About History: Berserkers

Background

The Viking Age [1], as it is popularly called, is commonly said, in Britain at least, to have begun with the raid on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne on 8th June 793 and ended with the unsuccessful invasion of northern England in September 1066. For roughly three centuries European history was transformed as Norse seafarers, warriors, and merchants left their mark on the mediæval world.

Originating from the Scandinavian regions of present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the Vikings [2] were masterful shipbuilders and navigators. The shallow draft and versatile design of their longships enabled them to traverse both open seas and rivers, allowing them to penetrate deep into continental Europe, reaching as far as the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and North America. Popular culture tends to focus on their reputation as fearsome raiders, but the Norse (or Rus) were also skilled traders, craftsmen, and settlers. They established trading networks that stretched from the Arctic to Constantinople, dealing in goods such as furs, slaves, ivory, and precious metals. Their settlements grew into significant urban centres, with cities like Dublin, York, and Kyiv owing their development to Scandinavian influence. In many regions, including Britain, Danes, Norwegians and Swedes integrated with local populations, adopting and adapting to local customs while maintaining elements of their Norse culture.

Going berserk!

While this all sounds peaceful and almost idyllic, it was a violent period and the Viking’s formidable reputation as warriors had good reason. Into this arena step the berserkers (Old Norse: berserker, sing. berserkr) of Norse history and mythology. These enigmatic warriors were renowned for fighting in an uncontrollable, trance-like fury known as berserkergang (“berserker rage”). Characterized by superhuman strength, apparent immunity to pain and fire, and a complete dissociation from normal behaviour, berserkers inspired terror in their enemies. Warriors in this state were said to bite their shields, howl like wild animals, and attack friend and foe alike with unstoppable ferocity. Some scholars propose that certain examples of berserker rage had been induced voluntarily by the consumption of drugs, such as hallucinogenic mushrooms, or massive amounts of alcohol. The evidence is scant, and the hypothesis is much debated. Yet, the discovery of seeds belonging to black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) in a Viking grave near Fyrkat, Denmark in 1977 lends some support to the theory. The intoxication caused by Hyoscyamus niger is similar to the symptoms ascribed to berserkergang suggesting it could have been used to induce their warlike state. Alternatively, epilepsy or mental illness have also been offered as explanations, as has the hypothesis that the physical manifestations of berserker rage was a form of self-induced hysteria.

This may not so far-fetched as warriors have screamed (“howled”?) or yelled at their enemy or crashed weapons against shields to intimidate their opponents while excising their own fear before battle. Consider for example the Māori Haka which, among other ceremonial functions, is popularly associated with intimidating adversaries in preparation for battle [3]. Much like the berserkergang, the “ríastrad” was the battle frenzy that transformed the Irish hero Cú Chulainn into a fearsome warrior. Sometimes translated as “warp spasm”, it contorted Cú Chulainn’s body with rage turning him into an unstoppable force that would kill friend or foe alike.

What’s in a name?

Archaeological evidence and historical accounts, including the sagas and skaldic poetry, describe berserkers fighting without armour. This has led some to translate berserkr as “bare of shirt”, where “shirt” refers to the mail-shirt, or byrnie, popularly worn at the time. However, the name berserkr likely derives from the informal Old Norse word bera (“bear”) and serkr (“shirt”), which has been interpreted as they wore bear or wolf pelts into battle. The association with animal hides connects to a wider belief that berserkers could take on the characteristics of wild animals, particularly bears and wolves, during their frenzied states. Indeed, the Vatnsdæla saga, the Haraldskvæði and the Grettis saga all refer to warriors wearing the skins of wolves called ulfheðnar (“wolf-skin-ers” or possibly “wolf-heathens”; singular ulfheðinn). They are consistently mentioned as a group of berserkers and always presented as the elite following of the first Norwegian king Harald Fairhair. They were said to wear the pelt of a wolf over their chainmail when they entered battle and thus were not “bare of shirt”. Unlike berserker, however, direct references to ulfheðnar are scant.

Berserkers, on the other hand, served important roles in Norse society beyond their battlefield prowess. They often acted as elite guard units for kings and chieftains, with historical accounts mentioning them serving in the personal retinues of various Scandinavian rulers. Their presence was seen as both a military asset and a status symbol, although their unpredictable nature perhaps made them dangerous allies even to their own leaders. Yet, the cultural significance of berserkers extended beyond their military function. In Norse mythology, they were sometimes associated with the cult of Odin, the god of war and death. This connection makes sense given Odin's aspects as a god of battle frenzy and ecstatic states.

Bon appétit!

Reference:

Hansley, C.K., (2019), “The First Reported Contact Between Britain and Vikings”, The Historian’s Hut, available online (accessed 27th May 2025).

Endnotes:

1. The anonymous author of the early sections of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was the first known source to write about a Viking raid in Britain. In the entry for the Anglo-Saxon year AD 787 (often equated by modern historians to year AD 789), it was reported that three ships of “Northmen” arrived near the Kingdom of Wessex from the so-called “Hæretha Lands,” or the land of robbers. Four years later, in AD 793, Vikings raided the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, looting the sanctuary and killing some of the monks. This act horrified not only Anglo-Saxon England but European Christendom but presaged many future raids.

2. The term “Viking” is popularly used to denote the people of Denmark, Norway and Sweden during the 8th- to 11th-centuries. To call all these people “Vikings”, however, is a mistake as the name does not really describe the distinct tribes, groups or communities of the Early Mediæval Period. Click here to discover more.

3. Haka have been traditionally performed by both men and women for a variety of social functions within Māori culture. While the war dance (peruperu) holds sway in the popular imagination, haka are also performed to welcome distinguished guests (haka pōwhiri), to acknowledge great achievements, as a way of giving advice or instructions (waiata tohutohu), restoring self-respect (pātere), transmitting social and political messages (haka taparahi, ngeri), or as a fare-well or mourning of the deceased (waiata tangi).

Despite the best efforts of historians, the internet is still awash with misconceptions about the Middle Ages. Many of these ideas were the product of Victorian writers and historians reflecting Medieval life through the lens of their own society, as was done by antiquarians before them and by historians since. However, after more than a century in popular culture, and being taught in schools, these sometimes broad, sweeping assertions remain deeply rooted in everyday consciousness. This is especially so when repeatedly reinforced online, in social media, on television and in the movies. Before addressing one such notion, it is worth remembering that the Mediæval period lasted roughly 1,000 years during which peoples’ lives and experiences varied according to time, place and circumstance. So, with that in mind, did Mediæval people really not bathe?

Common people never wash  

Medieval people cared a lot about hygiene and washed, often daily - even peasants, farmers and the poor. All were advised to change their underwear daily and virtually every household account book records payment to washerwomen. So, while it is true that some sources tell us that people rarely took a bath, but it would be quite wrong to assume they did not wash; taking a bath is not the same as washing. The reason behind the disparity is largely one of logistics and finance. Bathing would have involved filling a big wooden tub with hot water, which meant boiling a large volume of water over an open fire necessitating an expenditure in terms of the fuel burnt and the time taken. The hot water would have to be carried and emptied into the tub, which may have been lined with fabric perhaps to guard against splinters or the rough surface of the wood. The use of scented herbs or soap only added to the financial outlay. Thus, bathing in the Mediaeval period took a great deal of time and effort, was a costly enterprise for most, and nowhere near as easy as it is today. Far easier would be to use less hot water in a bucket, bowl or a sitz bath (otherwise known as a hip bath), a smaller tub that one could sit in but did not allow for complete submersion. Admittedly, firewood still needed to be burnt to heat water, but fires were already burning for much of the day in almost every household for warmth, light and food. Hot water could be produced by simply placing an earthenware jug or metal cauldron next to or over the fire. Alternatively, a far older method of heating rocks in the fireplace which could be place into the water to produce hot water in seconds. So, a big fancy bath was a luxury most could not afford but washing with water from a basin or bucket, bathing in a hip bath or immersing oneself in a pond or river was available to everyone.

