SEWERS IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE.   Term Paper ID:20218 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Waste disposal systems in cities of Middle Ages. Human waste, drainage, paving, cesspools, laws.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Waste disposal systems in cities of Middle Ages. Human waste, drainage, paving, cesspools, laws. Paper Introduction: Sewers and Waste Disposal in medieval Europe This paper will examine the sewers and waste disposal systems employed in Medieval European cities. Although all major towns and cities had provisions for drainage and waste disposal, the paper will focus primarily on London and Paris, two of the largest and most modern cities in Europe at that time. In particular, the paper will address each system separately and then discuss how the two systems became intertwined. Sewers and the disposal of human waste were originally two separate systems. Sewers were originally intended to drain rain and flood water from towns and cities. In fact, some of the sewers in cities such as Paris and London may have originally been constructed by the Romans for just such a purpose, copying a system used in Rome itself. These sewers were nothing more than Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Latrines and cesspools of mediaeval London. Rosen, George. (1939). The disposal of human and animal waste, although just as vital as thedrainage of rain and flood water, was much more haphazard. Health, wealth, and population in the earlydays of the industrial revolution. In addition, severalpublic latrines used running waters from the regular open sewers to clearthe waste and carry it to the Thames (Sabine, "Latrines and Cesspools"3 7). It wasalso a step toward moving the waste away from the city using as few humanhands as possible. Similarly, the stone and brickconstruction of the sewers resulted in the accumulation of filth and theintroduction of human and animal waste into the open sewers presentedpublic health problems which were not completely understood at the time.It was widely recognized, however, that the dumping of human and animalwaste into open sewers produced a stench for which cities became renowned.Paris, in particular, was often noted for its peculiar smell, althoughtravelers admitted that they grew accustomed to it after a few days(Winston, 1975, p. 49).The reason for this arrangement was that floods presented a serious problemfor all cities situated near rivers; sewers were vital for drainage inthese cities. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc. Less well-to-do families in large cities had to make do withpublic latrines, built over large cesspools or, in the case of the LondonBridge latrines, directly over a river. Thismethod, however, never left a smooth surface since it was dependent on theindividual eye and judgment of each crewmember (Salusbury-Jones, 1939, pp.35-38). T. In larger cities,the sewers were flat-bottomed, flat-sided, and very large. Medieval civilization. None of these problemsreceived any serious attention until the 184 s, when a sort of sanitationrevolution swept Europe (Metcalf & Eddy, 1981, pp. 448). In Paris, these professionalseven organized themselves into a guild (Winston, 1975, p. New York: MDPublications. In other cities, however, canals were constructed between the priviesand covered pits, with each canal and pit serving an entire area. In order for sewers to operate properly they had to remainunblocked, a condition often impossible when human and animal waste wasdumped into the sewers. Wealthyfamilies used cesspools underneath or adjacent to their homes. New York:Walker. In summary, although the basic medieval infrastructure for citysewage disposal was similar to modern infrastructure, certain importantdetails were lacking. 311). Thus, rutswere quickly worn into the streets, eventually inhibiting proper drainage;the general condition of the streets was poor by modern standards. 48). Drainage began at the street level, with gutters or ditches whichwere built into the streets. Everylarge house in Paris was required to have a cabinet d'aisance draining intoa canal; severe penalties encouraged compliance with this law. Rural peasantssimply relieved themselves in the fields, burying their waste on the spot.Those who lived in the cities had to use other means and the waste had tobe disposed of more thoroughly, lest the city become too filthy forhabitation (Russell, 1968, p. These sewers were nothingmore than open canals which drained into streams and major rivers (theSeine in Paris and the Thames in London) (Buer, 1968, p. Waste disposed of inthis manner would be carried off by running water and no one would have todig up the cesspits when they became full. 32). In 1521, for instance, therewas not enough stone to completely