5
Medieval Latrines and the Law1
Dolly Jørgensen
“If the dog is tied to the chamber then he should not attack people that go to the
chamber to sit on wood.” So says the Grágás, the Icelandic law code from the
1100s.2 While “sitting on wood,” as using a latrine was called, people have always
wanted to be left alone. But medieval government officials knew that people
could not be left alone when making decisions about latrines because their
decisions affected other city dwellers and the overall cleanliness of the city.
Houses of waste could be troublesome to city residents and authorities alike.
This article will analyze two types of latrine regulation in far northern
Europe during the medieval period: latrine placement and waste disposal. It will
show that latrines in the later fourteenth through mid-sixteenth centuries were
very much within the public sphere. Public regulation of latrine placement and
waste disposal was required to control individual behavior for the larger public
good. Making this private matter into a public concern was integral to good city
government in the eyes of elite citizens.
The cities whose records are included in this study are shown in Map 1.
All of these urban centers had similar population sizes of 5,000 to 10,000 in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. None of them had significant Roman sanitary
infrastructure still in use in the later medieval period, unlike counterpart cities in
France and Italy; therefore, their sanitary infrastructure had to be created anew
in this time period. In addition, each city had a city council composed of a
mayor and aldermen that legislated sanitation activities. The records of these
councils and city expenditures books form the main source material of this article.
3 Archeological evidence supplements our understanding of actual latrine
placement and use.
1 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Congress on Medieval
Studies, Kalamazoo, 2006. Thanks to Richard Hoffmann of York University for organizing
the session on “The Stench of the Middle Ages” in which it appeared.
2 Quoted in Bård Gram and Knut Høiaas, Bare boss? Håndtering av avfall i Bergen gjennom
1000 år (Bergen: Bryggen Museum, 2000), 5.
3 In Coventry, The Coventry Leet Book: or Mayor’s Register, Containing the records of the
City Court Leet or View of Frankpledge, A.D. 1420-1555, with Divers other matters, transcribed
and ed. Mary Dormer Harris, four parts (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner &
Co, Ltd., 1913) contains the semi-annual council proceedings. In York, a similar set of vol6
Map 1: Locations of cities included in this article
The sanitary condition of medieval cities has been much neglected in the
historical literature. For England, only the metropolis of London has received
significant treatments. Ernest L. Sabine’s two articles on London written in the
1930s are admirable for their revelation of the concern for cleanliness in the medieval
city and explication of the practical steps taken by the city government to
sanitize London.4 There is limited scholarship on the condition of French cities,
umes recorded complaints brought before the council and legislation passed in the city,
which have been published in several different sets: York Memorandum Book, Part I and II,
ed. Maud Sellers (Durham, UK: Andrews & Co., 1912 and 1915); York Memorandum Book
(B/Y), ed. Joyce W. Percy (Gateshead, UK: Northumberland Press Ltd, 1973); and York
Civic Records, vol. II-IV, ed. Angelo Raine (York: Yorkshire Archeological Society 1940,
1942, 1945). The York Bridgemasters’ Accounts, trans. Philip M. Stell (York: York Archaeological
Trust, 2003) recorded financial transactions related to the town bridges. For
Norwich, two volumes of the city records have been printed with extracts from various city
registers: The Records of the City of Norwich, 2 vols, ed. W. Hudson and J.C. Tingey
(Norwich: Jarrold & Sons, Ltd, 1906 and 1910). Aberdeen’s early medieval city records are
collected in Early Records of Aberdeen 1317, 1398-1407, ed. William Croft Dickinson
(Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1957). The Scandinavian city laws are recorded in
collections of royal transactions.
4 Ernst L. Sabine, “Latrines and Cesspools of Mediaeval London,” Speculum 9.3 (Jul 1934):
303-321 and “City Cleaning in Mediaeval London,” Speculum 12.1 (Jan 1937): 19-43. Sa7
the only work available in English being André Guillerme’s Age of Water, and
there have been two recent English-language books on the Italian city-states.5
Other than Sabine’s work on London, none of these discuss in any detail how
medieval city governments involved themselves in the regulation of latrines.
This is an unfortunate oversight because latrine regulation gives modern scholars
insight into material conditions of the medieval urban space, as well as the
workings of practical city government.