Bathhouses

While communal or public bathhouses are synonymous with the ancient Romans, they were also common and very popular in Mediæval Europe. For example, London in the 13th-century is known to have had 13 bathing establishments, albeit far fewer than the 32 recorded in contemporary Paris. In the 14th-century, Augsburg and Vienna had 17 and 29 bathing establishments respectively, while in the following century Nürnberg is noted for having fourteen. That said, it is not always clear what sort of establishments these places were. It is unlikely that taverns with bathing facilities, small bathhouses or private baths were counted in the totals. It is much more likely, however, that the records are concerned with large public bathhouses.

There was a very good reason why the mediæval forerunners of the aforementioned cities, and our modern capitals, were sited near a clean water supply. As the 15th-century architect Leon Battista Alberti noted: “a city required a large amount of water not only for drinking, but also for washing, for gardens, tanners and fullers, and drains, and in case of sudden outbreak of fire, the best should be reserved for drinking, and the remainder distributed according to need” [1].

A plumb job  Water distribution via indoor plumbing was rare in Mediæval Europe, but many royal palaces, monasteries, abbeys and the houses of the wealthy had running water together with the means to remove waste. In Britain, much of the work of the Worshipful Company of Plumbers, founded in the 14th-century, involved installing, repairing and maintaining urban conduit pipes. Bath, Bristol, Coventry, Dartmouth, Exeter, Frome, Gloucester, Lichfield, Lincoln, Ludlow, Newcastle, Petworth, Richmond, Southampton, Stamford, Totnes, and a host of other continental towns and cities all had networks of tunnels and pipes to transport and distribute fresh water. In 1237, for example, the City of London acquired the springs of the Tyburn and constructed a small reservoir to help serve the city with a steady, free-flowing water supply. Eight years later work began on the Great Conduit, a man-made underground channel that brought drinking water from the Tyburn to Cheapside in the City. Londoners were at liberty to draw water, although wardens were appointed to stop them taking too much, prevent the unpermitted taking or diversion of the supply, and to repair pipes. Those with the financial means could request extra pipes be connected to their home or, in the case of brewers, cooks, fishmongers, and so on, their place of work.

Spend a penny  It is fairly evident that Mediæval Europeans wanted to bathe. Most castles, monasteries, and houses of the urban elites had private bathhouses or bathrooms. For the commonfolk, just as it had been for the ancient Romans, with work completed then a trip to the local bathhouse was a social occasion where one could get clean while catching up on the gossip. As further evidence that personal hygiene was taken seriously, in some towns those who did not visit a public bath at least once a week could be fined.

Public bathhouses existed in nearly every mediæval city from the 12th-century onward. Permission to operate a bathhouse was granted by the local authorities, as was the entry price and opening times. Most it seems were open at least three days per week, Saturday being the most popular as it marked the end of the working week, while bathhouses were usually closed on Sunday undoubtedly to encourage church attendance. It seems likely that the remaining days in the week were used for cleaning the bathhouse, getting enough wood for the fires, and producing soap.

In some countries employees might be paid a clothing, drinking and bathing allowance in addition to a salary. In 14th-century Rochsburg, for example, accounts reveal the town’s stonemasons receiving 6 pennies a week as “Badegeld” (bathing money or bath tokens). Records from the city of Bamberg (“Bamberger Baderordnung”) reveal that, in 1480, a peasant had to pay 1 Heller (the smallest denomination coin worth ½ a pfennig) to partake of a steam bath in one of the public bathhouses. Naturally fees varied across the Mediæval period and according to region, individual bathhouses, what service(s) the bather desired, and on their social status. Wealthy citizens of Bamburg paid double (1 Pfennig) for a “schwitzbad” (steam bath), while immersing yourself in a tub (“wannenbad”) cost 6 Pfennige, for example. Overall, visiting a bathhouse was affordable for most people less the extremely impoverished. Even so, measures were taken for the poor to bathe for free on certain days, sponsored by the wealthy or the church. 

More rural communities might not have had ready access to a bathhouse, yet people still washed daily. Bathing and laundry might be conducted in a nearby lake, millpond, stream or river although this was not without risk. In 2015 Professor Suzannah Lipscombe demonstrated how water was one of the “Hidden Killers” in Tudor England causing many an unfortunate drowning (right). Indeed, surviving coroners’ reports from the period suggest it was all too easy to fall into the water with potentially lethal consequences. Some may know or have experienced the effect of cold water immersion causing a completely involuntary sudden intake of air. Were the person to be underwater at that moment, they will breathe in cold water and as it hits the larynx, the resulting spasm will cause the individual to suffocate. Even in relatively mild weather the temperature of a river can induce cold water shock leaving a person gasping for air and hyperventilating. Moreover, water takes heat away from your body twenty-five times more quickly than air at the same temperature. Thus, as body heat is rapidly lost, vasoconstriction narrows or constricts the blood vessels to conserve heat, but this increases blood pressure while decreasing blood flow to specific tissues or organs. If the heart does not receive enough oxygen for the muscles to continue pumping, then cardiac arrest occurs.

As well as the cold and shock it would be difficult to keep one’s balance. Voluminous clothing might drag or snag on submerged objects, and any current might act to further unbalance the person or pull them underwater. Getting out is made even more difficult as woollen clothing becomes waterlogged and heavy, a direct result of wool’s structure having two internal layers. While the outer layer is moisture, dirt and stain repellent, the inner layer is uniquely good at absorbing water. In fact wool can absorb more moisture than any other fibre before becoming saturated - up to 1½ times its dry weight. Clothing becomes much heavier hampering any escape from the river’s clutches.

Extras?  Mediæval bathhouses were not brothels. Once again from Bamberg we know that prostitutes and children who still needed breastfeeding were not allowed in the city’s public bathhouses. Furthermore, travellers visiting a local bathhouse sometimes reported their disappointment at the appropriate and modest behaviour within. Yet, municipal authorities understood, with men and women stripping off to relax with a drink in the hot water of a bath, things could get a little risqué. Accordingly, in many regions there were very strict laws about keeping men and women segregated either in separate bathhouses or at different times of the day. Any man caught sneaking into the women’s bathhouse risked severe punishment. We should remember, and not be drawn into salacious gossip, that Mediæval bathhouses were an important place of social gathering for communities and neighbourhoods. Townsfolk visited them together with their entire family. So, with grandparents, parents, children, infants and even the neighbours all potentially present, having a naughty encounter with someone was not at all easy.

Barring prostitutes from most bathhouses did not necessarily curtail illicit behaviour, however. Human nature has meant that from the earliest times bathhouses and brothels have often been synonymous. Contrary to some popular misconceptions, Mediæval church authorities recognised this but did not object to people bathing. The fear of debauchery and sin encouraged the church’s objections but not an outright ban. While it was true that some may have forsaken bathing and other pleasures as a penance, the church remained keen to ensure its flock was free from sin. In practice this meant the church disapproved of sloth, vanity, and ideas that people should frequent baths for hours purely for pleasure. So, while Pope Gregory the Great (ca. AD  540 – AD 604) recommended Sunday baths, he also warned against them becoming a “time-wasting luxury”. Any supposed “anti-bathing policy” is further undermined when one considers washing has a central role in Christian beliefs. From Mary bathing Jesus to Jesus washing the feet of the poor and saints bathing the sick, keeping clean was a virtue. And if that was not enough, some churches even ran their own bathhouses to keep people from bathing and sinning at the same time.