pave a section of roadway betweenBishopsgate and the hospital of St. The ultimate solution to the conflict between convenience and smellwas to cover the sewers. Intended to convey rain and flood water only, theconstruction and open nature of the drains and sewers led to odor andhealth problems when human and animal waste was dumped into them. In cities without public latrines there were no alternativesfor persons too poor to afford a privy and cesspool, a class of personswhich included all but a few of the cities' residents. Both methods were used in London since the Thames River didnot have the carrying power to disperse all of the sewage produced by thecity. Edwin Chadwick and the public health movement,1832-1854. Reid, Donald. Even with this prohibition, drainingflood and rainwater often overtaxed the sewer systems of the major citiesand towns, with the low-lying sections succumbing to floods duringexceptional rain or tides (Buer, 1968, p. 48). Where this waste ended up after it was emptied from the pits dependedon the locale. London: Longmans, Green. Constructedof stone or brick, they tended to retain as much waste as they conveyedinto the pit and acted as extended pits rather than true drains. However, enforcement ofsuch laws usually occurred only when the sewers (or ditches) became blockedwith dung and other waste, overflowing onto the streets and adjoining lands(King, 1992, p. 21). As will be discussedbelow, residents also tended to empty their chamber pots onto the streets(Sabine, "City Cleaning in Medieval London," 1937, p. 111). This sort of construction only served to exacerbate the problemof blockage as debris and waste collected around the bricks and stones(Lewis, 1952, p. Fourteenthcentury streets in Leicester were paved with three different combinationsof materials: stones and earth, gravel and sand, or stone and sand.Although London typically was able to buy hundreds of tons of stone forstreet repair, the supplies often fell short. A foundation, or roadbed, of large stones was rarely, if ever, laidunderneath the pavement in order to accommodate heavy traffic. 1 7) . D'Haucourt, Genevieve. As noted above, the street pavement was not conduciveto the movement of solid material; the gathering of dirt and plant debrisamong the cobblestones and in the seams of the streets was bad enough, butthe gathering of human and animal feces in the same places led to thespread of disease (Mullet, 1956, p. Although all major towns and citieshad provisions for drainage and waste disposal, the paper will focusprimarily on London and Paris, two of the largest and most modern cities inEurope at that time. Daily life in the Middle Ages.New York: American Heritage.----------------------- 13 The lack of uniform heightmade it difficult for air to circulate and water flowed through them onlywhen it rained. The preferred paving materials were stone, gravel,and sand; when these were in short supply,fine earth and vegetable matterwere used. 57-58). Disposing of dung inseventeenth century Prescott. (1968). How high is too high? 32-33). 3 5). In reality, this practice transformed the streets into filthycesspools of sorts. C. Salusbury-Jones, G. ---. (1991). Theunderlying gravel bed was pitched (or sloped) toward the gutter (s) in thecenter or at the sides of the road. Sixteenth Century Journal 23: pp. (1956). Even in Paris, the practice of throwing all waste into thestreet continued to be widespread up through the 18th Century. Mary; the remaining section had to begravelled. (1963). New York:John Wiley & Sons. This was gradually done in all Europeancountries, although it was not completed until the 18th or 19th century.The first sewer was covered in Paris in 137 at the Rue Montmartre, whichflowed into the Minilmontant brook; as it emptied into the Seine, thissewer served as a "collector" for other nearby sewers (Reid, 1991, p. The enforceability and effectiveness of these ordinances hasbeen questioned, however, in light of the limited alternatives available atthat time. Of course, most everyone recognized the convenience of disposing ofthis waste into the street gutters and the sewers. These pitswere directly connected to the garderobes or privies in the homes or inoutbuildings. 32). 1 7). (1968). Paris sewers and sewermen: Realities andrepresentations. Consequently, it wasillegal for privies to actually void their contents into sewers or foroverflow drainage pipes from privy cesspools to empty into sewers (Sabine,"City Cleaning," 1937, p. These public latrines were oftenno more than planks stretched over the cesspits, and there were accounts ofcareless persons slipping and drowning in the pits. 19-43. 443-457. 