The first issue that medieval city governments attempted to control was
latrine placement. The location of a latrine had a direct impact on neighbors and
other city dwellers. Waste deposited in the latrine might seep onto others’ properties
or into the street. The stench might offend passers-by. Waste resisted being
confined to its designated location; therefore, extra care had to be taken by
the city officials to control it. Where were latrines actually constructed and what
kinds of regulation did medieval city governments attempt to impose on them?
Archeological evidence gives us evidence about the locations of latrines
in the Middle Ages. In Bergen’s commercial area of Bryggen, located near the
wharf on the bay named Vågen, it was customary to have an indoor latrine, usually
in the corner of the residence through the twelfth century. These latrines
generally allowed multiple individuals to use them at the same time. Two and
three-seaters were common finds in Bergen, and even a four-seater was recovered.
As the population grew in the later medieval period, rows of small latrines
appear in the narrow lanes between buildings and warehouses. Latrines like
these in alleys were simply constructed as a box with removable walls so that
the waste could be emptied or run out into the alley.6 Several different latrine
types have been found in archeological excavations in Bergen, including in the
corner of a residence, in a separate attached room on ground floor, in a room on
the second floor overhanging an alley, in between two buildings, and as a separate
standing structure.7 What this indicates is that a large number of latrine configurations
were possible within one city and latrines often abutted others’ propbine
found that London had at least thirteen city latrines in the fourteenth century (“Latrines
and Cesspools of Mediaeval London,” 307-309).
5 For France see André Guillerme, The Age of Water: The Urban Environment in the North of
France, A.D. 300-1800 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1988) and Jean-Pierre
Leguay, La Pollution au Moyen Age (Paris : Editions Jean-Paul Gisserot, 1999). On the
Italian City-States, see Ronald E. Zupko and Robert A. Laures, Straws in the Wind: Medieval
Urban Environmental Law – The Case of Northern Italy (Boulder, Colorado: Westview
Press, 1996) and Michael Kucher, The Water Supply System of Siena, Italy; The Medieval
Roots of the Modern Networked City (London: Routledge, 2005). Lynn Throndike had an
early article proposing that the medieval city was not nearly as dirty as modern writers
would make it out to be. He provides a cursory look at some of the city statutes about
cleanliness in France, Germany, and Italy. “Sanitation, Baths, and Street-Cleaning in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance,” Speculum 3.2 (Apr 1928): 192-203.
6 Gram and Høiaas, Bare boss?, 7.
7 Bård Økland, “Det Ureine Avfallet? Ein arkeologisk analyse av avfallshandtering i Bergen
1150-1700” (PhD diss., Universitetet i Bergen, 1998), 29.
8
erties. In order to control the latrine placement, city governments instituted legal
restrictions on it.
One type of regulation concerned the location of latrines in relation to the
owner’s property line. The earliest one I have found is a 1269 city law from
Ribe, Denmark requiring that latrines be built at least 14 feet from cemeteries, at
least 10 feet from the nearest street and at least 6 feet from the nearest neighbor.8
The Bergen city privileges from 1487 mandated that latrines could not be closer
to the city street or their neighbor than a distance of 2 feet and were not permitted
to discharge filth to the street or to the neighbor.9 By requiring a certain distance
from the latrine to the property line, these medieval governments were
making human waste management a public affair. Excrement belonged in the
private sphere, not on the public streets or running onto another person’s property.
The medieval city governments took it as their prerogative to manage this
potential conflict among residents.
Medieval illustrations show that latrines were often placed to allow direct
disposal of excrement into water bodies. For example, in Pieter Bruegel the
Elder’s Netherlandish Proverbs, the patron of an overhanging latrine is shown
prominently depositing his waste in the water below.10 In Bergen, where many
of the residences were located close to the bay, this was a convenient solution.
An overhanging latrine from the sixteenth century Rosencrantz Tower in Bergen
was drawn in the city plan of Bergen in the Civitates orbis terrarium and remnants
of the structure still exist as shown in Figure 1. Yet this was not a good location
for latrines if the water body did not have enough flow to wash away the
deposits. Such was the case in Coventry’s Red Ditch. The Red Ditch began at
Greyfriar Lane and terminated at the Jordan Well within the center of the city.
The ditch was not connected directly to the River Sherbourne which was located
significantly further north within town; therefore, the Red Ditch had no outflow.