Hotbed of disease

In 1347, and not for the first time, plague struck Europe. Now known as the Black Death, this bubonic plague pandemic, occurring from 1346 to 1353, was one of the most fatal in human history. As many as 50 million people may have perished; perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th-century population. Unsurprisingly, with a highly contagious disease killing millions, people started to avoid bathhouses. Fearful of getting sick from a touch or even breathing the same air, no one wanted to get in a tub with some strangers or visit other busy public places. When plague struck again, the Dutch philosopher Erasmus wrote in AD 1526:

“Twenty-five years ago, nothing was more fashionable in Brabant than the public baths. Today there are none…the new plague has taught us to avoid them.”

The various waves of plague shifted the focus for hygiene among some people from washing their body to washing their clothes. The fear that hot water would open the skin’s pores and permit infection drove some to wash and bathe less frequently. Greater effort, however, went into changing their underclothes more regularly and washing them routinely. We should not assume that people stopped washing all together - many simply used a fresh cloth and cold water to rub themselves clean. But such a change in behaviour might explain why mention of fully immersive and public bathing waned at this time. It is also possible that awareness of the declining use of bathhouses in the period, coupled with reading how people bathed less often, fuelled the common and persistent misunderstanding that mediæval people were filthy and never washed. 

Soap

Iron Age  No bathing practice would be complete without some form of soap, which had been used in Europe for thousands of years. The Gauls, Germans and other northern European Iron Age tribes are all known to have manufactured and used soap before the Roman era. The Romans themselves eschewed soap in favour of oils to clean their bodies, but they appear to have been very impressed with what they found as they conquered northwestern Europe. According to Aelius Galenus (anglicised as Galen or Galen of Pergamon), a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire (AD 129 to ca. AD  200/ 216), German soap was regarded as the best. Even earlier Gaius Julius Caesar, Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Publius Cornelius Tacitus and the Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia all wrote about German tribespeople using soap, bathing and generally caring about their hygiene:

• In Chapter 21 of Book VI of De Bello Gallico, written between 58 and 49 BC, Caesar notes that the Germans “bathe promiscuously in the rivers”.

• Over a century later Pliny the Elder records in Chapter 47 of Book XXVIII of Naturalis Historia (“Natural History”) that: “Soap too, is very useful for this purpose, an invention of the Gauls for giving a reddish tint to the hair. This substance is prepared from tallow [2] and ashes, the best ashes for the purpose being those of the beech and yoke-elm: there are two kinds of it, the hard soap and the liquid, both of them much used by the people of Germany, the men, in particular, more than the women.”

• In Chapter XXII of his work De origine et situ Germanorum (“On the Origin and Situation of the Germans”), written around AD 98, Tacitus provides a general description of the Germanic peoples that includes the observation: “As soon as they wake up, usually late, they wash themselves oftentimes with warm water like those accustomed to a prolonged winter.”

• In Book II of his De curatione diuturnorum morborum (“On the cure of chronic disease”), written ca. 2nd-century AD, Aretaeus of Cappadocia notes “There are many other medicines…of the Celts, which are men called Gauls, those alkaline substances made into balls, with which they cleanse their clothes, called soap, with which it is a very excellent thing to cleanse the body in the bath.”

Pliny the Elder’s comment about soap giving a reddish tint to Gallic hair is probably an example of his misunderstanding or, in true Plinian style, a complete fabrication. The combination of tallow and ash is unlikely to produce any form of hair dye, but it does imply that soap was being used to clean hair. However reliable Pliny might or might not be, it is interesting that he mentions both hard and liquid soaps. Might this suggest different uses? Determining whether soap was being used to cleanse the body or hair, to launder clothing as a degreaser, as a general cleaning agent, or for medical purposes is difficult to establish as the historical sources can be somewhat vague. Moreover, errors in translation and transcription over time can cast a shadow on a manuscript’s reliability. For example, while Zosimos of Panopolis described both soap and the process of making it circa AD 300, most of his work only survives in later translations and compilations meaning we cannot be 100% certain it is indeed Zosimos’ work. Regardless, in typical Roman style, soap was widely traded across the Empire and as already mentioned, that from Germania was considered of uniquely high-quality by scholars in Egypt, Rome, and Palestine.

Iberian Golden Age  The Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula ca. AD 711 to AD 720s, also known as the Arab conquest of Spain, resulted in the end of Christian rule in most of Iberia and the establishment of Muslim Arab-Moorish rule in that territory, which became known as al-Andalus under the Umayyad dynasty. Among the many benefits introduced by the Moors were new types of hard soap of a higher quality. In the very south of Europe, and more so in the Middle East and Northern Africa, soaps with ingredients like olive oil and aromatic herbs soon replaced local versions made with tallow. Initially these oil-based soaps were more expensive because of transporting the ingredients but as trade links stabilised and improved, Europeans quickly started importing the oil to make their own soap. The soap industry became a massive enterprise across Mediæval Europe which soon saw the establishment of Guilds for the skilled men and women involved in its production and trade. Naples had a soap maker’s guild from the 6th-century, and France a century later. At a more local level, many people grew plants like the native European Saponaria officinalis, better known as common Soapwort, in their gardens. The plant contains saponins from which a liquid soap can be produced by soaking the leaves in water.

The authentic Mediæval experience

Having hopefully dispelled some of the myths while showing that personal hygiene was taken seriously, what would a Mediæval person smell like? From Tastes Of History’s plentiful experience delivering our cooking demonstrations, the short answer is…smoke. Every household relied on woodfires to produce warmth, and light in their homes and for cooking. The smoke from such fires is inescapable especially in an era before chimneys were commonplace and where fumes were left to ascend to the roof and filter out through the thatch. Smoke impregnates woollen clothing and hair, even if a head-covering is worn. So, whether someone washed every day or not, used soap, deodorant or perfume (for those who could afford such luxuries), the Mediæval world smelt of smoke.

As for body odour, once again our practical experience has repeatedly shown that linen undergarments are excellent at absorbing and neutralising odours. Linen’s anti-bacterial qualities make it especially good at dealing with sweat, and simply cleaning your body with a linen rag or cloth is also remarkably effective. 

In summary

Throughout history people have taken steps to keep themselves clean and healthy. While fully immersive bathing in a hot tub was far more problematic than now, the average Mediæval person washed daily. From the time of the ancient Romans through the Middle Ages public bathhouses were available, and affordable, in many European towns and cities. Similarly, another myth concerning access to clean water is disproved by the engineering efforts undertaken to supply urban centres with water. Mediæval Europeans made full use of soap, detergents, deodorants and perfumes to ensure their bodies and their clothes smelt clean and fresh. In short, people in the past were much like us, so do not fall for the outdated trope that the Middle Ages was any dirtier and more malodorous than today. Bon appétit!

This article was very much inspired by the work of Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, The Fake History Hunter. Her book ”Fake History: 101 things that never happened” is a fascinating myth-busting read that debunks 101 things that many people think happened but never did. Her mission to take down fake history and reclaim the truth is humorous, enjoyable and highly recommended reading.

