Medieval Toilets: The awful truth!
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- Опубліковано 26 лют 2021
- How did medieval people go to the toilet and what did they do to dispose of their waste? Jason Kingley OBE, the Modern Knight discusses the dangerous and smelly past. #medieval #castle
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I was laughing far too much when presenting this video!
Guess that explains the jump cuts
😂
You could release the full version, we'd certainly be quite entertained
Totally should release the unedited version haha. I was also laughing at all the jump cuts lol. I love this channel so much, every video is such high quality content. I would love to see a video on the medieval use of rushes on floors!
shits and giggles
When you go the the toilet and people say “ don’t fall in” or “ I thought you fell in” must have been a serious consideration back then.
Most likely because through the time wooden parts of toilets would rot and they would repair it only after it fully broke to save money XD
I do recall hearing of an incident in, oh, about the early 17th century whereby a young lad went to the privy at night, the wooden plank over the pit had rotted, it broke and he fell in.
Poor lad drowned.
Shitty deal
In 1950s Ohio, U.S.A, everyone I knew had plumbing. My Brother of about 12 years of age went to our neighbors' outing at grandfather's farm out in the sticks. His friend. " Buzzy " was a skinny kid as were most of us back then. He needed to go, and after a bit hadn't returned. My brother opened the door to hear him shrieking for help. He ran to the farm house and Buzzy was rescued from the pit. He'd simply fallen through, and was in a state! His clothes were burnt and he was hosed off in the yard. Later I asked him his worst recollection of that incident, and he just shuddered and said " SPIDERS"!
In Wolrd War 1, soldiers often just sat on an improvised common sit which was basically just a couple of sticks, stuck their ass out and shat on a ditch. I remember watching a documentary about it and they told a story of a poor guy who was doing his bussiness when they sticks broke down and he fell into the ditch full of human waste. He got out, but considering how they spoke about scarcity of food, water, spare clothing and basic hygiene in the tenches I figure he couldn't wash himself properly after.
An interesting little story: Erasmus von Luegg, a 15th century knight in modern Slovenina, was killed during a siege of Predjama castle by the Austrian army. He died on the toilet when the Austrian artillery fired at the garderobe.
When you've got to go, you've got to go
a story in my country says "don't do like uncle sheep, he died taking a shit"🤣
And this is how the modern Erasmus program of European student exchange came to be? 😮😅
It's absolutely precious how Jason is trying to remain polite.
And then he gives up halfway through and starts saying "shit" anyway.
Medieval taunt at the Joust " Your castle has skidmarks!"
Castle Skidmark
Nice! 😂😂😂
"I fart in your general direction!"
😂😂😂😂
Thank you 😂❤️ this’s was fucking great 😂😁
It's funny to see how many jump cuts are in this video compared to others, probably Jason was either laughing a lot or saying innapropriate stuff for UA-cam. I would like to see unedited version of this video :D
Haha 😂 I was also thinking something along what you wrote. Have a like👍🏻
Same!
I love his videos, but so many cuts almost made it too jarring to watch.
His on the toilet doing his business, so he edited out everytime he drops one.
hard cut
As a teen (I am in my 70s now) I worked at a recreation site the had swimming, boat rentals, and had a dance hall and picnic grounds. People were often commenting on how green the grass was in the picnic grounds. If they only knew, all the toilets went into a septic tank, which we emptied every Friday morning. The procedure was you pulled the cover off the pit, walked out on the 6"x6" beam and dropped a hose down into the pit. The drop was about 8' and the beam you were standing on quickly got quite slippery. The muck was pumped up the hose into a tank truck, which when full went out and spread it on the grounds. If you were the unlucky person that held the hose in the pit you had to be very careful or you ended up in the pit sometimes over your head, you then had to climb out using a ladder lowered down to you. So I can relate to what the gung farmers had to deal with.
I am so sorry.
Im the same age as you and THAT’S illegal and always has been
@@debbylou5729 Yup it probably was/is, but the owner did not care, he was never fine. I notice that the site is no longer there it is all just grass and beach no buildings. I asked around and was told it burned down years bacck, they did not know when.
Nonsense that's untrue hunan waste was never dealt with like that since way back in the past. You lie sir.
Health and safety was totally different in those days. As a young man working in construction in the 70s and 80s, the number of accidents and near accidents Ive witnessed or been involved with was incredible. Luckily, i had rubber bones back in those days.
They used the urine of a red headed boy to quench swords in back then because it added the soul steal ability to the sword. This enchantment added +2 soul steal which gives the wielder 10% of the damage caused, back as life. So that is why it was so highly prized. Hope this helps!
Lol
😂
I see what you did there.
I can understand the need to save urine for "cleaning" and steel quenching back then. It would be wasteful to let such an opportunity trickle through one's fingers.
It's Saturday evening and I'd far rather be watching Modern History talking about medieval toilets than the utter crap that's on telly. 👍🏻
Amen
I'm in good company it seems. 😝
Too right!
At least Modern History is talking about utter crap, on the telly they just ignore their crap
that statement is so true!!
There's a reason tanneries were typically kept far away from the wealthier parts of town. Between all the excrement and decaying animal parts, they managed to concentrate every terrible smell into one location.
