Daily Life in the Middle Ages by Paul B. Newman

Author:Paul B. Newman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2012-04-02T16:00:00+00:00

PRIVATE HOMES

By the 13th century, private houses in the larger, more prosperous cities that had sophisticated municipal water supplies did have running water in the form of a single pipe, often no larger than a modern drinking straw in diameter, capped by a faucet. Not surprisingly, throughout the Middle Ages, homes in towns or on the farm did not have this amenity. As would be the case until the 19th century when “indoor plumbing” became more common, farmers, townsfolk, and many urbanites took buckets, tubs, and waterskins to the nearest spring, river, well, or—if in the city—public fountain, filled them and lugged them home (a wearying task that ensured most consumers used the water sparingly). For sewage disposal, farmhouses and houses in small towns often had outhouses at a discreet distance from them. Houses in cities also frequently had outhouses out in their backyards or had facilities indoors with pipes to drain the waste to the cesspit out back. Public toilets were also a common feature in most cities. Scattered around the city, these toilets were used by people passing through the area as well as by permanent residents whose houses may have lacked private facilities. Supplementing these methods, chamber pots or buckets must have been used in tenements and other places where several households shared a single building which did not have adequate facilities, though pots and buckets were likely used in any of the other settings too, at night, when the weather was bad, or any other time the more permanent toilet facilities seemed too distant.

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