12).Sewers were covered with either wooden planks or stonework (Winston, 1975,p. Such pits had to beconstructed in places approved by authorities and at such a depth that odorfrom them would be undetectable (Rosen, 1958, pp. Some cities even put the filthy nature of the sewers to use:at Strasbourg, criminals were punished by publicly dunking them in thewater at the junction of the sewer and the river (D'Haucourt, 1963, p. When repaving a road, crews rarely cleared away the old surface to asufficient depth; thus street levels rose throughout the Middle Ages.These raised sections inhibited drainage and led to the accumulation offilth. Cambridge: Harvard UP. 1 7). 3 3-321. (1934). Russell, Jeffrey Burton. 1 4). In Paris, the sewers drained into a series of moats outside the citywalls, as well as into the Seine River (Winston, 1975, p. This job was left up to the servants in wealthy households and to paidworkers in the case of the public latrines. InLondon, the water flow through these channels was constant since theyreceived most of the rain-water drained from roofs and surroundingproperties, excess water from numerous wells, and the "slop," or washwater, from the residences situated along the road. (1981). 1 2). Speculum9: pp. Throughout the Middle Ages, the primary purpose ofsewers in London continued to be water drainage, since the dumping ofsewage into them would only serve to block them. 1 7). In many cities, such as Paris,the cesspools were cleaned by professional scavengers, who were often alsoin charge of the city's sewers and wells. Sewers and the disposal of human waste were originally two separatesystems. References Buer, M. At the same time,underground sewers were also constructed to carry the waste away from theroyal privies and into the Thames (Sabine, "Latrines and Cesspools," 1934,p. Other problems were illustrated by the London sewersystem: sewers in adjoining parishes were constructed at differentelevations, preventing junctions between sewers; some sewers wereconstructed so that water had to flow uphill; and some of the larger sewerswere forced to discharge into smaller sewers. Thus, laws were often passed prohibiting thedumping of waste into the sewers. City cleaning in mediaeval London.Speculum 12: pp. Such ordinances were aimedparticularly at human feces, although they also covered animal entrails,especially from butcher shops, and animal dung (Sabine, "City Cleaning,"1937, p. Life in the Middle Ages. 13). Allof these persons figured that the waste would be carried away through thegutters, into the sewers, and ultimately into the rivers. This system was copied by a few well-to-do citizens in London,who also constructed sewers connecting their privies with the Thames(Sabine, "Latrines and Cesspools," 1934, p. By 147 , however, a ban on building latrines over sewers and streamswent into effect, in response to rising complaints about the stenchemanating from the open sewers and health concerns arising out of thePlague (Sabine, "Latrines and Cesspools," 1934, p. There were similar laws in other Englishtowns and cities, under which people could be prosecuted for dumping refuseinto sewers or for building privies over them. (1958). Street life in medieval England.Sussex: Harvester P. (1975). Instead, the drain for a single house might be large enough tohandle the waste of a thousand houses, the result being too little waterpressure to move much of the waste paste the cobblestones or brick into thepit (Lewis, 1952, p. Sewers and Waste Disposal in medieval Europe This paper will examine the sewers and waste disposal systemsemployed in Medieval European cities. Although constructed of stone or brick, and thus fairly easy toopen, covered sewers were difficult to clean because the galleries variedin size and were built with little incline. Wastewater engineering: Collection andpumping of wastewater. The bubonic plaque and England: An essayin the history of preventive medicine. In other cities,there were never enough public latrines to accommodate the entirepopulation. In fact, some of the sewers in cities such as Parisand London may have originally been constructed by the Romans for just sucha purpose, copying a system used in Rome itself. As the cities expanded, new sites had to be found for sewagedisposal, as the city limits often overtook the old sites (Rosen, 1958, pp.57-58). The paving techniques used in constructing and repairing the streetsand gutters may also be illustrative of the typical construction of thesewers at this time. The methods of disposing human and animal waste, such as dung, feces,and entrails, depended largely on the wealth of the disposer. In smaller cities and towns, the sewers themselves, into which thestreet gutters emptied, were usually little more than open canals orditches which ultimately flowed into streams or rivers. The city governors quickly recognized the problem presented by thedumping of sewage onto the streets and very early in the Middle Ages passedordinances