Having to collect human 'gong'? That's disgusting, no way I would do that jo-- "They earned about 6 pence per day, which was a week's wage for the average worker." You know, it doesn't sound that bad actually.
After a while you loose your sense of smell eventually, but i helped cleanout a dump while camping and the smell is almost maddening, but you can use vinegar filled rags and being drunk helps alot haha
I read somewhere - and if it's true it's quite sad - that poor families used to sell pots of urine to the tannery for income, and the poorest of the poor didn't even own a pot. Hence the modern phrase "he's so poor he doesn't even have a pot to piss in."
"...'e don't 'ave a pot to piss in nor a window to throw't out've. At least we're supportin' ourselves. Now, get up off your shyte-streaked arse, and 'elp me scrape this foul pudding from the Missus' gong-pot!"
The rest of the phrase goes..and a window to throw it out of...because so many persons slept in other person's beds or slept sitting up in a row on a bench with a rope across their chest so they wouldn't fall over because no one could afford rental.😮
There were three classes throughout the Middle Ages: Oratores, Bellatores, and Laboratores. Oratores - those that pray. Bellatores - those that fight. Laboratores - those that work. The last category included every single person that didn't fall into the first two categories. Everyone from farm hands to goldsmiths. Some were richer and more successful than others but the whole Elite crap didn't exist, and it is a shame he worded it so sloppily. But hey, nothing like the old 'us' against 'them' to cater to the crowd. 🙄 Apologies for the long post, but as you can tell I got triggered. 😅
I don’t know about you, but in my part of the world we’ve had toilets for 1000 years, one of the rare good things that came out of the Arab conquests, to be honest.
It amazes me, how people all living within a couple hundred feet of each other, couldn’t get together and decide not to throw poop out the window. 😂 I wonder why they couldn’t decide to have one spot to empty the buckets.
There's alot that bothered me about the old ages but this is one of the biggest. Like why did they even decide that that was the way to get rid of poop? And then nobody thought it was nasty to walk threw it when on the streets...just so many questions. No wonder so many ppl stayed sick.
It's interesting how to this day people's surnames generally denotes the occupation of their ancestor like Tanner, Miller, Smith, Bowyer, Fletcher, Sawyer, even White-as it referred to a miller that was always covered in flour dust. My German mom's name of Kessler means 'cauldron maker' and refers to coppersmith as it goes back to the 11th century and the family shield has a copper cauldron on it.
Working in a tannery has to be the absolute worst in any era- the smell, lack of money, and stigma just makes that hard work all the more miserable 😩 Wonderful video! 👌✨
There was a tannery in my small nz town, although surrounded by a wooden fence over two meters high the 'odour' permeated the entire street (100m) ...which was a shame as there were some very nice houses there.
@@shinrapresident7010 hey i may have worded that wrong. I meant Tanner Tyler etc are popular choices as first names today( sometimes with no family connections)
Yeah, I agree. But I question the life expectancy of those working that kind of job. Just one of those things, where even if you pay me a million an hour, I wouldn't do it. But that's just me.
Nightsoilmen also had the risk of methane catching fire. They also had problems with beggars during winter, because the decomposition was warm, so they'd go there to save them selves from freezing to death.
My environmental scientist husband paid his dues working in an underfunded wastewater treatment plant, and I can tell you, the washing machine never recovered. So yeah, I can imagine imagine being in a gong farming family, no fun.
I know this is a new channel, but can I just say your cometary on these videos is outstanding. Please don’t change the style of content here because of a few people who are displeased, and please know your work is really appreciated and highly interesting. Thank you 😁
This audio has been slowed down surely. I have listened to others on this channel and they don’t sound like we are being dragged through aural treacle. Otherwise a great video.
It puts sparkles in my eyes when I think about this era. Like, every single one of us is alive today because our ancestors miraculously survived all of this. It's extraordinary!
Class still exists no matter what government try to say. High class elites, middle class,and lower class. Money means everything in this world and more have more power and usually more breaks you get law and tax wise. Yet,anybody lower than elites is taxed too death and literally work themselves to death just to live. It's truly sad and heartbreaking.
The reality is people like Trump give himself and the billionaires tax breaks leaving the burden to the shrinking middle class and the poor of course. Nothing has changed.
