Medieval Toilets: The awful truth! 

When you go the the toilet and people say “ don’t fall in” or “ I thought you fell in” must have been a serious consideration back then.

I was laughing far too much when presenting this video!

It's funny to see how many jump cuts are in this video compared to others, probably Jason was either laughing a lot or saying innapropriate stuff for RU-vid. I would like to see unedited version of this video :D

I am an old man. when i was a small boy in the 40's of the last century, we had a toilet shed down the garden and we did our functions into a big hole dug into the ground under the raised toilet seat. Every year my Great Grandfather used to dig it out and spread it over the vegetable garden and dig it in. One of my fondest memories of my youth is of the delicious vegetables served up at our dinner table!

They used the urine of a red headed boy to quench swords in back then because it added the soul steal ability to the sword. This enchantment added +2 soul steal which gives the wielder 10% of the damage caused, back as life. So that is why it was so highly prized. Hope this helps!

There's a reason tanneries were typically kept far away from the wealthier parts of town. Between all the excrement and decaying animal parts, they managed to concentrate every terrible smell into one location.

Medieval taunt at the Joust " Your castle has skidmarks!"

It's Saturday evening and I'd far rather be watching Modern History talking about medieval toilets than the utter crap that's on telly. 👍🏻

As a teen (I am in my 70s now) I worked at a recreation site the had swimming, boat rentals, and had a dance hall and picnic grounds. People were often commenting on how green the grass was in the picnic grounds. If they only knew, all the toilets went into a septic tank, which we emptied every Friday morning. The procedure was you pulled the cover off the pit, walked out on the 6"x6" beam and dropped a hose down into the pit. The drop was about 8' and the beam you were standing on quickly got quite slippery. The muck was pumped up the hose into a tank truck, which when full went out and spread it on the grounds. If you were the unlucky person that held the hose in the pit you had to be very careful or you ended up in the pit sometimes over your head, you then had to climb out using a ladder lowered down to you. So I can relate to what the gung farmers had to deal with.

WE lived in Japan in 1953-54 . Both the homes and even the department stores had open pits that you had to squat over . The waste was collected in large buckets and carried on "honey carts" and then spread over the fields to fertilize the crops. As a child I was afraid of falling in and asked my Mom to hold my hand ..

"What was called piss at the time" We really haven't ventured far from our medieval ancestors, have we?

Medieval advertising: "Ginger piss will quench your steel."

When I was younger I lived for a time at a wilderness survival school that had no flush toilets. The policy there was that you peed in the woods, and you pooped in the outhouse. Turns out that human poop doesn't smell nearly as strong or as bad when it isn't mixed with pee and is allowed to dry out. So the outhouse, which also had decent ventilation, actually wasn't bad at all.

A local school busted a sewage line that was leaking into the pond of a nearby park. No one knew about it for a few years. But in those few years that pond and the surrounding greenery became the lushest and greenest it had ever been, with insects and small game teeming around it. I imagine a medieval castles moat where sewage runs into it would have a similar effect.

Jason is like the super cool uncle with long hair you only get to see once every 5 years during childhood who know a lot of cool facts about everything and just enchants you with knowledge lol

So you’re telling me to attack a medieval castle I’d have to swim across a river of human shit, on second thought, you can keep your castle.

"but, and it is a big but" Don't try to tell me this pun was unintended.

The storage and selling of liquid waste is also where the expression "too poor to have a pot to piss in" comes from.

Fun fact : The English word "gardarobe" comes from the French "garde robe" (the pronunciation is almost identical). Literally, it means "the one to whom one entrusts his gown". Thus, the servant who, while his master is busy with his business, keeps his gown. The expression, although little used, remained in French "se présenter à la garde robe" which means: to go to the toilet.

Excepting the smell, stale urine has myriad uses through history. In addition to the leather working and laundry referenced in the video, there are uses as mordants in dyeing and in medicine (legitimate versus some of the quackery) among others. The joy of being an archaeologist is excavating latrines because the preservation is often so good and also dealing with historic textiles.