References:

Gaius Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico, Liber VI, 21, available online (accessed 12th May 2025). 

Gaius Plinius Secundus, Natualis Historia, Liber XXVIII, 47, trans Mayhoff, K.F.T., (1906), Leipzig: Teubner, available online (accessed 12th May 2025).

Publius Cornelius Tacitus, De origine et situ Germanorum, 21, trans. Bozzi, L., (2005), available online (accessed 12th May 2025).

Endnotes:

1. “Did people drink water in the Middle Ages?”, Medievalist.net, available online (accessed 17th April 2021).

About History: Crime and punishment in Merry Ol' England

“Lucy Worsley Investigates” is a BBC television series where the eponymous historian, author and presenter examines the mysteries surrounding some of the most infamous and brutal chapters in British history. All eight episodes from the two series so far aired are available on BBC iPlayer. As part of the pre-broadcast publicity, however, Dr Worsley wrote an article for the January 2025 edition of BBC History magazine concerning the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The conspiracy involved disaffected Catholics attempting to blow up the English parliament to kill King James I (and VI), his ministers and potentially hundreds if not thousands of people in the vicinity of Whitehall becoming collateral damage. Suffice to say the plot failed as it was discovered (almost at the last minute), and the leading conspirators were either killed or, after their capture, brutally executed for high treason.

In explaining how Robert Catesby, the ringleader, became so radicalised to devise the plot, Dr Worsley wrote:

“His journey towards radicalisation could have begun as early as 1586, when he may have witnessed the appalling public execution of a York woman, Margaret Clitherow. Having been caught sheltering priests of the outlawed Catholic faith, she was crushed to death with heavy weights.” (Worsley, 2025, 42)

Aside from the gruesome nature of Margaret’s death, and unless very much mistaken, what was being described was not necessarily a public execution per se. Rather, Margaret was being “pressed”. But before explaining the subtle difference, it is worth examining the background and history of England’s legal system.

Trial  Criminal cases in England at the beginning of the 13th-century could be tried either by ordeal or by judicial combat (although the latter was not available to women or those accused by the community). In “trial by ordeal” the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by subjecting them to a painful, potentially injurious test. A popular version was heating an iron (a rod, bar or something similar) which the accused then had to grasp and carry a distance of nine feet. Although not a great distance, and one that could be covered in seconds, the red hot metal would undoubtedly burn the accused’s hand. The injury would be dressed and roughly three days later inspected. If the accused’s hand was blistered or burnt, then they were presumed guilty. If, in a “judgement of God” (Latin: judicium Dei, Old English: Godes dom), the accused was uninjured or healed, then it was presumed God had intervened to save the innocent person by performing a miracle on their behalf. A similar “judgement of God” was assumed in trials by judicial combat where the innocent would prevail while the guilty would be killed.

In 1215, however, the Fourth Lateran Council [1] forbade the clergy from participating in trials by ordeal effectively curtailing the practice. The problem thus created for England’s legal system was solved by allowing the accused to submit to trial by jury as an alternative to trial by combat. As trial by judicial combat remained a (theoretical) option, the accused could not be forced into a jury trial. Instead, they had to voluntarily submit to it by entering a plea seeking judgment from the court. If no plea was offered, then the accused would be remanded back to prison.

Obviously, a criminal justice system that could only punish those who had volunteered for possible punishment was unworkable. So, a means was needed to coerce the accused into entering a plea. To resolve the problem King Edward I gave Royal Assent to the Statute of Westminster in 1275 within which the “Standing Mute Act 1275” provided:

“That notorious Felons, which openly be of evil name, and will not put themselves in Enquests of Felonies that Men shall charge them with before the Justices at the King's suit, shall have strong and hard Imprisonment (prison forte et dure), as they which refuse to stand to the common Law of the Land: But this is not to be understood of such prisoners as be taken of light suspicion.”

The words “prison forte et dure” meant those refusing to offer a plea would be subject to a harsh prison regime and a meagre diet. Thus, the accused were incarcerated:

“[I]n the worst place in the prison, upon the bare ground continually, night and day; that they eat only bread made of barley or bran, and that they drink not the day they eat...”

By the 1300s the words of the statute had been corrupted to “peine forte et dure” meaning “forceful and hard punishment”. Under the revised provisions those who “stood mute” would be “pressed” until they volunteered a plea of guilty or not guilty. In effect “pressing” became the only instance in which anything like torture was recognised in English common law. A defendant being “pressed” would have a plank or board placed on their chest to which heavier and heavier weights or stones would be added until a plea was entered. The practice was recorded by a 15th-century witness and published in “Tait's Edinburgh Magazine”, dated 11 May 1851:

“…he will lie upon his back, with his head covered and his feet, and one arm will be drawn to one quarter of the house with a cord, and the other arm to another quarter, and in the same manner it will be done with his legs; and let there be laid upon his body iron and stone, as much as he can bear, or more...”

Of course, if the weight of the stones on the chest became too great, those condemned would be unable to breathe, suffocate and die. In such circumstances, “pressing to death” might take several days, but not necessarily with a continued increase in the load. Yet despite the gruesome nature of this punishment many defendants charged with capital offences nonetheless refused to plead so they could escape forfeiture of property thereby allowing their heirs to still inherit their estate. For those who pleaded guilty and were summarily executed, their heirs would inherit nothing, and any property would be escheated [2] to the Crown. Although the last known use of peine forte et dure was in 1741, it was formerly abolished in Great Britain in 1772. In that year it was judged that refusing to enter a plea was the equivalent of pleading guilty. A change to the law in 1827, however, deemed the accused’s silence to be a plea of not guilty. This change precipitated the practice that continues today in all common-law jurisdictions where standing mute is treated by the courts as equivalent to a plea of not guilty. In other words one is “innocent until proven guilty”.

Tudor crime and punishment  At the time of Margaret Clitherow’s pressing crimes against the person in Tudor England had noticeably increased mirroring a dramatic growth in the population. In concert with the decline of feudal system, where once ordinary folk were compelled to work for their local lord, this larger population led to higher unemployment. Moreover, the end of Feudalism and the adoption of new farming methods led to the widespread enclosures where land was physically fenced off for the exclusive use of the landowner. As more landowners restricted those who could hunt on their land, crimes against property, for example poaching, escalated. The hardships suffered by ever larger number of country folk led many to relocate to urban areas in search of work. This movement of people meant towns and cities were greatly enlarged which, in turn, caused an upsurge of street criminals and petty thieves. To add further pressure to the Tudor criminal justice system, the frequent changes of religion that happened in the period – from Catholic to Protestant and back again - led to a greater number of people being found guilty of heresy and high treason.

As all struggling governments do in such circumstances, the ruling Tudor elite introduced new punishable crimes, namely “vagabondage” and “witchcraft”. A vagabond or vagrant was an unemployed or homeless person. Such people had little choice but to resort to begging, thieving or charity when they could not find work. Viewed as lazy and responsible for their own situation, however, vagabonds were resented by local communities. The late 15th- and 16th-centuries saw a large increase in the number of vagabonds due to diminishing wages, an enlarged population, rising food prices and no system to help the needy. Laws were therefore passed making vagrancy a crime. Oddly this is a perfect example of how the general population can pressure a government to make laws on what they, the public, class as a crime.