And downwind and downstream from villages
In several places they were forced outside the town boundaries.
Medieval people didn't have different noses, they too just didn't want stink :)
Yep. Tony Robinson did a great video about this on his “The Worst Jobs in History” series.
If you've ever been to a "modern" traditional tannery or dyery (is it a word?), you'll know the stench doesn't require any contribution from human waste to make your eye turn (my personal exposure was in Morocco).
I wonder medieval people thought they were dangerous places likely to make you sick , since they believed miasmas caused diseases
WE lived in Japan in 1953-54 . Both the homes and even the department stores had open pits that you had to squat over . The waste was collected in large buckets and carried on "honey carts" and then spread over the fields to fertilize the crops. As a child I was afraid of falling in and asked my Mom to hold my hand ..
Was the waste taken away by the burakumin?
I was there at that time too! The country smelled like human poop because they used it in the fields, as some countries still do today. I definitely remember squatting over a porcelain frame over an open pit; it was terrifying to my little American self. The department stores transitioned to flush toilets, but still in the floor.
What a fun video to Watch, thank you for making It. I've enjoyed every second of It
thanks! i was laughing so hard! great to adventure with you the other day too!
Audi, noble one!
Salve citizen
The Metatron
@@notthebeaver1532 Hello, I understand your desire not to be confused with beavers. Every detailed memory about coming across a beaver will be carried with me to the flames of death's incinerator. Beavers are just messy, I can't say it politely. So being we're two kindred spirits do you mind telling me a little about, The Metatron?
"What was called piss at the time"
We really haven't ventured far from our medieval ancestors, have we?
no shit😎
pisx, cocx, shix, fucx are all very old words.
Piss was a perfectly ordinary word to use until Victorian times, during which it gradually became considered course/vulgar language.
Ship High In Transit..........is that an actual truth ?
@Drukstylz That's Victorian sensibilities for you.
I'm surprised you're able to find the time to be a medieval historian, Medieval Martial Arts fighter, horse rider/trainer, and CEO of a video game studio all at the same time. I bet you rarely have a dull day!
lol, I do keep busy. Still working now and it's 10pm here in England, and I started at 7am!
@@ModernKnight I know that doing what you love allow one to do more before burning out, but do take care of yourself!
@@ModernKnight For six days do all that you are able; the seventh the same and clean out the stable.
@@ModernKnight That's the nice thing about being the boss: you get to stay as late as you want.
I was pretty much saying the same thing. Living a medieval life but is a CEO of a video game studio. Makes sense. So, you’re telling me if I live a medieval life, I’ll eventually be a CEO of a company and make madd $$$? Makes sense. If only it worked like that BACK then. 😝😝😝😝
A local school busted a sewage line that was leaking into the pond of a nearby park. No one knew about it for a few years. But in those few years that pond and the surrounding greenery became the lushest and greenest it had ever been, with insects and small game teeming around it.
I imagine a medieval castles moat where sewage runs into it would have a similar effect.
@Watch: "Europa: the last battle" | For our sake. Some actual, home sewage treatment systems use a septic tank to pretreat the "stuff", into a slurry, which then transfers to a very marshy area, with many filtering plants, which then slowly flows into a pond, covered in floating plants, as almost pure water. System has a name that I don't remember.
Reedbed systems do that nowadays. The solids end up in a septic tank, but waste water ends up in a pond full of plants, that has to be mown down occasionally to keep them growing.
It works fine, until the drains clog up in a heatwave and it doesn't get enough water to flush the system properly.
Or people use antibacterial soap, or dump too much acid down the sinks.
When talking of attacking castles and having to go through moats just gave me flash backs of Afghan. We often patrolled through the ditches (to avoid IED's) that the locals often used to relieve themselves in, it was common to see a floater drift by. All the bit worse when it was waist deep (I always laughed at the shorter guys who were chest deep, they dared not breathe in too hard as one floated past!) Having experienced that though, I'm not to sure I'd want to wade through a moat!
Bet the recruiters didn’t tell you about that
Oh sweet mercy. My grandma grew up in a region that's only just getting their plumbing and infrastructure in shape.
They had a guy pulling up night soil from the local privies or if you were poor (or had lots of kids) you lower someone down the hole and clean it out. Relatively speaking taking a shit in the river is actually a major convenience, even though everyone knows it's not healthy or safe. It's their version of littering with a lot more direct negative impacts to human health.
Oof, I would ask if they at least furnished you with waders, but I already know the answer. I get that war is hell and all but that crosses a line.
One could say you were in some deep shit.
I. am. so. sorry! Thank you for your service and sacrifice. But I am dying of laughter!
"So, how DO you go to toilet in medieval times?"
*Title sequence begins, heroic music plays while Jason charges across a field on a horse*
Mm, I don't think a horse is strictly necessary... Unless your toilet is really far away, I guess.
He had a curry the night before.
Or if you're really compacted you might need to draw it out with a team of horses.
Well you wouldn't want to shit near your house
I mean, sometimes you gotta get there ASAP
Supposedly, today the most common reason police are given for speeding is that the driver needed to get to a toilet.