Oooh! Is that why in Kingdom Come: Deliverance the tanner's son was called Reeky, and when you ask the NPCs about it, they say something like "what, you mean besides that he's a tanner?" Also I enjoyed the gymnastics you had to do to avoid the word shit :D amazing :D

I’m afraid I had a rather difficult time keeping a straight face while watching this video. I live across the pond in the USA. A few years ago, I was visiting friends in New York City and we ate at a British style pub in Brooklyn. One of the table had pictures of street signs in England with derogatory names on them. I wondered lots of times what inspired those street names and after hearing your explanation, it make perfect sense! 😂

Wow, filthy rich is just a term I took for granted! If it has its origins in late medieval human waste collection, that's really enlightening! Every episode of Modern History TV, it seems, I learn something cool. Thanks again for a great video Mr. Kingsley 👍🏻

I find that when you go further back in history, the more mundane things are at least as fascinating as the more high profile ones. They're the details that help us really mentally transport ourselves into that time, living like any regular person would. Thanks for painting us a vivid picture, Jason. :D

Sitting on the toilet watching a video about toilets. Let's go!

What many people forget is that there was no shy-pooping. Most of these places had no doors!

I bought a leather bag for my girlfriend whilst in Morocco years ago, it seemed like a really good deal. But when it came back to the UK with the increase in humidity it made the whole house stink of urine.

the production value of his intro always never ceazes to amaze me

lol....my mother had a slop jar,thats what we call it in the south...kept it under the bed,and disposed of in the morning, she did that until high-school in the 70s.....yes,lots of people in the south rural areas didn't get inside plumbing until the 70s....crazy when you think about it....

Outlander had a fun moment when Claire was able to connect with the local women as they did the laundry (kilts and such) around a table, pouring the piss over the cloth. Interesting topic!

Oh and another form of removing waste was to have it set over a pig pen. This was done is Europe and Asia. The "Exploring the Medieval Farmer" Facebook group gave this passage, "Codex Aabonensis · Swine ate feces. The scroll say "I am shitting, get the pig away from me". It is concerning the law that if a traveller is pooping in the tavern and gets his John Thomas bitten off, it is his concern." Sometimes pooping was a very dangerous affair.

The resourcefulness of these people never ceases to amaze me.

Slaked technical lime can be used as a disinfectant/agent, in compost and in latrines and you have no smell. A bucket with a little shovel after each visit.. They knew that since ancient times.

This reminded me of the song "A Day in the Life of a Gong Farmer" from the game Stronghold 2. It plays a lot more jolly than a real gong farmer's life would be :D

"There are many many places in medieval maps that just describe the function of the place." You don't even want to know what they called some of the streets prostitutes worked on

That was very educational! And it made me appreciate my indoor plumbing more..😂

Nasty moats were another layer of protection for the castle.

More like this please! These are the things never talked about. I'd love a video on Medieval Dirty Jobs.

In Chicago, a porta-potty company has the slogan, "Your Sh-t is My Bread and Butter."

My Nan always use to say not to wear my tweed ridding jacket if it was raining because it would smell of wee.. Apparently because they were shrunk using wee somehow! Grim!!!

There's a small village about 15km from Pisa, in Italy, called Vico Pisano with an old castle modified by the famous architect Filippo Brunelleschi in 1440. Well, in the keep (which you can still visit today) there's a garderobe with one seat, but it's not open to the outside. Instead, there's a canal passing below which drains the rain from the roof and discharge in the nearby channel (which once was the Arno river, whose course was later diverted). But we're talking about almost the end of the Middle ages, in this case.

I feel that this video is a result (and expansion) of the recent conversation you had with Shad and other youtubers - I remember bits about leather tanning and stained white walls :) Interesting! I had to search for some pictures of these garderobes. It reminds me of Terry Pratchett's books about Ankh-Morpork city, where there was businessman who was one of the richest people and made all his fortune by collecting feces (and other trash), repurposing and selling them to other people (ie. fertilizers). The circle of life!

Never have I heard anyone say "shit stained castle"

My grandma use to call them slop jars. Kept under the bed for nighttime use, the outhouse during the day

I loved the ending of this video. Thank you so much for bringing us these amazing videos

In this context: Never forget the Erfurt latrine disaster of 1184 as 60 nobles fell in the latrine and died

To imagine as a youth I wanted to have lived in those times. I have been cured of my nostalgia by knowledge and the reality it brings.