In 1421, the Coventry city council required that “all the previes vpon the same
Red-dychbe remouyd, & done away.”11 Two years later, the council reiterated
that owners must remove all privies, as well as pig sties, on the Red Ditch. As of
1429, individuals were still making latrines on the Red Ditch. The council instituted
a half mark penalty for anyone who constructed a new privy on the ditch.
The council ordered the removal of latrines over and over again until 1470.12 So
why did the council have to reissue this order? The habitual placement of la-
8 Gram and Høiaas, Bare boss?, 9.
9 Ibidem, 10. In the mid-sixteenth century, King Christian of Norway issued a general requirement
for city dwellers that “Noone must have a Hyskende near the street or streets, so that
it floods to another’s property, but shall have it on their own soil and not [subject] their
neighbor to any uncleanliness.”
10 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Netherlandish Proverbs, 1559. Oil on oak panels. Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, Berlin.
11 Coventry Leet Book, 31.
12 The issue comes up in 1440, 1443, 1446, and 1470. Each time, the council requires the removal
of all latrines on the Red Ditch by Whitsunday or a fine will be levied.
9
trines on the Red Ditch was likely a function of necessity. Inhabitants of the
southern section of the city had no access to the flowing water of the Sherbourne
in which to put their wastes. They had to build latrines somewhere, and many
likely thought that the Red Ditch was better than placing waste on the streets.
Yet, the Coventry authorities did not see it this way. Through these regulatory
acts, the Coventry city council was attempting to create a cleaner urban space by
specifying that latrines could not be built on a ditch with no outflow. But laws
alone did not necessarily make a clean city.
Fig. 1: The remains of the overhanging latrine on Rosencrantz Tower in Bergen
are still visible
The creation of human waste was, and is, a biological necessity, so medieval
cities may have found it difficult to regulate without alternatives. One way to
control latrine placement was to provide permanent public facilities. The York
city council, for example, supported a public latrine house. The York council financially
supported a large bridge over the River Ouse, so latrines were installed
in an arch of the Ouse Bridge below the maison dieu in 1367.13 By the early
13 Barbara Wilson and Frances Mee, ‘The Fairest Arch in England’, Old Ouse Bridge, York,
and its Buildings: The Pictorial Evidence (York: York Archeological Trust, 2002), 54. Medieval
bridges like Ouse Bridge were large stone structures that supported shops and resi10
modern period, the in-arch latrine had been replaced by the overhanging type
from a building. In 1400, the Ouse Bridge financial records attest to the city
paying 13s 8d for its yearly maintenance.14 The city continued to support the latrine
financially. In 1440, repairs at the entrance of the latrine house cost 12d
and in 1445 a laborer charged 8d for his work on the latrine and another tenement
on the bridge.15 Several entries indicate that the city paid 6s 4d annually
for oil to light the latrines at night.16 In the days before wide-spread ambient
lighting, a horn lamp with even a small flame would have made using the damp
and dingy public latrine at night less difficult. In addition, the city paid for latrine
cleaning, as evidenced in a 1544 entry in the York Civic records. The
council paid 2s annually to a widow, Agnes Grethede “for keping cleyn the
place of Owsbrige callyd the pyssing howes.” Agnes appears to have complained
that latrine patrons were piling wood and other nuisances in the latrine
house; the council agreed to remind citizens that the casting of construction
waste or other filth in the house and directly in the river was prohibited.17
A similar tactic was taken in Bergen, but there the Hanse merchant
association built a public latrine house on the Vågen in the central Bryggen district.
These dedicated sheds with latrines were built away from the shipping
docks so that waste could go straight into the sea. These simple sheds served as
combination storehouses and latrines until 1898 and a replica of one has been
constructed in the Bryggen district of Bergen. The later law books and court
proceedings include prohibitions against defecating on other places except at the
sheds on the wharf, even on cold winter days.18
dences on the bridge itself, much like the Ponte Veccio in Florence still does. London had a
similar large public latrine house on London Bridge by 1306 which served both the merchant
and resident community of the bridge as well as visitors to the area (Sabine, “Latrines
and Cesspools of Mediaeval London,” 307).