So you’re telling me to attack a medieval castle I’d have to swim across a river of human shit, on second thought, you can keep your castle.
Yeah kinda makes you wonder if it’s worth it
Just like the three striped cucumber beetles
They shit all over themselves
I still squish them
Just like the three striped cucumber beetles
They shit all over themselves
I still squish them
Those months-long sieges suddenly make a lot more sense. I always just thought they were cowards.
tis a silly place
I always enjoy watching videos about hygiene and sanitation. Media set in medieval or fantasy always ignore such things, always having clean and beautiful towns and cities. It always made me wonder what it would've been like if those characters actually needed to take a dump
A couple of people have told me it's inspired them to do a D&D adventure in a different way.
The more I learn about history, the more I'm astonished that anyone survived long enough to write it.
I still do my toilets this way, it's more peaceful outside. I don't bury it though, I pick it up and throw it at my garden wall. It's becoming quite a piece of art in my opinion. My neighbours aren't as fond of it as me but there's no law that stops me from doing it I've checked, if they don't like it they can move. Good luck selling that house though I'm always at it even on Christmas, especially at Christmas. Christmas poos tend to be some of my bigger jobs. Can't wait for Christmas, so much to add to the wall.
Haha
@@chucknutly3290 LMFAO. 😭💀
@@Concise_Parakeet I'm actually doing a portrait of rishi sunak with it. I plan every meal out to give me the right colour and consistency. I think the portrait actually looks better than the man himself. I've got it under an awning so the rain doesn't wash it away. I plan to show it to him in person when he's finished being prime minister so I can really highlight exactly how I feel about him and the way I view him in my minds eye. Because I'm Banksy im sure it'll sell but that's not why I'm doing it, I'm doing it for Rishi and Rishi alone, he deserves more out of life in my opinion and it's the general public that owes it to him. I want him to know how much we all appreciate his very existence.
"but, and it is a big but"
Don't try to tell me this pun was unintended.
Matt Easton influence right there.
He likes big buts and he can not lie
You other brothers can't deny
**ba dum tss**
been scrollin' for this :D
Medieval advertising: "Ginger piss will quench your steel."
“This? THIS my friend is the finest steel around! By some accounts quenched in ginger piss ten times over! Just the sight of it will send your foes fleeing with terror and leave them full of envy!”
@@Finraen if you can forge the weapons I can provide the piss. We’ll be rich
On of my best friends is ginger and if he needs to goo to the loo, he'll always go home. He says his smells are extremely pungent.
We'll have to ask Alec Steel
@@Finraen "And that's not all! When you buy now, I will give you this fine pair of scissors and a funny doormat for free!"
I feel like Monty Python missed some truly golden and brown opportunities.
“Oh, look a king. How do you know he’s a king? Because he’s not all covered in sh!t like the rest of us.”
"Ooo, Dennis! There's some lovely filth down here!" *flop!*
@@adreabrooks11 ha ha!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Fun fact : The English word "gardarobe" comes from the French "garde robe" (the pronunciation is almost identical). Literally, it means "the one to whom one entrusts his gown". Thus, the servant who, while his master is busy with his business, keeps his gown. The expression, although little used, remained in French "se présenter à la garde robe" which means: to go to the toilet.
In days of old
When knights were bold
And toilets weren't invented,
A man dug a hole
In the middle of the road
And sat there quite contented.
You know the condom version of this rhyme?
And here I was lying bedded
watching something on my phone.
Reading something someone commented,
some genius who tickled my funny bone!
@@sirlongshanksthelongshank8786 Alas I cannot claim credit for this rhyme. I learnt it as a child some 50 years ago.
@@MasterDrewboy No, I don't, would you care to enlighten me? That is, if some disapproving algorithm allows. You could always blankety-blank any rude bits.
@@aesopstortoise
As I been told
In days of old
When knights were bold
Before condoms were invented
Men put their c”“k in a sock
And babies were prevented
I didn’t make it up
Literally everyone did this yet nobody wants to talk about it, even though is actually significant for common living
@ゴロゴロ yes it does if we want to better understand their experiences
@ゴロゴロ So in the end we agree, because I meant talking about toilet habits in the past, not sharing that you shat a massive turd just this morning ;)
That's _why_ it wasn't talked about. It was such a ubiquitous aspect of daily life, it didn't merit much discussion, let alone documentation.
You’re right, it is perplexing that a castle lord would take the time and money to whitewash his castle, only to have poo stains on it. Garderobes also seem like a really expensive addition to a castle when a bucket and a servant could accomplish the same task. It makes me wonder if garderobes were originally used as a means of disposing of human waste during a siege. That way you could throw out the waste safely and not worry about getting an arrow in the chest at the same time. As time progressed they may have evolved into more of a luxury item so you didn’t always have to do your business in your bedroom.
There is really a simple answer to any nonsensical use of money throughout history, which is to flaunt your wealth to everyone else. Yes, my castle gets covered in shit stains and I have it whitewashed monthly, what's it to you?
