MEDIEVAL TOILETS - Where Did People Do Their Business In The Middle Ages?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ค. 2024
- One thing we take for granted in modern society is sanitation and cleanliness. However during the Middle Ages and the Medieval period this was not the case. We associate the Middle Ages as being a very backwards time where people were throwing waste out of the windows, and towns were incredibly dirty. However during the Medieval times they did have toilets and some form of sanitation in castles. These were very primitive sometimes just being holes in the ground that would lead to human waste falling out of the castle hitting the wall and falling into a moat. We think a castle's moats were beautiful and clear but this was not the case.
Some Medieval toilets did even have seats on them and some drained into large cess pools, with farmers then gathering the human waste to use on their crops. Today some of the greatest castles still have their medieval toilets and these show us a lot that the Medieval period was not as backwards as first thought.
So join us today as we look at, 'MEDIEVAL TOILETS - Where Did People Do Their Business In The Middle Ages?'
I've always enjoy learning of medeviel life but never knew we were so fortunate to have better sewers. Thanks
I think we all knew we had it better, it's just how much better we have it that we didn't know lol
@@matthewlane518 It is not all that long ago that when I was driving across France and stopped for petrol. the toilet was literally a hole in the bare earth floor....
Unfortunately, it all goes into the rivers and oceans instead of being composted under the earth.
I'm so grateful you created this channel. You pack in a lot of information into a short amount of time, your visuals are stunning, and, as an American whose ancestors came over from the UK circa 1850, I love learning about my historical roots. Thank you ever so much. Well done.
History of shiteholes
During the warm months, I can imagine the smell would be awful
th-cam.com/video/eB3R-MPKzLw/w-d-xo.html
Seem much more sanitary and civilised than the loos at most modern festivals!! Don't fancy the cold wind blowing up there whilst doing my business tho.
Interesting episode , not a topic that gets much coverage. Thank you 👍👍
Thanks Steve, I agree. Festival toilets are the worst, just a hole in the ground!
Considering how advanced Roman plumbing was a thousand years before the Middle Ages I’m surprised that Europe seems to have forgotten all that ingenuity. Great video btw
Albeit Romans were light years ahead of the dark ages folks in so many ways, Roman toilet systems were not much better than what was described here.
Europe went back to the stone age after the Romans left.
There was an active interest in maintaining Roman infrastructure among medieval communities, however, depopulation of Europe from wars and disease meant infrastructure was left to crumble and slavery, a bedrock of Roman infrastructure programs became much less common (replaced by the slightly more humane serfdom).
Probably because it was rather expensive to have roman style toilets. And even those are only the communal toilets. I doubt regular people used anything like that, and they probably still had something equivalent to a chamber pot.
I'm so lucky to be living in the 21st Century.
People watching videos about today in the future:
I'm so lucky to be living in the 24th century.
I wish we were in medieval times. Screw 2023.
No thanks!
@Ofdensen Thousands and thousands of chemicals in water, food and air, are reasons mediaeval village life was much healthier when waste was composted and rivers were pure enough to swim and fish in.
@Ofdensen Thousands and thousands of chemicals in water, food and air, are reasons mediaeval village life was much healthier when waste was composted and rivers were pure enough to swim and fish in.
In the 1940’s during the war several families were living as guests at a farm in Gloucestershire in the uk as a result of being made homeless by bombing.There was just one toilet which was in a stone built hut at the bottom of the garden against a wall. The seat was a wooden board as in the castles shown, but with two holes. It was not for two people at once! The second hole was for children and so was smaller to avoid any chance of falling through. The effluent fell a drop of about six feet and all the time I was there it was never emptied although there was an opening for access.
Interesting.
Climbing up the toilet shafts? Sounds like a job for Baldrick.
I'm glad I don't live in the medievals period. I'd be feeling ever so ill.
You'd get used to it
You're wrong.
According to the author CS Samson, toilets were commonly referred to as The Jakes in the Tudor period.
Toilets are treasure troves for archaeologists.