Punishments  Despite there being no police force, Tudor laws were harsh and wrongdoing was severely punished. People believed if a criminal’s punishment was severe and painful enough, then the act would not be repeated and others also would be deterred from a life of crime. In 1494, for example, Henry VII signed into law the “Vagabonds and Beggars Act”. Under its provisions, vagabonds were to be placed in stocks for three days and then sent back to wherever they came from. In the year Henry VIII died, 1547, the “Vagrancy Act” was introduced which meant any able-bodied man without work for three days was to be branded and sold as slave for two years. This situation continued until in 1597 when Queen Elizabeth introduced the “Act for the Relief of the Poor”. This piece of legislation divided vagrants into two categories: the “deserving” - the elderly, sick and disabled, and the “undeserving”, those fit for work. Four years later in 1601, Elizabeth gave royal assent to the “Poor Laws” whereupon the deserving now could be given poor relief by the local parish. In contrast the undeserving were to be branded, whipped, or sent to a correction house.

Margaret martyred  Despite new legislation, the common law courts of Tudor England upheld the earlier idea that they lacked authority over a defendant until he or she had voluntarily submitted to it by entering a plea seeking judgment from the court. This leads us to the most famous case in the United Kingdom, as mentioned by Dr Worsley, namely the prosecution of Margaret Clitherow. On 25th March 1586, in order to avoid a trial in which her own children would have been obliged to give evidence, Margaret refused to plead to the charge of harbouring Catholic priests in her house and was pressed. She died within fifteen minutes under a weight of at least 320 kg (700 lbs). In recognition of her martyrdom, she was canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as Saint Margaret.

The only death by peine forte et dure in American history was that of Giles Corey, an English-born farmer who, alongside his wife Martha, had been accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. After being arrested, Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty so, following English law, he was subjected to pressing. Regrettably Giles Corey died on 19th September 1692 after three days of being crushed. Yet, his steadfast refusal to enter a plea meant his estate passed to his sons instead of being seized by the Massachusetts colonial government.

Mediæval torture implements  As already mentioned, pressing was the only instance in which anything like torture was recognised in English common law. Yet “torture chambers”, replete with gruesome pain inducing implements, feature prominently in Mediæval era movies, exhibitions, some museum collections, and widely available imagery on the internet.

Most so-called Mediæval torture implements, however, were “invented” by febrile minds in the 19th-century to be as gory and abhorrent as possible. Consider the example of the “Iron Maiden”. A fearsome version (pictured) may be seen in the Museo de la Tortura in Toledo, Spain amongst a display of torture devices used in the Spanish Inquisition and other scourges of mediæval Europe. A deceptively simple device, the Iron Maiden is a human-shaped box with incredibly sharp spikes protruding into its interior intended to impale any victim placed inside. As the box was shut the spikes were not long enough to kill a person outright but would, presumably, pierce the victim such that they would bleed out over time experiencing a slow and agonizing death. The only problem with this idea is that the Iron Maiden was never a mediæval torture device. The first written reference to it appeared in the late 1700s, long after the Mediæval period had ended (Harvey, 2023). The German philosopher Johann Philipp Siebenkees wrote about the alleged execution of a coin-forger in 1515 by an iron maiden in the city of Nuremberg, but his tale is a suspected fabrication. Later moralising Victorian authors often strived to make the past look as barbaric as possible in juxtaposition to their own more enlightened times. While there were certainly many wealthier, altruistic Victorian benefactors keen to help the poorest, it is equally evident that some writers happily glossed over exploitative child labour, prostitution, sexually transmitted diseases, poor sanitation and equally poor housing for the most vulnerable, underprivileged members of Victorian society. Much of this suffering was ascribed to loose morals, unchristian values and a work-shy underclass. It seems Mediæval and Tudor notions of punishing vagrancy still endured.

Like the Iron Maiden, the Pear of Anguish was similarly associated with the Middle Ages and the Inquisition. From the example picture above left, it was a sort of speculum supposedly inserted into a body’s orifices and painfully opened by a screw thread. Inconveniently, once again records of such devices do not appear until the middle of the 19th-century. The same is also true of the Rack, pictured above right, which has become synonymous with Mediæval punishment but only one, more recent example of a rack can be traced to the Tower of London in 1447 (Harvey, 2023).

In reality, Mediæval European torture involved much less complex methods. The slow crushing of body parts in screw-operated iron “bone vices” was common for example. A large variety of cruel instruments were used to savagely crush the victim’s head, knee, hand and, most frequently, either the thumb or the naked foot. Such instruments were finely threaded and variously provided with spiked inner surfaces or heated red-hot before their application to the limb to be tortured.

Death penalty common  The common perception is a Mediæval world where gallows or gibbets could be seen everywhere, and where people could be hanged, burned, quartered and horribly tortured for the smallest crimes. Although these punishments did happen, they were not nearly as widespread as is often claimed by sensationalist commentators. Executing someone or imprisoning them cost a community money so other ways were found to punish criminals that were less of a burden on the public purse. In many cases the convicted person was simply ordered to pay a fine which, rather usefully, generated income for the community while costing it nothing. Alternatively, troublemakers might be instructed to embark on pilgrimage thereby removing them from the community for a time, and with a bit of luck they might never return.

For those sentenced to death, their public execution was an event not to be missed, with spectators often vying for the best places to watch. The notoriety of some of the condemned drew very large crowds producing a somewhat carnival-like atmosphere where pie sellers, ale merchants and producers of execution memorabilia might do a good trade. Of the major methods of public execution, murderers could be “boiled alive” in a large pot of boiling water, while women found guilty of either treason or petty treason were sentenced to be burned alive at the stake.

Hanging from the Gallows  By far the commonest means of execution was hanging for crimes such as stealing, treason, rebellion, riot or murder. With a rope placed about the neck, the condemned is killed by suspending them with a noose or ligature. Death is caused either by strangulation or by fracturing the cervical vertebrae (breaking the neck). During the Mediæval period and into the 1800s, the Short Drop was the standard method of hanging. The condemned prisoner stood on a raised support, such as a stool, ladder, cart, horse, or other vehicle, with the noose around their neck. Suddenly removing the support left the person dangling from the rope whereupon the weight of the body tightens the noose causing strangulation and death. Loss of consciousness is typically rapid, with death occurring within a few minutes.

In 1866 the Standard Drop method was adopted as a more humane improvement over the Short Drop. This technique used a drop of between 1.2 m and 1.8 m (4 ft and 6 ft) sufficient to break the person's neck triggering immediate unconsciousness and rapid brain death. Use of the Standard Drop spread rapidly to English-speaking countries and those with judicial systems of English origin. Less than a decade later, in 1872 the Long Drop, or Measured Drop, was introduced to Britain as a scientific advance on the Standard Drop by William Marwood, the State’s official hangman. Further refined by his successor James Berry, instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's height and weight were used to determine how much slack would be provided in the rope. This ensured the distance dropped would be enough to guarantee the neck was broken, but not so much that the person was decapitated. Careful placement of the eye or knot of the noose (so that the head was jerked back as the rope tightened) contributed to breaking the neck.

Beheading (Death by the Axe)  The nobility who committed crimes were more likely to be beheaded than hung, with their heads sometimes placed on spikes in public places, such as on London Bridge, as a warning to all. Beheading was considered less shameful than hanging, and it had the added bonus of killing more quickly (usually). Executioners were notoriously bad at beheading their victims, with many resorting to several agonising blows to sever a neck. To be fair, it was not a job that many volunteered to undertake so executioners were often unskilled, ill-prepared or amateurish. Equally unhelpful was the typical headsman’s axe which was poorly designed with an offset blade that did not make it easy to wield or indeed cleanly sever the head from the neck. Some beheadings took several blows to decapitate the condemned. Consequently, when Queen Anne Boleyn was found guilty of the crime of treason this carried the penalty of death by burning. Henry commuted Anne's sentence to beheading. Perhaps cognisant of the possibility of a botched execution by the headsman’s axe, he hired an expert swordsman from Saint-Omer in France to perform the beheading. A single stroke took the queen’s head.