Installing a garderobe once might be expensive, but think of all the time saved by not having a servant to throw away shit all day. Instead it'll just fall down into the moat, passively upgrading your moat
I always understood that in medieval castles the hanging of one's clothes above the ammonia-filled waste pits overnight was standard practise, not just an occasional use. They kept your clothes (robes) free of lice, hence the name "garde-robe"
Of course, you would need to add herbs like lavender to remove the smell the morning after - but that's the root of the word "laundry" (the letters V and U were interchangeable)
Interesting!! I'd never heard that before!
When I was younger I lived for a time at a wilderness survival school that had no flush toilets. The policy there was that you peed in the woods, and you pooped in the outhouse. Turns out that human poop doesn't smell nearly as strong or as bad when it isn't mixed with pee and is allowed to dry out. So the outhouse, which also had decent ventilation, actually wasn't bad at all.
That’s the idea behind separation toilets as well, and it works way better than non-separating bio-toilets.
One gets used to the smell of them as well (as someone who spent a lot of time around outhouses). And if one spends enough time around rotting human excrement, it ends up, one loses the ability to smell it (although one can still tell the ammonia is there).
I had a very similar experience. There are things you can dump on "the pile" as well to reduce the smell very significantly. Lime was used in the outhouse I went to and it was quite bearable. The most annoying part was the rough wooden seat and the flies.
Thank you for using "myriad" correctly
I had this experience too, it was on a holiday tripto Portugal. The pee was mixed with very little water and pipes led it to an grass area, where it seeped away. The "poop-outhouse" didnt smell, because it was a high wooden construction (2-3 meters) so solid stuff felt down, it was dry and mixed up with sawdust. So it smelled like sawdust^^. But if you eat very healthy, your poop don`t gonna smell at all. I was surprised how good it works and i think its a good thing to use our solid stuff as fertilizer instead of making a smelly broth out of it.
Excepting the smell, stale urine has myriad uses through history. In addition to the leather working and laundry referenced in the video, there are uses as mordants in dyeing and in medicine (legitimate versus some of the quackery) among others. The joy of being an archaeologist is excavating latrines because the preservation is often so good and also dealing with historic textiles.
Have you ever had the opportunity to excavate in that area of a castle moat? I remember being told, that one summer was so hot that the fire department had to bring in water to fill the moat. Just like in Venice, the concern was that the lack of water would undermine the structure of the water-castle.
Besides fabric, I wonder how much jewelry, daggers, and small trinkets might have fallen down there.
@@monicatombers4543 I’ve excavated latrines at historic fortresses and they are amazing stores of information. The loss of buttons, even underwear buttons could lead to a flogging so finding flat bones like ribs with button blanks cut out was common. A lot of finds were prohibited items like alcohol bottles or quack medicine. Food remnants are well preserved in foeces and urine soaked soil to the level of egg shells and strawberry seeds. Occasionally one finds things like an entire jacket’s worth of expensive brass buttons with regimental markings...you can imagine if one is flogged for the loss of an underwear button what happens for these; would love to know the story behind it. Fragments of dishes with cut marks tend to indicate officers’ use as they received chops and scour or swirl patterns tend to indicate enlisted men as they generally received stews (all these sites much later than the Medieval period so apologies for waxing on).
Wax on! I am now following your channel. It is the knowledge of our past and application of “what if” thinking that results in faster and better solutions today!
Absolutely
That’s actually really cool
when I was very little, our farm house did not have an indoor toilet. We had a pump in the kitchen, and another in the yard. Our outhouse had a bushel of sawdust, that once your business was finished, you would toss in one cupful
for urine, and two for poo...
In Siracusa, very ancient city in Sicily that gave life to the likes of Archimedes, there's a 13th century castle constructed by emperor Friedrich II, grandson of Barbarossa. This castle lays on the tip of the island of Ortigia, surrounded by the sea. When visiting it I remember seeing the bathroom was just a hole that led directly to the water underneath, very convenient!
08:56
Jason is so meticulous that he's even hired a trained fly to participate on the topic.
Yes! are you the only other person who noticed it...I think he edited it in because its huge!
That's funny
I saw it too! And it did two fly-bys for good measure! It was a bit of a lens hog, if you ask me...
The storage and selling of liquid waste is also where the expression "too poor to have a pot to piss in" comes from.
Later when gunpowder an the makeing of saltpeter heaps came in there was a legal piss taker, the saltpeter master would come an insist that you find something to piss in an keep it for him to collect.
And yes it's your pot an your cart that he'll use to haul it away, you'll get the cart back at some point...
I think you are combining two separate sayings, being 'piss poor' and 'not having a pot to piss in'.
@@annamae859 nah it's true. That's where the term came from. Ppl living in hovels rarely had implements
@@annamae859
The expression I always heard was, " to poor to have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of."
If you'you're too poor to have a pot to piss in, you have to get out of your home in the middle of the night to go pee outside somewhere. I don't think the phrase was in reference to one's inability to capitalize on the pee's resale value.
In fact, I don't think anyone on the route was ever paid for their piss and night soil ( though the collector/ reseller obviously got paid eventually for reselling it refined and in bunk) the individual village dweller simply appreciated the fact that there was someone coming round to collect it. But the collection of waste by hand, with horse and cart, ceased well over 200 years ago. So I don't know if the expression and the industry coincided.