Coins falling out of pockets. Trinkets being discarded.
There's a ruined castle near me. The ancient toilet is directly above a river.
I wonder what's on the river bed below.
I was born in Holland in 1947 and our toilet was what they called a berenput! I remember my father cursing as he had to clean it occasionally when it was overflowing. Finally when I was 8 the street was dug up and I played with my brother in the big pipes! Much better than the filthy canals! And finally a proper toilet, the joy!
The Bishop of Lincoln tried to escape through the toilet when Edward III's men stormed Nottingham Castle in late 1330 and removed Roger Mortimer from power.
As did Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and eldest son of Thomas Howard 3rd Duke of Norfolk when he was held prisoner in The Tower of London on the charge of treason in 1546! 😱😱😱
He certainly did, or didn't! 🙄🙄🙄
'The poor would go to the local river or stream...' Me thinks the locals would go in any hedge or behind any tree or bush they found convenient.
As a child I visited my grandparents who did not have indoor plumbing. They lived on a large farm and raised 8 children. Chamber pots were used and emptied in the outhouse which was a good distance from the house. If you were outside access was easy before coming in. I used the outhouse and can report that the smell was not overwhelming, it was distinctive but just there. As long as you weren’t sickly it wasn’t a problem. When the time came that it was perhaps full a new pit could be dug and the dirt could be used to cover the old. No one threw the waste out the window or back door, the yards were tidy. I think the peasants were not sloppy either.
That was a fun and quite interesting video. Thank you @TheUntoldPast.
Thanks! :)
Thank the heavens for Thomas Crapper.
We down here in Australia call toilets "dunnies". We don't say "i need to go to the bathroom", we say "i need to go to the dunny". Toilet paper is called dunny paper & we use dunny duck for cleaning the dunny, dunny blue for the cistern & a dunny hanger that hangs off the inside of the bowl. So there u go, some fun facts whether u were interested or not 😂🤣😂
Just use the term off to the shitter meself or off for a brown trout .
Another burning question answered. Thank you.
I'm really attracted to medieval art.buildings.attire just everything about those times oh and there were more rural areas than urban.
A septic tank, a tank typically underground, in which sewage is collected and allowed to decompose through bacterial activity before draining by means of a leaching field would have been more efficeint.
Thanks for covering this. 👍💩 I’ve always been “somewhat fascinated” with the toilet habits of different cultures throughout history. Although what we read often seems barbaric, the people in the past made due with how things were. Yes, hygiene was terrible, but they didn’t know any other way of life.
I really feel bad for the folks though. Never knowing the comfort of toilet paper. We’re so spoiled in our little luxuries, but I’m glad that I never used hay, straw, moss, corn husks/cobs or any kind of sanitary stick or sponge (like the Romans used).
Just give me a clean toilet and some Charmin! 🚽🧻
The little discussed but central functions of life- like the toilet- often have fascinating stories behind them.
All the waste probably made the moat a better defense. Who would want to sneak into a castle if they had to swim through that?
No one may know how toilets were like back in medieval ages because every toilet or bathroom kept getting updated every 50 years.
I visited a castle in the bay of Naples built in 1538 (castello aragonese). The rooms were changed into a museum of archeological goods of Roman era. I could see same stone chairs with a big hole in the middle. They were the restrooms of century 16.
Have you ever been to one of my favourite castles Bolton Castle in Yorkshire? Thought it was interesting the room where Mary Queen of Scott's was held has an en suite in it. Wierd to think she must have done her business on there!
2:45 Edmund II was killed by an assassin who climbed up a waste chute and gave him a cold steel enema.
OUCH~
Very interesting.🚽
Thanks!
The medieval toilets in UK have now been replaced by water companies discharging raw sewage into waterways and coastal waters...
I am 38, and even i pooped into a pit/hole at my grandparents place in the 80s. Around 1990 they put a toilet in place
Still must have had outdoor toilets
Please, don't forget that for these times the shown toilets did be really luxurious. 'Cause most people had slop pails only *. . .*
Now I know what the song gong farmer is about.