Lesser punishments  Those found guilty of lesser crimes may have escaped execution but not public humiliation. One of the punishments for committing the crime of public drunkenness was the “Drunkard's Cloak”. Unlikely to prove fatal, the drunk was forced to don a barrel and wander through town while the villagers jeered at him or her. Holes were cut in the barrel for the person's hands and head making it akin to wearing a heavy, awkward shirt. As alluded to, this form of public scorn was a common theme. The pillory, for example, was a T-shaped block of wood with holes for the hands in the crossbar. The person being punished would have to stand, secured in the device, in a public place to be ridiculed by passers-by. Those who gathered to watch typically wanted to make the offender's experience as unpleasant as possible, but the main purpose of the pillory was not necessarily to physically harm the offender. That said, being forced to bend forward and stick their head and hands out in front of them would have been extremely uncomfortable for offenders confined in the pillory, even if said punishment generally lasted for only a few hours. In addition to being to mocked, jeered at, and publicly humiliated, those in the pillory might be pelted with rotten food, mud, offal, dead animals, and animal excrement.

Like the pillory, stocks were also a “lesser” form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The difference between the two devices being that stocks were a heavy block of wood with two holes where the feet were secured about the ankles. Once restrained, the offender would be exposed to whatever treatment passers-by could imagine. The variety of abuses might range from verbal insults, being spat on, having refuse thrown at them, kicking, or having the unprotected feet tickled, paddled, or whipped (“bastinado”) [4].

Many Mediæval towns had a wooden post to which a condemned person could be chained, stripped to the waist, and whipped or flogged. One could be whipped for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread. For those who stole from shops, having a hand cut off was considered an appropriate punishment. Likewise, poachers might lose a hand or perhaps an eye for illegally hunting in or stealing from the King’s Forest. Hot irons were used to burn letters onto the skin of an offender’s hand, arm or cheek. A murderer for example would be branded with the letter “M”, vagrants with the letter “V”, and thieves with the letter “T”.

One final example of a minor punishment in the popular imagination was the brank, sometimes known as “The Gossip’s Bridle” or “Scold’s Bridle”. Largely reserved for women who gossiped or spoke too freely, the device consisted of a large iron framework placed on the head of the offender, forming a type of cage. A metal strip on the brank fitted into the mouth and was either sharpened to a point or covered with spikes so that any movement of the tongue was certain to cause severe injuries to the mouth. In this manner the offender was silenced. For extra humiliation, a bell could also be attached to draw a crowd’s attention as the wearer was paraded around town on a leash.

Witchcraft  Any discussion of punishments ought to include mention of witchcraft. For most of the Mediæval period this had been a minor crime dealt with by the church courts since witches were seen as people who went against the rules of the church by dabbling in ancient superstitions and magic. It became a more serious crime after Henry VIII’s reformation. Thereafter, witches were viewed as being in league with the devil and actively working to destroy the church and to take people’s souls to hell. Several laws were therefore passed against witchcraft:

• In 1542 Henry VIII made witchcraft punishable by death.

• In 1563 charges of witchcraft had to be tried in a common court, not in a church court.

• In 1604, a year after Queen Elizabeth’s death, the new king, James I (& VI), extended the death penalty to those found guilty of summoning evil spirits.

The Ducking Stool  Ducking was a lesser punishment reserved it seems for women from Mediæval times until the early 18th-century to establish whether a suspect was a witch. Those accused were submerged into a river, pond or body of water to see if they were innocent or guilty. Ducking stools were first used for this purpose, but ducking was later inflicted without the chair. In this instance the victim's right thumb was bound to her left big toe. A rope was tied around the accused’s waist, and they were thrown into a river or deep pond. If they floated, they were considered guilty and burnt at the stake. If they sank, they were innocent but died anyway, by drowning. Either way, they perished - a disturbing Catch-22. Bon appétit!

References:

Harvey, A. (2023), “The Surprising Story Of The Iron Maiden, Said To Be The Most Brutal Torture Device Of The Medieval Era”, All That’s Interesting, available online (accessed 15th April 2025).

Worlsey, L. (2025), “How to build a radical”, BBC History Magazine, January 2025 edition.

Endnotes:

1. The Fourth Lateran Council opened in the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. This 12th ecumenical council was years in preparation as Pope Innocent III desired the widest possible representation. More than 400 bishops, 800 abbots and priors, envoys of many European kings, and personal representatives of Frederick II (confirmed by the council as emperor of the West) took part. The purpose of the council was twofold: reform of the church and recovery of the Holy Land. Many of the conciliar decrees touching on church reform and organization remained in effect for centuries.

2. Escheating: the reversion of property to the state, or (in feudal law) to a lord, on the owner's dying without legal heirs.

3. William Spiggot (also spelled Spigget) was a highwayman who was captured in 1721. On 13th January that year, Spiggot appeared at his first trial at the Old Bailey charged with highway robberies and violent thefts. Refusing to enter a plea, he was returned to Newgate Prison after being sentenced to Peine forte et dure. The excruciating pain forced Spiggot to agree to be brought back to court where he pleaded not guilty. A second trial found him guilty, and Spiggot was duly executed on 11 February 1721 at Tyburn, London.

4. Foot whipping, falanga/falaka or bastinado is a method of inflicting pain and humiliation by administering a beating on the soles of a person's bare feet. Unlike most types of flogging, it is intended to be painful rather than to cause actual injury to the victim. Blows are generally delivered with a light rod, knotted cord, or lash.

Dispelling Some Myths: Medieval waste mismanagement?

Despite the best efforts of historians, the internet is still awash with misconceptions about the Middle Ages. Many of these ideas were the product of Victorian writers and historians reflecting Mediæval life through the lens of their own society, as was done by antiquarians before them and by historians since. However, after more than a century in popular culture, and being taught in schools, these sometimes broad, sweeping assertions remain deeply rooted in everyday consciousness. This is especially so when repeatedly reinforced online, in social media, on television and in the movies. Before addressing one such notion, it is worth remembering that the Mediæval period lasted roughly 1,000 years during which peoples’ lives and experiences varied a lot according to time, place and circumstance. So, with that in mind, did our forebears really dump their waste in the street?

Waste not, want not  Before addressing one of the more pervasive myths that people threw the content of their chamber pots out of a window onto the unsuspecting heads of passers-by in the street below, let us consider what we know of waste management in the Middle Ages. In the last few decades we think we have become so responsible with innovative recycling programmes and the repurposing or upcycling of unwanted items. But this is far from a modern idea. Mediæval people were equally as smart as us today and knew how to make full use of the resources at their disposal. Every ounce was put to good use, and towns and cities were full of artisans who mended things. One good example was discovered during the analysis of the asset tax rosters of Mediæval Frankfurt in Germany. The data revealed how commonplace it was to find jobs relating to mending and refurbishing things. Moreover, the repairers were often itinerant setting up stalls at fairs or in markets where they might mend shoes, pots, bags, tools or clothing. That these people submitted tax returns strongly suggests they were operating successful businesses.