14 York Bridgemasters’ Accounts, 122.
15 Ibidem, 208, 257.
16 Ibidem. The years 1445, 1454, 1459, 1462, 1464, 1468, and 1488 all contain entries of the
annual payment for the light in the latrine house. Although the expense is not noted in all
years, the city’s payment would appear to have been “the custom” as noted in 1459. Several
records name keepers of the latrine house light: the glover John Bukler in 1462 and 1464
and John Burell in 1468.
17 York Civic Records, vol. IV, 122. The public latrines were eventually closed. In March
1579/80 it was decided that all privies on the Ouse should be removed (YCHB27, fo.228v)
as cited in Wilson and Mee. One drawing from the 18th century shows latrines in the building
above the bridge.
18 Gram and Høiaas, Bare boss?, 10.
11
Figure 2: The reconstructed public latrine house in the Bryggen district of Bergen
As these examples demonstrate, where an individual constructed a latrine
was not a private decision. Because of the potential for latrines to disturb others
and create a dirty city, government officials regulated their placement, including
restricting how close they were to the property line and forbidding specific locations.
To compensate for these restrictions, some cities turned to publicly financed
facilities. Even after a latrine had been properly constructed, the city still
faced the problem of human waste disposal.
Although one might be at peace during the act of creating waste, once the
waste was generated, city governments needed to regulate its disposal. Archeological
evidence indicates that cesspits containing latrine waste were regularly
emptied. Norwich excavations show that waste disposal patterns changed in the
thirteenth century from in-place disposal to temporary storage onsite followed
by offsite disposal.19 Evidence from York indicates a similar shift by the beginning
of the fourteenth century from unlined pits that remained filled to stone-
19 Malcolm Atkin and D.H. Evans, “Excavations in Northern Conesford, in and around the
Cathedral Close,” in Excavations in Norwich 1971-1978 Part III, ed. Malcolm Atkin and
D. H. Evans (Norwich: Norwich Survey and Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service,
2002), East Anglian Archaeology Report No. 100, 12.
12
lined cesspits that could be cleaned out.20 This means that citizens regularly disposed
of latrine waste and city governments needed to monitor this activity.
The question of where waste should be disposed of was first and foremost
on the minds of city elites in dealing with waste. Dunghills and waste pits generally
sprang up around the perimeter of the town. In Aberdeen, Scotland, the
council forbade the creation of muckhills within the city several times.21 Some
city councils went to great pains to name permissible disposal sites. By 1427,
Coventry had five designated waste disposal locations: a dunghill outside of the
city limit beyond Greyfriar Gate, a pit in the Little Park Street Gate, a muckhill
near the cross beyond New Gate, at Derne Gate, and a pit at Poodycroft.22 All of
these locations were just beyond a city gate as shown in Map 2. In Stockholm, a
1482 proclamation lists all of the places where waste disposal was forbidden and
requires individuals to “take it where the marks stand above the sand hills.”
Specific waste sites were established at the sand hills and people later called the
area “flugmöten” which means “fly-meeting.”23 The creation of designated
waste disposal spaces helped order the city.
Although city government’s actively regulated waste disposal within the
city, particularly forbidding waste disposal in rivers and ditches, they saw the
value of flowing water for ridding the city of waste. Norwich used river disposal
via a barge taken below the chains on the city bridge where the waste was then
dumped into the river. The council restricted the carrying of “muck” on the river
to one person who was given a monopoly on waste disposal. When the council
gave Richard Hert this privilege in 1453, Richard swore that “he shall carry the
said muck into and out of his boat by a barrow, and he shall not cast any muck
within the chain.”24 As this case demonstrates, the city elites were concerned
with where latrine waste would end up and attempted to regulate its disposal.
20 P.V. Addyman, “The Archaeology of Public Health,” World Archaeology 21.2 (Oct 1989),
257-258.
21 Early Records of Aberdeen 1317, 1398-1407, 81-2, 109, 154.
22 First three listed in Coventry Leet Book, 29-30. “Allso that they Carry a-way ther offall of
ther beestys in-to the pitt vndur the Poody Crooft.” (Coventry Leet Book, 43). The New
Gate location is described as a muckhill on the right hand side of the cross beyond New
Gate. (Coventry Leet Book, 113)
23 Göran Dahlbäck, I mideltidens Stockholm (Stockholm: Stockholms mideltidsmuseum,
1987), 114. The named places where waste was forbidden are “the Strömmen, the big
market, Fiskestrand, Kogghamn or Slottsbacken [hill by the castle] or Gråbrödra bridge or
Kornhamn.”