I have been to Colchester Castle and Headingham Castle.
I KNEW those little protrusions high up on the towers HAD to be toilets!
Keep in mind that the Indus valley civilization had underground sewage systems in 2000BCE that provided each house with a toilet and then there's this...
Hi, I would like to know, how was working cannalisation for dry toilletes, which was in big citties in 1700-1800?
Some of the bogs I have had the misfortune too use haven't been cleaned since medieval times
Some women that I have had the dis-pleasure of dating haven't been cleaned since Medieval times either.
The Victorians came up with the idea invent for flushable toilets. VR. 19th, 20th & 21st Centuries.
I thought I recognized your voice. So, this is your other channel.
I think the worst part about living in anything other than modern times is just how terrible going to the toilet was. Its bad enough that you had to deal with the terrible stink of stagnant feces since they didn't have modern toilets that flush things away and prevent gases from coming out by using water caught in a trap between the toilet and the drain pipe. But on top of that, they also didn't have toilet paper! imagine having to use straw or leaves or even old rags... On top of that you don't have running water either, and the water you have access to is likely polluted with feces to begin with. If you could time travel back to any of these times, I think that would probably be the most uncomfortable part of the experience.
I'm watching this doing my business.
💖💕🤩😘🥰
There was so little beauty in the medievals period world out there. SO much suffering.
the place under the hole in the wall is called a cesspit
So much fascination with Garderobes and the like. But the truth is, these were the exception not the rule. Throughout the middle ages, most people just used chamber pots, which go back to antiquity and remained common until the advent of flushing toilets.
If they had treasure chests back then, why didn't the engineers transfer that knowledge of chests having " a lid " that opens and closes to having a toilet with " a lid " of some form that also opens and closes? Because if not then the smell would be AWFUL CONSTANTLY!
Seems quite advanced really - one wonders what went wrong - by all accounts, courtiers at Versailles had to make do with handy corners...
I have heard of The Great Stink of London 1858. VR.
"Plumbing and sewers are a more modern development" Ancient Rome says hold my wine. How can you possibly be respected as a historian after saying that? 100s of years before the medieval period Rome had running water and sewers
Roman sewers and plumbing and modern plumbing and modern sewers are not even near the same thing, it's like comparing an ox cart on a dirt lane to a Tesla on an Interstate.
Garderobes weren't just used for toilets.... clothes were hung there too. The smell was thought to keep away moths and other cloth eating bugs.
We still keep clothes in a space named after garderobes.... we call them wardrobes now. But we don't (usually) use them as toilets
Kings & Queens of England since 1066.
The best and cleanest poop is in the woods. Your body touches nothing and your poop stays way out in the woods away from everything. I used to work on cell phone towers and keep wet wipes and preferred pooping in the woods to any public bathroom
Suffering periods!
The moats been so horrible and smelly would help to dissuade potential invaders no doubt.
1996 Pathe film of The Wind in the Willows.
Erm, water is not the way to relieve yourself, unless you want to live in a cess pit! An earth pit, or a galvanised bucket, whose contents can be buried, in a 'dung heap' is more hygienic! Big up the Victorian age, when waste was dealt with properly and clean water, was important. I remember clean, cold water in London, it was a damn sight better than now!
so no sink and air blower for the hands after ' the event ' !!!
Energy efficient !
Castle Explorer DK Computer game, 1996.
Reminds me of where my ex wife used to go.
India , take note.
good Video to watch while Shitting 😊😊❤️
I once grabbed a handful of grass to wipe my bum ,unknown to me it had nettles hidden in it.OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One of the mistakes you only made once, I suppose *. . . ;-)*
Been there done that! OUCH indeed! And stung hands as well as....
OFF TO THE S**TTER
🤪💩🥵🤗🥰😘🤣🤣🤣🤣
The Roman's had better toilets
And aqueducts!
Business people, but recently, Elon Musk was the highest person in the world for making business. Bill Gates a few years ago.
That's what we call Joe biden