Actually new research proves that people didnt just throw their chamber pot contents out the window. That was a more recent (probably during Dickens time) bit of medieval rhetoric. Before the Gong farmer, a family member or someone would walk it down to the ditch, trough or river. Just as today, medieval people didnt stand for flying excrement, and there were laws and comunity norms.
I just need to let you guys know I absolutely love this channel and always look forward to new videos!! The narrator is brilliant, very soothing, mysterious voice, perfect for these videos 😁 And the content is great! Please keep up the great work and keep the videos coming!
I 2nd that! Very interesting to listen to while I'm doing errands and chores or even as I'm heading off to sleep 😴 ... Then hit replay when I wake up lol
The quality of your content for such a young and small channel is fantastic. I reckon you could go on to really carve out a good following for yourself! Fascinating stuff, well presented!
In modern day Toronto there was an adult video superstore downtown on Yonge St. They employed a guy who's job after the store closed was to clean the video viewing booths at the back of the store each night.
I'm happy that the RU-vid algorithm gods have led me here. Your narration is sublime. It's becoming rare to find a channel who speak naturally and intelligently on a topic. Well done. I subbed and I'm excited to hear more.
People on the outskirts of Houston still depend on well water and cesspools. Like the gong farmer of old, someone has to collect it. When asked, those collectors say it smells like money.
What joy and utter peace it must have brought them all to know the "Church" was there to support them. Glory be. Saints be praised. Yes, that's meant as sarcasm.
Very interesting channel. Subscribed. If I may add, executioners also acted as surgeons or healers, due to their knowledge of anatomy (in later times this was turned on the head when doctors actually became executioners to guarantee a satisfying, long execution). And in some places, they were actually treated like pop-stars. I read a medieval book about the executioner of Lübeck - the marzipan city in Germany - were he described a day at work. First he mentioned how the people were dressed coming to witness the execution. Like they were going to church. And how they cheered him on and even wanted to shake his hand or touch his head for luck and prosperity.
Actually, the killing of cats is likely why the plague stared. Cats ate the rats that carried the flees. Without the calls rats flourished . Thus, the flees flourished. You can blame the killing of cat on the Catholic church.
You have a calm, soothing voice! I listen to your channel on headphones at night and “time travel” at least 4 centuries! If I close my eyes and concentrate, I bump into Samuel Pepys and his friends!
I think charcoal producers had it pretty hard. They had to skillfully chop and stack tons of hardwood. Then, once the stack is set ablaze, they had to watch the stack for 72 hours strait. They used one-legged stool to make sure they were awoken by falling if they fell asleep.
A lot of these jobs have not “gone” they have just shifted . E.g the person that collects and removes the poop they now just clear the pipes but still have to swim in it
Hey man I like this channel alot. You just gained another subscriber. Thanks for the historical info and humor! I love knowing these little things about history so this was a perfect stumbleupon!
Throwing human waste into the street wasn't done anywhere near as much as people think, they didn't like bad smells just like most people, even laws against it
Back in the bad old days of wooden sailing ships these ships did not have a head. They had a poop deck. The crew would go to rail, drop their drawers, hang their butt over the rail & do their business. It didnt take long for the side of the ship to get splattered. It was the job of the youngest, most inexperienced apprentice sailor to go over the side in a bosuns chair & scrub the side of the ship. !
several of the pictures of the 'gong farmers' were actually mud larks which reached their peak later on in the industrial revolution, or so I've heard.
6:32, funny when I was in Dublin, Ireland in the 70 - 80s to visit family, a weird (bad) smell would be about the streets, and my cousins called it “The Knackers” and it came to be a derogatory term for lower class people in Ireland. Like when I went to visit another uncle in the Ballymun Flats in Dublin, my other cousin said “Jaysus, that place is full of knackers”, as evidenced by the 1/2” of urine in the elevators, graffiti all over ( saw a Cool Saxon tag, after the 80s metal band) and naked kids running about, made every public housing project in Brooklyn, NY look like a palace.
6 Disgusting Jobs in the 21st Century 1. Tanner 2. Septic tank repair and pumping 3. Fiberglass insulation installer 4. Chemical plant worker 5. Sperm collector for animal breeding 6. Mortician