24 The Records of the City of Norwich, vol. 2, 91. It is interesting to note that Norwich did not
consider the damage that its waste might have on downstream neighbors. Yet this does not
appear to be unusual. A search of the Parlimentary Rolls for England from 1272 to 1504
yielded no cases where one city complained about another’s upstream waste. All instances
of bothersome waste recorded in the rolls were confined to one city.
13
Map 2: The locations of Coventry’s waste disposal sites
superimposed on John Speed’s c.1610 map of the city
Several English cities were quite proactive in managing waste disposal by
providing for city-run cart services. In York, the council mandated that a dung
cart be placed in every ward so that dung could be collected there and taken
away by farmers.25 In Norwich, the council provided two weekly muck carts to
serve nine parishes.26 In Coventry, the council gave the right for William Oteley
to collect 1d from every resident and shop on a quarterly basis for his weekly
street cleansing and waste removal services in 1420.27 In 1452, every person
who owned a shop was reminded of their requirement to pay the 1d tax.28 The
constable of each ward was specifically tasked with ensuring that the weekly
cart service was provided. Anyone refusing to pay would be referred to the
ward’s alderman and required to pay double.29 Coventry’s council forbade the
disposal of stones, construction material or other filth at the Greyfriar location
and specified that only dung or muck was to be placed there, so that it could be
25 York Civic Records, vol. II, 165.
26 The Records of the City of Norwich, vol. 2, 110.
27 Coventry Leet Book, 21.
28 Ibidem, 273.
29 Ibidem, 552-553.
14
used by local farmers as manure.30 Mixed waste, i.e. human waste lumped in
with household garbage and animal dung, could cause problems because it made
it unusable. The institution of city services funded by the city councils attempted
to remedy the problem. As these examples reveal, waste disposal was a highly
regulated activity. City councils found that they could not leave waste disposal
practices solely within the hands of their citizens.
As we have seen, although the act of creating waste was generally a private
affair in the late Middle Ages, the infrastructure around it certainly was not.
City governments attempted to control latrine placement and waste disposal, as
the above cases illustrate. The question we are left with is why: Why did the city
governments care about latrines?
Previous scholarship tends toward understanding latrine regulation in
terms of civility. In The Civilizing Process, Norbert Elias identified the midsixteenth
century as a turning point in manners and privacy. Through examples
such as Erasmus’ statement that “it is impolite to greet someone who is urinating
or defecating” and Della Casa’s admonition of men who “relieve nature in the
presence of other people,” Elias argues that bodily functions became more secret
and charged with negative emotions.31 Georges Duby and collaborators argued
in A History of Private Life that privatization, that is the creation of personal
space within the home and the movement of activities from outside to inside,
should be seen as the prevailing development from the thirteenth century. Privacy
and shame became associated with biological functions, thus the development
of words for latrines such as privies, necessaries, and secret houses.32 In A
History of Shit, Dominique LaPorte noted that in 1539 the French King required
Parisians to install household latrines. He argued that this development caused
the privatization and domestication of human waste. Each person was made responsible
for handling his own excrement and keeping it away from neighbors.33
However, instead of removing waste from public discourse and purview, as the
previous discussion has shown, sixteenth-century regulations served to reiterate
30 “[Enacted] that noon inhabitaunte of thys Citie shall from hencefurthe caste any stoones,
Raymell, or other fylthe or purpresture, vppon the Grey-freer dunghyll or neere vnto the
same, Excepte good mucke or dunge or cleane yearthe” (Coventry Leet Book, 804). We
know that this “pure” dung was used by Coventry-area farmers because of a complaint
recorded in 1480. The Prior of the cathedral church complained that the residents of
Coventry were disposing of waste improperly on church property: “Where of late tyme they
leyde ther nothyng but swepyng of their houses, which was carryed a-wey be men of the
Contrey to donge their londe; and now be-cause they ley there her Ramell ther will no man
Carry a-wey there as they were wont to doo, and so hit encreseth dayly more & more to the
hyndraunce & grete hurt of the seid Priour” (Coventry Leet Book, 447).