If you have ever wondered why so few Mediæval shirts, shifts and other garments are seen in museum collections it is because people were expert in reusing and upcycling items. Indeed, textiles were integral to the Mediæval recycling industry. Any worn-out clothing, whether underwear or cloaks, bed sheets or tablecloths, or even tapestries would be resold rather than simply discarded. Such material was highly sort after not only to produce new textiles but, when finally exhausted, the ragged remnants would be used to make paper. The latter industry rapidly expanded from the mid-15th-century as the demand for paper dramatically increased after Johannes Guttenberg developed Europe’s first mechanical printing press. The paper trade became ever more profitable, and paper manufacturers would engage small subcontractors, rag-and-bone men or ragpickers to go door-to-door and buy any old clothes or scraps people might have lying about. In such a competitive market those involved required a permit in some places.

Dirty, muddy streets  In popular imagination Mediæval towns are always foul-smelling and filthy places. At least that is the impression one might get from television and film. But as Dutch author Henk ‘t Jong writes:

“An examination of ‘keuren’ or by-laws of Dutch towns in the 14th and 15th centuries reveals that sanitary legislation is there but offenses against them are relatively scarce. Surviving documentation of court cases suggests that only few persons were fined or punished for breaking these laws. From this and other proof can be concluded that late medieval townspeople did not live in filth and dirt if they could in any way avoid it.”

While many villages and towns had dirt roads that would get muddy when it rained, paved streets were also common, as were gutters to drain away rainwater. On top of that many towns had strict rules regarding what people were allowed to do and not to do with the street in front of their homes. Not keeping it clean, throwing rubbish outside your front door and so on could land you with a heavy fine.

Public toilets  Most readers are probably familiar with public toilets being communal affairs during ancient Rome’s hegemony. Such latrines (Latin: latrinae [1]) were rooms around which were ranged long wooden or stone benches with holes cut for waste to fall into a channel below where it was carried away by a constant flow of water. The vertical slot in the bench front allowed the use of the infamous “sponge-on-a-stick” to clean the user. The orientation of the hole/slot combination is highly suggestive that both Roman men and women sat to relieve themselves. Indeed, a man’s tunic would have made sitting the easier option while also having the added bonus of preserving their dignity. Many people would use these latrines at the same time sitting within touching distance of their neighbour with no dividing screen between them. Public toilets were not completely open to view, however. Some form of curtain would have shielded the entrance, and we do have evidence at some communal toilets of doors blocking the view from the street.

Communal toilets were still in use in England during the Middle Ages. Dated to the 12th-century, a wooden bench sporting three holes was found in Ludgate Hill, London during the 1980s. Large communal municipal latrines are known to have been on London Bridge, maintained by the city of London authorities, which emptied into the River Thames. At Langley Castle in Northumberland, the latrine tower featured four stalls set in a row, with low stone screens between them, but no doors are again evident. Communal toilets persisted into the Tudor period in some places. The Great House of Easement in Hampton Court Palace, for example, provided 28 seats set over two floors. Once more, there were no cubicles so men and women might find themselves sitting beside each other. This proximity, however, provided an opportunity to chat discreetly and gossip about the latest events and rumours circulating at court.

Of course, for men it has always been much quicker and easier to urinate outside, but this led to some unfortunate consequences. Courtiers urinating against the walls of Tudor palaces annoyed Cardinal Wolsey so much that in 1526 he issued the Eltham Ordinance to establish a set of rules for conduct at court. The ordnance records his strategy for combatting this behaviour whereby he ordered red crosses to be placed in areas where the activity was most prevalent. It was, of course, considered bad form to relieve oneself on a crucifix so Wolsey’s ploy fixed the problem.

By the late 18th-century, private toilets were becoming commonplace, and the “middling sort” (the middle class) embraced the flushing water closet. Even so, communal toilets were still in use. One notorious place was Bagnigge Wells near King’s Cross in north London where users would perch side-by-side on a long pole, chatting and gossiping as they relieved themselves.

Now wash your hands  Signs extolling “Now wash your hands” still appear in public toilets today. Sadly, in our experience, whether this advice is followed by some people is another matter. Perhaps, like our ancient forebears, they may not have understood the message in quite the same way. The Romans, for example, may have washed their hands after visiting the latrinum, but they may not have fully grasped the health implications of keeping hands clean. An example of this may be found in Volume 2 of Petronius Arbiter’s Satyricon which describes the fictional dinner party known as “Trimalchio’s Feast” (Latin: cena Trimalchionis). For those unfamiliar with the Satyricon, it is a satire mocking the vulgar habits of nouveau riche Romans [2] through, in this instance, the exploits a rich freedman named Trimalchio who is hosting a lavish dinner party where extravagant dishes are served. The opening paragraph of Chapter 27 in Volume 2 ends with the following lines:

“Menelaus had scarcely ceased speaking when Trimalchio snapped his fingers; the eunuch, hearing the signal, held the chamber-pot for him while he still continued playing. After relieving his bladder, he called for water to wash his hands, barely moistened his fingers, and dried them upon a boy's head.”

The author’s intent may be to expose how unrefined and boorish people with newly acquired wealth were in comparison to the rich, cultured and aristocratic Roman elite. Or he could be drawing attention to the pretentiousness of the wealthiest in Roman society. Either way, the Trimalchio example is useful to highlight an apparent disconnect between personal hygiene in the past and knowledge of how infections and disease are spread. Even though extolled for their famously advanced sewer technology, the Romans did not recognise the risk of bacterial disease transmitted via excrement. Roman sewers were not built with health and hygiene in mind. Rather they were merely practical means to move waste matter away from populated areas. In doing so, of course, public health and hygiene were much improved, but this was, one might argue, an unintended consequence.

Moving forward in time, as a rule people in the Middles Ages were keen to maintain a high level of personal cleanliness. Thus, receptacles holding water might have been positioned at or near toilets for the purpose of handwashing. Similarly, recesses or niches set into toilet walls may have been to store mosses for cleaning oneself. By the time of the Tudors, most people were very careful about washing their hands, particularly before eating. Indeed, Tudor etiquette demanded that hands were washed before a meal. This might have been done on the way into the dining hall at the “ewery board” where a large ewer of water, a basin and towel would have been attended by a servant. Alternatively, servants might bring the ewer and basin to the seated guests so hands could be cleansed. Even the servants, particularly the carver of meat, were expected to be seen washing their hands. All being said, this ritual of handwashing in the dining chamber was largely symbolic since guests were expected to have washed thoroughly beforehand.

Flushed with success  It would be unwise to claim that Sir John Harington invented the flushing toilet as he was not the first to devise such a contraption. Born in Kelston, Somerset in 1560, Harington’s father was a poet while his mother worked as a gentlewoman of Queen Elizabeth I’s Privy chamber. When an infant Sir John was baptised by the Queen herself, she calling him her “saucy Godson”. Like his father, Harrington also became a poet, albeit not an entirely successful one. Even so, he was constantly encouraged by her majesty about his writing until, in 1596, he published a political allegory against the monarchy and was duly banished from court. Exiled in Bath until 1599, Harington built himself a house within which he devised and installed the first flushing lavatory comprising a pan with an opening at the bottom, sealed with a leather-faced valve. A series of knobs, lifters and weights that opened the valve allowed water from a connected cistern to flush away the waste. His invention was described in his work “A New Discourse of a Stale Subject called the Metamorphosis of Ajax” – Ajax being a play on “jakes” the slang word for a toilet. When the Queen eventually visited Harington, she was shown his invention and we know that afterward Elizabeth ordered a flushing toilet to be installed in Richmond Palace.

