation
Feb 1, 2021 | History, history, mediaeval, Research |
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.