31 Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners, trans. Edmund Jephcott
(New York: Urizen Books, 1978), 129-142.
32 Georges Duby, ed., A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World, trans.
Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988).
33 Dominique LaPorte, The History of Shit, trans. Nadia Benabid and Rodolphe el-Khoury
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000), Chapter 2.
15
the place of waste in the public forum. Privacy may have been valued during the
actual waste production process, but beforehand, when the latrine was set up,
and afterward, when accumulated waste required disposal, human wastes were a
public matter.
So if city governments were not, in fact, making waste more secret and
shameful through regulation, what were their motivations? To answer this, we
must look at the physicality of city living. The two most common concerns were
obstruction and nuisance.34
Waste obstructed routes of commerce, both roads and rivers. Aberdeen’s
council, for example, frequently bemoaned muckhills that blocked street traffic.
In Norwich, the Leet court in 1390 found John de Shouldham guilty of throwing
much muck and other refuse from the repairing of his houses into the king’s
river, to the obstruction and straitening of the river, so that no boat can pass by.35
Waterway blockage not only restricted traffic, but could also result in flooding.
The 1421 Coventry mayor’s proclamation lamented that the river had been
“stoppyd of his course” by “filthe, dong, and stonys” causing “dyuers
perels…by floodys.” 36 Waste piles, from latrines or other sources, disrupted
commerce, the life-blood of the city.
Waste was also termed a nuisance. For example, in 1418, the York city
council issued the stipulation along with a property lease that “should the tenants
of the houses above the said piece of land throw any urine or other filth or dirt
34 By the mid-1500s, waste disposal appears to be associated in some cases with disease. In
1544, the inhabitants of Coventry’s Cross Cheaping district commonly deposited dung and
other waste at the cross in the market. The council forbade the continuation of this practice
because the waste was a “great incommoditie of the marketh-place” and caused “great
daunger of infection of the plague” (Coventry Leet Book, 775). The Norwich council in
1579 heard a complaint about foreigners who kept untidy “necessaries” and dumped their
wash water into the gutter, which bred “greate infeccion” in the river and street gutters:
“that at this assemblye was greate complayntes made agaynste the straungers for the
corrupte kepinge of their howses and necessaries, and also for the great anoyance of the
river by skowring their bayes and wasshinge them all alongeste the ryver to the greate
infeccion of the same. And also for keaminge of woole in open shoppes and carrienge
chambrewashe throughe the citye in the daye tyme, and for pouringe oute wasshe in theyr
gutters, and not pouringe water after yt, wherebye it reasteth in the gutters and breadethe
greate infeccions, and of manye other enormities lyke therunto” (Norwich Records, vol. 2,
335). This linkage of disease and waste does not appear in earlier records even though both
concerns appear separately.
35 Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich during the XIIIth and XIVth Centuries, ed. William
Hudson (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1892), Seldon Society vol. 5, Leet Roll of 14 Richard
II (Roll 11), 73.
36 Coventry Leet Book, 31. Other things including the dyers’ waterlades (1421) and stakes
placed in the river (1429) were also prohibited because of the fear of flooding because of
decreased water carrying capacity of the river. Weirs and encroachments along with wastes
are blamed for stopping the course of the Sherbourne in 1469. The prior of the monastery
complained in 1480 that waste was stopping up the floodgates and channels of the monastery’s
mill causing it to not run.
16
onto the land to the detriment or annoyance of the said Roger and Robert, their
heirs and assigns, they would be punished accordingly.”37 Unfortunately, the records
are not clear about the reason waste was considered a nuisance or annoyance.
Smell, sight, and fouling of the water are the most likely candidates. Smell
and sight may have been the primary complaints about a piece of property in
Norwich which was “soore accombred and replenysshed by divers persons with
muk and such other vile mater to the grette noysaunce of all the Kynges liege
people passing by the same.”38 The odor obviously drifted from the property to
the street.
Fouling of water was probably why John de Gissing of Norwich was
fined in 1374 for dumping 100 cartloads of muck on the bitmay (small island in
the middle of the river). John had been paid by various individuals to take away
their muck and dispose it in this location. This act was considered a “nuisance of
the river.”39 This was an example of free enterprise taking too many liberties
with waste. Because water bodies like the River Wensum in Norwich provided
drinking water and water for textile production and other crafts, river disposal of
wastes created physical problems.