I love how you cover everything from food, and everyday life to medieval combat

Kingdom Come: Deliverance actually has those projecting structures hanging out of the castle walls and brown streaks trailing down into the moat. Especially in the castles on either side of the city of Rattay. In these, the height of the castle meant the streaks were around 40 feet or so long and the moat was a very long drop

Lol! I actually sat and listened to someone talk about medieval poop for 13 minutes.😂😂🐝

Love the bluntness of the naming sense of medieval people... XD

Interesting, in Finland there are a ton of lakes called "paskajärvi" which translates to "shitelake". Perhapse those names had a reason in Finland too...

In Calistoga (Napa County, California), there is an authentic modern castle built by the owner of the winery housed there - Castello di Amorosa. He brought in actual castle stones and skilled artisans from Italy to recreate a medieval castle as closely as possible while adhering to modern building codes, since it's open to the public. (Sorry, no garderobes, but real modern indoor restrooms!) It's a really great place with a chapel, great hall, vaulted ceilings, barrel rooms, and even a dungeon. I've been to some events there, and it's a wonderful setting, especially when they have Midsummer events with jousting, archery, and axe throwing... while serving great wine! 🥂🎯 😳 Anyway, they do have a moat, and it's kind of swampy with wetland plants growing in it amidst the dry California climate. Don't know how they keep it wet in the dry season..... 🤔 Please forgive my excitement, but as an American, it's as close as I'll get to a real, historic castle!

"How do you go to toilet?" Me: I walk there with my own legs

slop bucket, night jar, out the window in some places . No wonder there was so much disease. 10 yrs in a cabin near the Canadian border. Porta Potty and a 'dump hole' with a pc of plywood over it. Did the medieval thing most of the summer. Not fun. Thanks for the video Jason.

In the 50's we had a board with a hole and lid in the outhouse with a barrel underneath. The barrel was exchanged once a week by a municipal service (Franeker in the Netherlands).

Animal slurry deaths still happen this day and age on farms. Was when you hear about rescuers going in and also succumbing to fumes.

Oh God this is awful...thank you pluming! And all the people who work in these you are true heroes.

In cesspits, apparently it is hydrogen sulphide and some other toxic gases that kill, and they kill quite quickly. There was a case in my country when a baby fell into a badly secured septic tank. Mother came to rescue and died as well, and then father (or someone else from the family, I don't remember). The point is, they did not just drown or suffocated, they lost consciousness because of toxic gases (which led to drowning). A ****** topic for sure...

I always wonder about the "historical" films I've seemn - no one ever seems to have to absent themselves for a few minutes. Frodo and Sam, I'm impressed by your endurance.

Shropshire is so great love visiting my gran there such beautiful countryside.

Idk why but the idea of “pissing alley” tickles me 😂

4:37 "DESIGNATED SHITTING STREETS!"

A friend of mine needed to go when he was driving out in a remote area. He had go in the rough in the manner of his ancestors. Things were going well he thought. He even found soft leaves to wipe wipe with. It was only later that he discovered the soft leaves were poison ivy.

We do still have pissing alleys. Almost any road in Paris.

"In days of old when knights were bold and toilet paper hadn't been invented, the knightly ass was wiped with grass and walked away contented."

"You could tell the cleanliness of a place by the rushes on the ground." That hasn't changed too much...

Thank you for the glimpse into this interesting period and place in history.

Props to Sir Jason for tackling the original shitshow. (Lol)

"Yes, clothes were washed in urine" See mom? I didn't pee my bed, I just washed the sheets.

This video was so unexpectedly interesting I find it very enlightening to hear about practical stuff of day to day life through history, weirdly even more than knighty stuff and noble crafts

Makes you realize how romanticized we make the past when Castles Likely had skidmarks running down them.

When urine sits for long periods, it breaks down into ammonia. That is why they used it for tanning and bleaching.