While Queen Elizabeth seemed keen on Harington’s invention, most people preferred using chamber-pots. These were usually emptied from an upstairs window into the street below, or so the myth goes. Indeed, it is said that in France, the cry “gardez à l’eau” warned people in the street below to take evasive action, and that this phrase may be the origin of the English nickname for the lavatory, “the loo”. However, www.etymonline.com has the following entry which is probably more correct:

Empty chamber pot from window  Whatever the origin of the word, and before the advent of flushing toilets, did people in the Middle Ages really throw their rubbish and bodily waste into urban thoroughfares? Generations of school children have been taught that people emptied chamber-pots out of windows into the street. That this nonsense persists is in part due to the feelings of disgust the image engenders in modern people so used to a sanitary life. Indeed, today we are less inured to pungent aromas and more distanced from human waste than in the past. Even so it would be wrong to say that the Mediæval populace were any less sensitive to foul odours or disgusted by human waste than us. While they may not have understood scientifically how human waste could spread disease, they knew from observation and lived experience that it did. This awareness meant Mediæval towns and cities had many ordinances and laws on waste disposal, cesspits, and toilets. One such ordinance in London made residents directly responsible for the upkeep and cleanliness of their street outside their houses. Mediæval records show that those who failed to follow the rules could be heavily fined. As historian, atheist, sceptic and rationalist, Tim O’Neill wrote in answer to this very question:

“The fines that could be imposed on them if they didn’t do this could be extremely onerous. One account talks of an outraged mob badly beating a stranger who littered their street with the skin of a smoked fish, since they didn’t want to have to pay the heavy fine for his laziness. In an environment like that, people are hardly going to be dumping buckets of excrement out of their windows.” (O’Neill, 2013)

For most of the Mediæval period towns and cities were not as overcrowded as they would become in post-Renaissance Europe. The very agrarian nature of early urban centres meant that many houses had some form of a garden or yard attached. Larger houses are known to have enclosed latrines attached to or behind the home emptying into deep cesspits. Known as “jakes” (cf. above) or a “gong”, one of the worst possible jobs in the Middle Ages had to be the “gongfermours” or “gong farmers”. These were the men employed to empty the foul-smelling cesspits who, not surprisingly, were well-paid to do so. Equally unsurprising, at the end of the day Mediæval London’s gongfermours would take a much-needed dip in the River Thames.

Smaller residences made do with a bucket or “close stool” over a basin. Both would be emptied daily, typically into one of the streams that flowed into the nearest river. This made some of these streams, like the Fleet in London, rather foul-smelling and gave one in the city of Exeter the lyrical name of “the Shitbrook” (O’Neill, 2013).

It was when towns and cities started growing and became ever more overcrowded that things started to go wrong. The earlier single-storey houses began to be replaced by taller houses with multiple upper floors. Building space became increasingly valuable such that gardens and yards shrank in size or disappeared altogether. This meant fewer residents had the space for their own well or land to erect, let alone use, an outhouse or cesspit to dispose of waste. Moreover, the household cottage gardens that had previously supplied herbs and vegetables to individual families were slowly supplanted by readily accessible shops and marketplaces in the towns and cities. There was no longer a need to “grow your own” if folk could buy the family’s provisions from local traders.

In properties where a garden or yard survived only those occupying the ground floors of these taller houses might still have had access to a cesspit. Those living on the floors above did not and, in such circumstances, it is not hard to imagine that people forced to carry their waste to a special dumping area or wait for it to be collected might be tempted to throw it somewhere the rules forbade. Pictured is one of the few images depicting someone emptying what could be a chamber-pot from a window that is often used to illustrate this bad habit. It was published in Basel ca. 1497, at the very end of the Mediæval era, in Sebastian Brant’s “Das Narrenschiff” (“Ship of Fools”). The translated caption however reveals that the emptying of the chamber-pot is not being done out of laziness or habit but is instead a subtle way for the householder to express their opinion of the musicians making a racket late at night.

Post the Mediæval period, several new laws were enacted to manage waste in 16th-century Antwerp, Belgium. One very specific law stated that windows overlooking a neighbour’s yard or garden needed bars so a “piss pot” could not be emptied out of the window. So, as we have seen, if anything the surviving documents suggest that Mediæval Europeans tried very hard to keep cities and towns clean. In fact, it is even recorded that foreign visitors were full of praise for the cleanliness and neatness of the Low Countries.

While here in Britain, the idea of English medieval towns and cities being filthy, muddy and insanitary has been overturned in a 2019 study by Carole Rawcliffe, Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia. She argues that through the efforts of crown and civic authorities, mercantile élites and popular interests, English towns and cities aspired to a far healthier, less polluted environment than previously supposed (Rawcliffe, 2019). All major sources of possible infection were regulated, from sounds and smells to corrupt matter. The study of public health in pre-Reformation England challenges several entrenched assumptions about the insanitary nature of urban life during “the golden age of bacteria”. Rawcliffe’s interdisciplinary approach drew on material remains as well as archives to examine the medical, cultural and religious contexts in which ideas about the welfare of the communal body developed. Far from demonstrating indifference, ignorance or mute acceptance in the face of repeated onslaughts of epidemic disease, the rulers and residents of English towns devised sophisticated and coherent strategies for the creation of a more salubrious environment. Among the plethora of initiatives whose origins often predated the Black Death can be found measures for the improvement of the water supply, for better food standards and for the care of the sick, both rich and poor.

In conclusion  There always have been (and always will be) indolent people who dumped their waste into the streets and communal spaces. But the evidence suggests that in much of Mediæval Europe such “crimes” were rare and that both law enforcers and neighbours would react harshly to offenders. Waste was mostly disposed of in one’s backyard cesspit, taken to a communal dump or special stream, river or gutter meant just for this purpose [3], or taken away by a paid refuse collector. When cities became overpopulated, this relatively well functioning system sometimes stopped working as it should and although the problems were often fixed, they became more frequent.

Things clearly went wrong and there were plenty of accidents and incidents where people complained about a filthy stench or waste everywhere. But the idea that this was a common part of daily life across Mediæval Europe is a myth. Mediæval people connected smell with health such that bad air and smells were assumed to be unhealthy. This albeit simplistic notion gave our forebears the extra incentive to avoid or combat unhygienic situations. In short, they were not that different from us. Bon appétit!

References:

Jong, H. (2008), “De mythe van de vuilnisbelt”, published in Millenium 22, pp. 68-91.

Kehnel, A. (2024), “How did medieval people deal with waste?” in “Q&A”, BBC History Magazine (Christmas edition), p. 33.

O’Neill, T. (2013), “How Did People in the Middle Ages Get Rid of Human Waste?”, www.slate.com, available online (accessed 4th December 2024).

Rawcliffe, C. (2019), “Urban Bodies: Communal Health in Late Medieval English Towns and Cities”, Martlesham: Boydell Press.

Endnotes:

1. From www.etymonline.com, the noun “latrine” enters English c. 1300 as “laterin” meaning a privy. It is probably from Latin latrina, latrinum, a contraction of lavatrina “washbasin, washroom,” from lavatus the past participle of lavare “to wash” plus -trina, a suffix denoting “workplace”. The word's reappearance in 1640s probably is a re-borrowing from French.

2. Nouveaux riche (French for “new rich”) is a pejorative term for one who has recently become rich and who spends money conspicuously.

3. Water flowing along such streams, rivers or gutters would have minimised odours and flushed waste away from living areas. Naturally, if the system became clogged, the result would be less than pleasant.