Medieval Britain 1066–1509, Year 11: public health in towns and the Black Death (Health and the people option)

They stood away from crowded towns and invested in good sanitation

HintThink about where each was built, and what its money was spent on.

The whyMonasteries had a water supply for washing and communal latrines, and monks and nuns could keep cleaner than poor townspeople could. Being set apart also kept them away from the diseases that spread in crowded streets.

In the streets and rivers

HintThe same places where people walked and drew their drinking water.

The whyMost townspeople drew their water from rivers and wells, and that water was often contaminated by waste and sewage.

Cesspit

HintMen known as 'gong farmers' were paid to empty it.

The whyEmptying these pits was unpleasant work. In later centuries the men who did it, known as gong farmers, were allowed to work only at night.

From rivers and wells

HintNot out of a tap or a pipe to the house.

The whyThe same rivers and streams were used for getting rid of waste, so drinking water was easily contaminated. People did not know that dirty water carried disease, though many disliked the filth and the smell.

Privy

HintThe word is related to 'private'.

The whyWhere a town's authorities did not provide such facilities, ordinary people rarely built their own, so waste ended up in the street. The efforts that medieval towns did make to improve public health had only a limited effect.

1348

HintIt came ashore from a ship at a port on the Dorset coast.

The whyIt arrived in June and spread across the country over the next eighteen months. It had travelled along trade routes from Asia and reached southern Europe the year before.

Between a third and a half

HintAt the very least, more than three people in every ten.

The whyExact figures are impossible, because no census was taken. School books often say one-third; many historians now think it was nearer a half, or even more.

Flagellants

HintFrom the Latin word for a whip.

The whyMany people believed the plague was God's punishment for sin, so they prayed and did penance. Scholars blamed the position of the planets, and others blamed bad air.

The flea

HintIt bites, and it travelled on ships among the cargo.

The whyThe disease is caused by a bacterium, which was not identified until 1894. Nobody in 1348 knew about germs, so no treatment of the time could work.

Bunches of sweet-smelling herbs and flowers

HintThink of the theory of miasma.

The whyTreatments of the time did not work. Some people did protect themselves, without knowing why, by keeping away from those who were infected.