They have somewhat recently discovered that the set of genes that causes hair to be red also affects they way certain metabolic processes happen within, usually most notable through a unique scent they give off from their skin reacting to perfumes. It could be that another affect of that metabolic adaptation caused their piss to be really good at quenching?
Wow, filthy rich is just a term I took for granted! If it has its origins in late medieval human waste collection, that's really enlightening! Every episode of Modern History TV, it seems, I learn something cool. Thanks again for a great video Mr. Kingsley 👍🏻
we do have a "pissing alley" (Pisserenden) here in Copenhagen
brilliant!
Not just an alley...a whole area!
In Athens, Greece there was a stream called "Χεζοπόταμος", "Shit-stream". Obviously it was covered over.
@@AggelosKyriou yeah as said in the vid these kinda areas are everywhere. It'll be fun when we're allowed to travel again to maybe visit all these "shitty" places
that'll be a cool topic for some travel youtuber in the future maybe
Actually thats a great idea "travelling to the "crappiest" places in europe (or whereever)"
Wish the Swedish pisserenden weren't the tunnelbanna hiss, (subway elevators)
Oooh! Is that why in Kingdom Come: Deliverance the tanner's son was called Reeky, and when you ask the NPCs about it, they say something like "what, you mean besides that he's a tanner?"
Also I enjoyed the gymnastics you had to do to avoid the word shit :D amazing :D
That game has incredible attention to detail and is more "true to life" than any medieval RPG I've ever played. After reading Franz Schmidt's diary, a famous executioner from late medieval Germany, an offhand line I heard one of the characters say about "the executioner lives outside of town, which is proper as I'm sure you know" suddenly made a lot of sense. The only thing that bothered me slightly was the fact that, while it does try to portray everyone as religious (as they definitely were), they use God's name in vain way too frequently. I believe people used euphemisms quite frequently, and saying "Jesus Christ!" as a swear was almost as bad then as dropping an F-bomb is today.
Praise the lord, Henry's come to town!
While visiting the Mozart House in Vienna, I was informed by one of the people working there, that the alley at the back on which you look out on from the house has not changed since the time that Mozart lived there. He also informed me, that it used to be called Shit alley. It had its name change to something more appetising and is now called Blutgasse which means Blood alley.
Also for urine to be used as a cleaner of stains in clothing it needs to be airated for 2 weeks.
Dear Jason, I just discovered your channel, and it has enlightened me so much. Thank you a lot for your entertaining and endearing way of delivering knowledge I'd never even heard of before. Listening to you is so much fun! Keep on doing your great work!
Welcome aboard!
I recently found out there was a 14th century law (in London at least), regarding how far away your cesspit had to be away from you neighbour's fence - and how frequently it was emptied. 2 1/2 feet for covered pits, 3 1/2 feet for uncovered ones. Enacted as a result of the plague.
Lewes Castle's garderobes are still easily accessible. The chute is an 18" alcove with stained glass windows in a corner of what is used today as the dressing up room for school trips. Kids get to play knights and courtiers.
Fun fact: on my visit in Malbork castle I learnt that the Teutonic Knights residing there used wilted cabbage leaves as toilet paper. I have been tempted to try it out ever since...
I'm avoiding vegetable trays and salad bowls at your house..
If you do try it don't flush the cabbage leaves down the toilet lol
Do try it and tell us later wether its effective or not. 😂
Is seasoning required? 🤔
Sounds much better than dried oak leaves, shucked corn cobs, or the shiney pages from the Sears catalog that were typically all that were left after Christmas
I’m afraid I had a rather difficult time keeping a straight face while watching this video. I live across the pond in the USA. A few years ago, I was visiting friends in New York City and we ate at a British style pub in Brooklyn. One of the table had pictures of street signs in England with derogatory names on them. I wondered lots of times what inspired those street names and after hearing your explanation, it make perfect sense! 😂
In the late Middle Ages, the French developed a process to increase the quality of gunpowder that involved wetting the mix, preferably with urine. Bishops’ urine was considered the best. As I understand it, this process is still sometimes referred to as “bishoping”.
I find it most fascinating that thieves stealing people's urine is where we got the idiom "Are you taking the piss?" Or "piss-taker".
And from what I understand, that MAY have been where the idea of Londons streets "Paved with Gold" got its metaphor from, because I'm fairly certain Londons sanitation wasn't exactly the greatest with faeces probably in the street, but if you worked in sanitation, it's essentially a gold mine.
Brilliant video!
Proper toilets are really important. Many people in poor regions die each year because they don't have access to clean toilets.
in other words India where in some areas people still shit on the streets.
"don't have access to" = can't even be bothered to attempt basic sanitation systems or repair the ones they already have.
@@ishitrealbad3039
India has some huge hygene problems. Partly because of some cultural practices.
@Don't like it??? Your fucking problem !!!
There is some religion to it like with bathing in the Ganges or charnel grounds(especially bad), which also were often near to rivers. They have some religious practices that just are not hygenic. But it also goes beyond that.