prohibiting such practices. The next logical step would be to move the waste fromthe privy to the river using water and sewers alone. Mullet, Charles F. In London there were ordinances against dumping human and animalwaste into the sewers. Similarly,in 14th Century Milan, city ordinances regulated the construction ofcesspools and the sewers draining into them. Althoughthis could be partially remedied by covering the sewers, constructingcovers during that time period was slow and expensive. Sewers were originally intended to drain rain and flood waterfrom towns and cities. In fact, the use of drainage sewers asconduits for waste increased as time went on, strong odors notwithstanding. The whole surface wasfinally rammed in tight using a hand rammer made of iron or wood. 486). Those personsfortunate enough to live in castles had access to tower chambers, orwardrobes, which emptied into either cesspools (cesspits) or canals (orsewers) leading to the moat outside the castle walls. A. New York: Howard Fertig. Consequently, eventhe most cosmopolitan of cities, such as Paris and London, did not have acompletely covered sewer system until the 18th Century. (1952). Because oftheir size, there was rarely enough water flow to keep them clean; thus,every five to ten years the deposit had to be scooped up and hauled away.Such an operation became a major undertaking in later years as more sewerswere covered; consequently, in order to facilitate periodic openings, theycontinued to be constructed of stone and brick until the middle of the 19thCentury. This segregation officially continued throughout the Middle Ages; infact, the first citywide sewer systems intended to transport human wasteout of cities were not constructed until the 184 s (Lewis, 1952, p. The London sidegutters separated the road from the foot-paths next to the houses. Winston, Clara and Richard. Ironically, this stepwas actually taken in London prior to a ban on building privies over thesewers. There waslittle recognition of the principle of hydraulics, that by concentratingthe flow of water in a smooth circular channel its scouring power may beincreased. Sabine, Ernest L. In cities near large rivers or bodies water, the waste wasusually dumped into the water; in other cities and towns, the waste had tobe hauled out of the town limits on carts and buried somewhere in thecountryside. The main thoroughfares in large cities, suchas London and Paris, were paved, with either two gutters running along thesides of the street (found only along the widest streets in London) or asingle gutter running through the center of the street. It was one way to use water to move the waste farther away from theprivy itself, thus keeping the living space cleaner than before. Consequently, those personswith the necessary financial means often constructed their privies oversewers, while most persons who did not have a privy on their propertysimply dumped the contents of their chamberpots out onto the streets. (1943). Thus, Cambridge used stone to mend roads in 1477. 31 ). Around 1259, underground sewers were constructed between theThames and Westminster Palace to carry away the animal waste from the royalkitchens, so that the accompanying smells would not corrupt the air of thehalls through which it had previously been carried. Compared to modernsystems, the design of such house sewers or drains was poor. Lexington: U of Kentucky P. 1 3). King, Walter. All was not well with such a system, however. Lewis, R. Cities on the continent do not seem to have enacted similar bans ondumping waste into the sewers. A history of public health. A final problem with the covered sewers was that poorrecords ensured that the locations of these sewers were usually forgotten;these lost sewers would be "rediscovered" when a sudden and intensedownpour flooded them and they overflowed into the surrounding neighborhood(Reid, 1991, p. 2-3). Canterbury, meanwhile, was forced to repair roads with "faggotsof broom" laid in the ruts in 1481-2 (Salusbury-Jones, 1939, pp. Courses of stones were then spaced onthe gravel bed and tapped in, to the right level. In particular, the paper will address each systemseparately and then discuss how the two systems became intertwined. In Amiens,the Somme River itself was divided into parallel channels so as to servicemost of the city and decrease the number of sewers which had to beconstructed. (1992). New York: McGraw-Hill. 34). And inMadrid, there was still no privy in the royal residence in 1733 (Buer,1968, p. This was an advance, however, over simply throwing two planks over apit. Until then,sanitation concerns were probably best served through the use of cesspools. The cesspools,although usually very large, had to be emptied when they began to overflow. 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