What a fascinating series…..I’m loving your content…..thank you for making medieval history so interesting 🙏

Makes me curious and slightly concerned about the origins of "getting pissed" whether in regards to becoming drunk or angry 🤔

Fascinating,when I heard the word Guardyloo?,I'm Scottish and during the days of old Edinburgh the locals used to shout Guardyloo as well ,which I was told was French for "look out below"this was explained when Fine Edinburgh folk poured out their contents ,also the French for a while were in Scotland during the 15 th century (Mary of Guise ,mother of Mary Queen of Scots) so the language was made its way into English .Thanks for this and another great video I have enjoyed Thank you.

My aunts house still has no toilet, she has a shed built over a stream, inside there is a plank with a hole in it, upstream there is a small sluicegate you opened to flush anything downstream. The house dates to the early 1700's

Love your channel Jason! Beyond 10/10 content! - Also, I was wondering, do you think you could do a video giving your thoughts on how would English / French knights vs Mongols encounter would've turned out? Obviously the Mongols fell way before the LATE medieval ages, so they more likely (had they reached western Europe) would've encountered western knights before the FULL-plate armors were made, but could you give your opinion on this matter? Particularly, I am fascinated by your horsemanship abilities and I want to know how you think Lancers and knights carrying a couching lance would've performed against the Mongol horse archer techniques where they swirl around in a circle. Thank you SO Much for all your videos!!!

This is the single most fascinating thing I've seen this month! Thank you for educating all of us! And with a smile at that :D Very well done, sir!

That fly occasionally appearing in the video really adds to immersion :D

Gives a new meaning to a Gong show ha ha! Thanks for the interesting video

You can still see the toilet holes at old Bolingbroke castle 🏰

Omg, why did I want to know! I love Modern Hustory!

I bet you’re right about the origin of “filthy rich”. Made me laugh too much to not be true!

6:14 - speaking of gun powder, one of its ingredients (along with charcoal and sulfer) is potassium nitrate, aka saltpeter. Urine was one source for obtaining saltpeter. Also heard urine was used in mouthwash for several centuries!!!! And I always though Listerine was horrible.

How does your channel not have a billion subscribers? Brilliant!

Can you imagine the smell coming off the moat, wafting into the castle, in the heat of late summer?

There’s a Shite Brook in Montgomery just below the castle....

Jason is literally talking a load of crap now

In day's of old when Knight's were bold and toilets weren't invented they did their load beside the road and then they were contented.

Thanks again for an interesting and great video! I know the editing was probably lot of work because there seemed to be a great many cuts, but a few reference pics might have been nice. Thanks!

So, when the moat was actually separated from a castle with an enormous piece of land. Was that called a remoat? Or would that have been the name for restoring an old moat? 🤔 Maybe, restoring a separated moat would be called a _remote remoat_ 🧐

Me: *watching this while having dinner* Also me: "Fascinating"

Found you off Shad's RP, this is a remarkable channel Brave Sir James!

11:05 "Garderobes were also sometimes used as wardrobes." Interestingly, garderobe is the word for wardrobe in some slavic languages, at least today. Not entirely sure what the connection there is exactly, but I found it interesting.

The death in the cess pit would actually be quite peaceful. They would simply go down from lack of oxygen, doze of and never wake up again. Happens to farmers even today on occasions. That is why these days you are not allowed to maintain bio reactors etc (basically modern day cesspits) alone and without being roped up OR a person with breathing equipment being nearby in many locations

Another interesting video, in Cambridge there is an alley off kings parade where people relieve themselves up until recently on Google maps was called what everyone did which is "piss alley"

“Garde-robe” means (and is the origin of) “wardrobe”, with “garde” being the French word from which “ward” stems. How this ever came to be used to also designate lavatories is beyond comprehension, but so it did as there is reference in some old French texts to “la garde-robe à l’anglaise” (meaning “the Englishman’s wardrobe”). One may imagine there is a slight but precious possibility that this was originally a fashion comment gone awry.

Wonderful history of both fertilizer and protect the walls😊

Come to the hamlet of Shitterton in Dorset, here you can empty your solids bucket at the “farmstead by the stream used as an open sewer”...........I kid you not😂 kind regards Clive from deepest Dorset 👍