Even although the liquid can be used as a source of Phosphorus.
lol....my mother had a slop jar,thats what we call it in the south...kept it under the bed,and disposed of in the morning, she did that until high-school in the 70s.....yes,lots of people in the south rural areas didn't get inside plumbing until the 70s....crazy when you think about it....
Some years ago I was shown a film version of the Decameron (which for those who may not know, is the Italian equivalent to the Canterbury Tales in a way, a collection of short stories set within a larger narrative frame...though in the case of the Decameron that frame is a bunch of nobles fleeing the Black Plague...). Anyway, one of the stories involves a wealthy but not-too-bright young man getting taken in by unscrupulous sorts, and in the course of the various shenanigans, he falls through the wooden bench part of an interior garderobe type room (I don't know what the proper term might have been, since he was in a town and not in a castle). This fall dropped him right into the muck. At the time I was most confused because it seemed like all that human waste was just being allowed to fill up a spot in the alley behind the houses, rather than being a "proper" cess pit - but after listening to your explanation I can see that it was far more likely to have been a purpose built sort of alcove, and that it would not be out of the question for such a pit to NOT be cleaned out frequently. In the film they were not at all shy about making it obvious that this pit was waist deep on an adult man. Gross!!! (The story had a "good" ending, the guy eventually made it out of the town and recovered his fortune. Sort of. It was weird.)
And I had heard of midden heaps and cess pits and so forth, being the fan of high fantasy and adventure novels that I am. I very vividly recall a Fiona Patton novel in which those garderobes were in fact turned against the inhabitants of a castle under siege, via the thoroughly horrifying method of collecting some of the mess onto cloths and then sending a pair of younger fighters to sneak in and wipe those cloths on every single metal drinking vessel in the kitchens. Talk about biological warfare...
The detail about moats - especially at Bodiam - was very pleasing to me actually. Many years ago, I had a tabletop group (D&D) who somehow managed to capture and tame a plant monster, and set it to live in the moat of the half ruined castle they were then exploring (and later on, living in and rebuilding). The moat looked completely filled in, until a foe walked across the lush green grass and got himself eaten. But! One of my player was a huge "medieval nerd" (his own words) and pointed out that the castle garderobes could handily keep the creature fed when the castle WASN'T under attack. He too went on at length about Bodiam's covered garderobes, haha!
Sitting on the toilet watching a video about toilets. Let's go!
What a time to be alive
Same! 🤣
Let's go! Got an 80's flashback from The Cars.
Amazing that two thousand years after Romans had functioning baths and sewage systems my ancestors were lugging a bucket of nightshite to the local shitepile. If human civilization falls it will be because we stopped paying the plumbers.
After sewage processing and the (John Snow) awareness of the importance of water sources came about, disease rates dropped.
My first two considerations, when the pandemic started, safe water and sewers.
That could be a whole series Jason could cover in and of itself. Technology that existed in antiquity that was not carried over to the middle ages.
Where did the Roman poo go?
@@hetrodoxly1203 mouths of slaves
I love your videos! As an amateur historian and film student I love how you blend entertainment and history. However this is the last time I randomly flick through your videos while eating breakfast 😅
Great video poor timing on my part!
I am an old man. when i was a small boy in the 40's of the last century, we had a toilet shed down the garden and we did our
functions into a big hole dug into the ground under the raised toilet seat. Every year my Great Grandfather used to dig it out and spread it
over the vegetable garden and dig it in. One of my fondest memories of my youth is of the delicious vegetables served up at our dinner table!
I find that when you go further back in history, the more mundane things are at least as fascinating as the more high profile ones. They're the details that help us really mentally transport ourselves into that time, living like any regular person would. Thanks for painting us a vivid picture, Jason. :D
We've got it so easy and comfy these days, thank you for the timely reminder 💛.
I agree, we have been taking modern technologies & convenience of granted.
When I was little, about 8 years old, my grandma took me to vacation at her sister's house far in the countryside, in a tiny village. She didn't have any electricity or water in the house, so when we had to go, we used a bucket inside for small business (it was emptied after) and an outhouse for big business. The outhouse was unfortunately on the other side of the chicken pen and I got attacked by a rooster one time. :'D My grandma and great aunty made rooster soup the next day...
I'm so interested to learn how people did things before our lives were made so comfortable. It can be very useful.
"Filthy rich." A friend of mine was at a public function and saw a fellow servicing porto potties. Thought to himself, "What a nasty job." Was in traffic later and recognized the fellow driving a Mercedes. Thought to himself again, "Guess it's not all bad."
It's ended up in names in Europe, too. There's a 'Crapper & Sons landfill' in britain, for example.
My employers test samples for their compost, and I've managed not to snicker at their name over the phone so far.
@@Skorpychan "So far." Hahaha!
Could you imagine if there was an alley in London or any other city in England called "Pissing alley", and there would be a shop called "Pisswater" which sells only cheap American beer...
As an American, I am deeply offended that I didn't think of that joke!
Passing alley in the City of London, was originally called Pissing alley.
What many people forget is that there was no shy-pooping. Most of these places had no doors!
Growing up in the bush in Australia - many old farms had an outside thunderbox.
The thing is - the seat was literally over a box that was first given a good layer of ash from the fire.