The public regulation of latrines was an integral part of well-run medieval
cities. Good rule of the city required the ensuring a clean town and minimized
conflict over waste disposal. As this article has shown, the primary concerns of
the councils were physical: traffic hindrance, smell, and contamination of water
or property. Waste handling thus helped define what a good city should be aesthetically
and physically. Trade, tax-financed city services, and a growing city
administration were important elements in these increasingly modern cities. City
councils, like Coventry’s, considered the casting of muck or filth into improper
locations as an offense of “yll-disposid persons, contrarie to all good rule of the
Citee” thus a threat to the orderly city.40 The late medieval city placed other
sanitation issues in addition to latrines. Disposal of animal dung, handling of
trade waste, and supply of fresh water all appear prominently in city council records
of this time. Further investigation into these issues will help put latrine
regulations into the context of larger urban sanitation programs. By initiating latrine
regulations covering both their location and their wastes’ final disposal,
medieval city governments not only managed their urban environment – they
also redefined the role of city government.
37 York Civic Records, vol. IV, 57.
38 The Records of the City of Norwich, vol. 2, 122-123.
39 Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich, 65.
40 Coventry Leet Book, 631.
M E D I U M A E V U M
Q U O T I D I A N U M
53
KREMS 2006
HERAUSGEGEBEN
VON GERHARD JARITZ
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG DER KULTURABTEILUNG
DES AMTES DER NIEDERÖSTERREICHISCHEN LANDESREGIERUNG
Titelgraphik: Stephan J. Tramèr
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der
materiellen Kultur des Mittelalters, Körnermarkt 13, 3500 Krems, Österreich.
Für den Inhalt verantwortlich zeichnen die Autoren, ohne deren ausdrückliche
Zustimmung jeglicher Nachdruck, auch in Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist. –
Druck: Grafisches Zentrum an der Technischen Universität Wien, Wiedner
Hauptstraße 8-10, 1040 Wien.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Vorwort ……………………………………………………..…………….…… 4
Dolly Jørgensen, Medieval Latrines and the Law …………..………….……… 5
Gertrud Blaschitz, Das Pferd als Fortbewegungs- und Transportmittel
in der deutschsprachigen Literatur des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts ………… 17
Aleksandr E. Makhov, The Devil’s Naked Tongue
as an Iconographical Motif ……………………………………………….. 44
Besprechung ………………………………………………………..………… 74
4
Vorwort
Das vorliegende Heft von Medium Aevum Quotidianum enthält drei wichtige
Beiträge, die sich mit sehr unterschiedlichen Bereichen von Alltag und materieller
Kultur des Mittelalters auseinandersetzen. Dolly Jørgensen beschäftigt
sich mit Latrinen in Nordeuropa und den darauf bezogenen rechtlichen Komponenten
und Bestimmungen im städtischen Raum.
Gertrud Blaschitz widmet sich in ihrem Beitrag zum Pferd in der mittelhochdeutschen
Literatur erneut einem Interessensschwerpunkt, der bereits im
Jahre 2005 in Heft 52 und Sonderband XVI (Animal Diversities) unserer Reihe
Berücksichtigung fand. Ihr Aufsatz führt weiter in die relevante Sphäre interdisziplinärer
Ansätze zur mittelalterlichen „Zoologie“.
Schließlich untersucht Aleksandr Evgenevich Makhov das ikonografische
Motiv des zungezeigenden Teufels und gelangt dabei zu wichtigen neuen Ergebnissen
bezüglich spätmittelalterlicher visueller Kultur. Wir freuen uns hier im
besonderen darüber, dass unsere guten Kontakte zum bedeutenden russischen
Jahrbuch Одиссей. Человек в истории die Übernahme des Artikels möglich
gemacht haben. Wir möchten uns wieder vor allem bei Svetlana Luchitskaya
(Moskau) sehr herzlich dafür bedanken, dass sie die Übersetzung und Aufnahme
von Beiträgen aus dem Jahrbuch unterstützt und zu verwirklichen hilft. Das
nächste Heft von Medium Aevum Quotidianum wird neuerlich drei Beiträge aus
der russischen Forschung enthalten, die sich vor allem der mittelalterlichen
Festkultur widmen werden.
Gerhard Jaritz
Herausgeber