There was also a bucket with small trowel supplied. That too was filled with ash from the previous night's fire.
That ash would be used to cover the waste. The added advantage being it kept down the smell as well as the blowflies.
this is quite random but I appreciate how you have done the cuts in this, so many creators just use a hard transition and incorrect timing in between words and it's very jarring, but with this soft transition and your excellent placement of cut, the flow of your speech has been preserved. If I wasn't watching the screen I wouldn't even know there were cuts. Thank you, good job! Also interesting video thank you!! 💩
So some things never change: The condition of the facilities can suggest the quality of the establishment lol
here we go learning about medieval lifestyles again. lets gooo
Would you rather have Miss Frizzle? 😂
My neighbor recently talked to me about how life was when he was a child. They would have a sort of an outhouse where they would do their business, or in the woods. The outhouse would also use the excrements for the fields as fertilizer. During the winter time they would have a piss pot inside under their bed if they needed to do number 1 in the night. If they needed to do number 2 in the cold night he would go out to the cows and poo there since it was a lot warmer and already smelled like poo. Obviously not medieval times but things weren't very different when you don't have electrcity or running water.
the production value of his intro always never ceazes to amaze me
Never thought that one of the quickest videos I clicked to would be about toilets but here we are:)
Same
This reminds me of years ago when visiting Hadrian's Wall. Back in the day, apparently there was a huge public toilet there, and now they have a picture of how it was probably used at the time, including people using sponges and I believe buckets filled with vinegar. When visiting the ruins of castles across England and Wales I always enjoyed seeing the toilets and imagining what that would be like, and of course being thankful that it's not our current reality, here in Los Angeles anyway!
I had heard of the use of sponges tied to sticks. Could never understand how that could be hygienic. So, vinegar makes an awful lot of sense! Thank you.
@@monicatombers4543 those brushes were shared
So to San Franciscoand it is, shit and used needles fill many downtown streets
Oh no in Los Angeles you just poop on the sidewalk
Jason is like the super cool uncle with long hair you only get to see once every 5 years during childhood who know a lot of cool facts about everything and just enchants you with knowledge lol
Time team discussed this with at least one of their digs, and I remember them discussing the issues of water circulation and clearing waste. If your moat were set up for episodic flushes via careful handling of the available water (hydraulic engineering was quite possible from the Roman era onward) moats needn’t have been constantly contaminated with human waste.
They were often plumbed into a river or stream to provide the water, and some degree of flushing.
I am going to sleep now...."how medieval people used the 'bathroom' " ...I don't need sleep, I need answers
This is my favorite UA-cam channel. I hope they don’t ever feel like they’ve run out of subjects to discuss. I’d happily watch more videos revisiting old topics in greater depth.
I know you said that garderobe's no longer smell but in my travels around the castles in the UK I have to say I do remember there still being an odor about them.
Imagine if his company made an ultra realistic medieval simulator game, or even a fantasy game but made with historical accuracy in mind like his Percival short film, that'd be amazing
Absolutely love your videos, especially ones like this about the more mundane topics. This channel really did springboard my interest in medieval history a few years back when I first came across it, thanks very much for that.
I was wondering if you would be able to tell us about some of your experiences with jousting/re-enactment or if you have any plans to document future events like these once they are allowed to run?
I think it would make great content
glad our work could inspire you. Yes I'm planning a video on jousting some time.
Next episode: How the medieval people cleaned themselves after the process.
There's only so far down these rabbit holes that we need, and good taste should allow that we are permitted, to go...
A sponge on a stick, wet with vinegar if you were Roman.
@@movinon1242 It's the foundation, so to speak, of the lived experiences of the people.
You bathe in the moat. Obviously.
You're assuming of course that they DID.
That was both hilarious and informative in equal measure!
Fun fact: the German word "Garderobe" means wardrobe or cloakroom. This is surely no coincidence.
It's from French meaning to guard/hold/store clothes. They were called garderobes because you used them as wardrobes.
When camping we call it a thunder bucket because of the nice thud it makes.
Er ... I think there is a different reason!
In German "Donnerbalken" (thunder beam) is the wooden beam you sit on over a cesspit. I never thought about why it's called that, but your explanation makes sense ^^
@@Quallenkrauler thanks for telling me, that's funny!
But what about wiping? Bedpans, night buckets, or even squatting over a hole surely would leave a mess of gooey feces on the butt. Did they just tuck that back in their clothes for epic skid marks? Would they scrape it out by hand? How to wash after, then?
A stick with a sponge tied on it with a bucket of vinegar to rinse off with 💩🤯
I once visited a ruined medieval castle in the woods near Vienna (Burgruine Rauhenstein) and we found a garderobe in one of the stone walls! You could even see a dark stain on the exterior wall if you looked through the hole, lol.
I bought a leather bag for my girlfriend whilst in Morocco years ago, it seemed like a really good deal. But when it came back to the UK with the increase in humidity it made the whole house stink of urine.
..spent time in Indian backwaters, there's nothing you can tell me more awful than the things I've seen and smelt
interestingly, the oldest flushing toilets that archaeologists have found were in the Indus Valley, dating back to around 2500 BCE.
@@TheGeekyHippie So what you are saying is that they have evolved backwards?
Burnley?
@@danielwilson5102 yup and they're bringing that to the rest of the world!
@@danielwilson5102 poverty and squalor, with a sprinkle of colonialism for taste
Glad to see a new video ! You're a very inspiring person, thank you so much for blessing us with such great content. Stay positive man !
Thank you! Will do!
This is one of those things that we always wonder about but never dare to ask. Nicely done. Thank you!
Nasty moats were another layer of protection for the castle.
The Swedish word for wardrobe is “garderob”. :D
@UCKg5ekm-lZFRl2JlfSV7d9w interesting! Now I had to look up the words origin. Seems to come from old French “garderobe” meaning wardrobe, alcove or dressing room. My guess is that we in the Scandinavia took that third meaning and that morphed in different directions for Swedish and Norwegian. Just guessing. But seems to make sense. :)
in German the word "Gardrobe" means clothing
In french is garde-robes
The Dutch word is "garderobe" as well :P
interesting, same in Bulgarian
“Piss of a ginger boy” has “gamer girl pee” vibes.
This reminded me of the song "A Day in the Life of a Gong Farmer" from the game Stronghold 2. It plays a lot more jolly than a real gong farmer's life would be :D
Love these videos of ordinary medieval life. Don't get me wrong, swords and armour are cool, but these little windows into the lives of our medieval past are fascinating and thought provoking.
The resourcefulness of these people never ceases to amaze me.
Outlander had a fun moment when Claire was able to connect with the local women as they did the laundry (kilts and such) around a table, pouring the piss over the cloth. Interesting topic!
Oh yes--I remember that scene. That was common practice back in the day...great source of ammonia.
They were fulling the freshly woven wool cloth. The action makes the cloth thicker and so stronger (by minor felting). It is called "waulking the wool".
See WaulkingTheTweed 2013 ua-cam.com/video/XSjToW-m2wo/v-deo.html
@@bcase5328 I believe it is pronounced "walking", but is in fact spelled "Wauking"!
@@m.maclellan7147 I typoed
@@bcase5328 If you need to edit what you've just written, just touch the three vertical dots to the right and low, and a little window will offer the choice of editing it. Then retype what you need to repair, and hit the "Send" arrow as usual.
I want to see an overflowing cesspit as a plot device in a fantasy story.
Collection of toilet solids should be reestablished as it would be environmental. Your information has smashed that idea that people emptied their doings out the window onto the street which I remember hearing as a child when we did the Middle Ages. People are in all ages aware of hygiene, and how things work to their benefit then they are given credit for, probably due to those who wrote history as looking down on those of lower social status and ascribing lower vales to their lives and ethics.
I know in some rural areas where outhouses are still a thing, folks pour chalk or some other white powder over the shithole to cover the smell and make it less unsightly. Could they have done something similar back then to not ruin the whitewashed castle walls, or would that have been too rich and expensive?
That was very educational! And it made me appreciate my indoor plumbing more..😂
You don't want one of those filthy indoor tiolets - keep it outside!
OK, it's a Blackadder joke but you can see how it could be a reasonable opinion at the time, after watching this video.
@@dcarbs2979 😂😂😂😂 I love Blackadder!!!
Slaked technical lime can be used as a disinfectant/agent, in compost and in latrines and you have no smell. A bucket with a little shovel after each visit.. They knew that since ancient times.
My mother (now 96) grew up on a farm in northern Minnesota. She said the outhouse never smelled because they threw in a little lime after each use, and her mother would scrub it once a week. Still, using an outhouse in northern Minnesota during the winter doesn’t sound pleasant.
Interrupted by commercial for "bladder control" underwear. Well done, YT algorithms, well done.
Urine was used to clean because it eventually turns into Ammonia (not that they understood the chemistry, people simply observed the effect and found it useful), a modern day chemical used in cleaning. When exposed to air for extensive time (days or weeks) the urea in urine will convert to ammonia, making it an excellent way to clean clothes etc.
@Alfreds Pariah 99% of human science prior to the microscope was observational science and almost always accidental. There's a myriad of ways someone discovered this: i.e. someone left out a bucket of piss from the previous night and forgot to pour it out. They got mud all over their clothes from working in the field but was too tired to walk to the river or well to get water to wash it out - so they washed it with the left over piss they had from earlier, only now it had begun to turn into amonia and they noticed it cleaned the mud off better than water did. Things were accidental, people just stumbled into science most of the time.. and most of the time they didn't understand WHY something worked, just that it did.
Ah yes, I remember my care-free youth in Shiteshire, just south of Pissburg...
In other words... medieval times were a nightmare. So grateful for modern plumbing.
Oh and another form of removing waste was to have it set over a pig pen. This was done is Europe and Asia. The "Exploring the Medieval Farmer" Facebook group gave this passage,
"Codex Aabonensis · Swine ate feces. The scroll say "I am shitting, get the pig away from me". It is concerning the law that if a traveller is pooping in the tavern and gets his John Thomas bitten off, it is his concern."
Sometimes pooping was a very dangerous affair.
I'm higher than an f22 pilot's ballsack and that passage made me spew coffee!