Medieval Living Conditions in Britain 1250-1500

2. Homework for year 10 groups Read through the information slides: • Week 1 fill in the living conditions for 1250-1500 • Week 2 fill in the worksheet for beliefs and attitudes • Week 3 Answer exam questions. Hand in date 4th October 2018

3. Britain 1250-1500 - OVERVIEW Did anyone really care about health in medieval England?

4. Britain 1250-1500 - OVERVIEW Did anyone really care about health in medieval England?

5. Britain 1250-1500 MEDIEVAL LIVING CONDITIONS • HOUSES • Villages had common land where they could graze animals like cattle and sheep, whilst ducks, geese and chickens were kept closer to the home, and often wandered inside. • Houses varied in size, with the biggest belonging to the lord of the manor. Some peasants lived in simple houses with walls made of woven sticks covered in mud. • An open fire on a hearth was used for heat and cooking, and the most common food was pottage (contained beans, peas and onion) eaten with bread. • Meat was preserved using smoke from the fire, as there was no chimney the smoke filled the room before leaving via a hole in the roof. • Windows were small with wooden shutters. • Animals like cattle were brought in at night to keep them safe, and the peasants warm. The floor was covered in rushes or straw, and were often swept. • GARDENS AND WASTE • Most village houses had a kitchen garden where peasants grew vegetables and fruit. Nuts were gathered from the woods, honey from beehives, milk and cheese from cows or sheep, and eggs from hens, diets were healthy. • In each garden was a midden heap (rubbish heap).Household, animal and human waste would be thrown onto the heap. Most people would have dug shallow holes in the garden, or gone into the woods. • Waste from cesspits or middens was valuable for fertilising the soil. • Life in the countryside:BREAD • Peasants worked hard on the land, their lives depended on it. Although they worked out in the fresh air it would have been hard physical labour from a very young age. • A good harvest gave the chance of health and comfort. A bad harvest meant a lack of food, which meant death. • The Great Famine of 1315-16, animal disease which affected cattle and sheep, bad weather and poor harvests lasted until 1322 and 10% of the population died. • Certain fungus grew on rye (the grain used to make bread for the poor), and this fungus caused Ergotism. Victims suffered from boils on their skin and a burning sensation, followed by hallucinations and madness. • WATER • Villages needed a stream or spring that provided water. Springs would fill up wells for people to draw water from. Wells were cleaner as animals couldn’t drink from them. We also know that in the summer peasants would bathe in the streams; some drowned as a result. • Streams turned water wheels. Mills ground grain, but later in the period when textiles had taken off they were used to clean the new cloth (fulling mills). Fullers used a mixture that contained human urine. The fullers polluted the streams. • Fish and eels were important to a healthy diet. Because fish was to be eaten on Fridays to mark the day Jesus died, many villages created fish ponds. • Villagers probably drank more water than those in the towns, but they had other options such as cider, or mead. Ale brewed from barley was important to their diets and gave nutrition. Most ales were not strong and only had enough alcohol to stop them going off.

6. Britain 1250-1500 MEDIEVAL LIVING CONDITIONS • Life in the town: • ROADS AND STREETS • Peasants used the same cart to transport waste to the midden/cess pits as well as fruit, vegetables, fish, cheese, timber etc. to the towns to be sold at market. • No refrigeration meant drovers would walk livestock to market, making the roads muddy. • Towns roads were often cobbled, and so was the market place. But due to the number of people using the roads, these would become mud too and carts would damage the drains. • MARKETS AND SHOPS • Markets were central to town life, and traders on • streets around the market would sell from the front of their houses. • These markets included: Tailors making clothes, • barbers washing and shaving customers, sellers of herbs and spices. • Sugar and honey was used to sweeten food. • TOWN’S WATER AND WASTE • Some market squares had a conduit. This was a fountain where water flowed for all to use.The earliest conduits were built by the Church. Cathedrals needed fresh water for acts of worship and they could afford to lay the pipes. • Water-carriers filled leather sacks and sold water door to door. • Street vendors and taverns sold hot food and ale. Some made pies from gone off meat. • Tavern ale was strong brewed ale and drunkenness was a problem despite the Church warning about the sin of gluttony. • Some towns even began to build public latrines for the public. • At the end of the market day the streets were full of waste from food and other goods. There was also the dung dropped by animals. • From 1293, London paid rakers to clear the streets and dispose of the waste outside the city walls. From there it could be collected by peasants and spread on the field, and by 1500 most other towns employed rakers as well. • SMELL • Some industries created smell as well as waste. • Lime burners and blacksmiths began using sea-coal which stank. • Archaeologists found evidence that there was damage to peoples • sinuses indicating breathing difficulties. • People believed smell caused disease – miasma. • TRADERS AND MESS • Medieval traders created all sorts of pollution, and butchers were the worst, but their work was vital. • Most councils ordered butchers and fishmongers to do their cutting on the outskirts of the towns, and dispose of their waste themselves. By 1500 some towns employed carters to collect waste and dispose of it. • Other professions were pushed to the edges of town such as: • ·Dyers needed to dispose of the liquids they used. • · Washerwomen created large amounts of soapy water. • · Masons (builders) created dust and rubble. • · Lime burners made the lime wash. • HOUSE AND GARDEN • Rich merchants owned timber framed houses. The upper floor jutted out to provide more space, but this shut out light for the street below. Roofs would have been straw, and would be infested with rats, mice and insects. • Houses would be tightly packed, but further out many had gardens. The occupants grew flowers to cleanse the air and prevent disease. They also grew vegetables and kept animals such as chickens and pigs, whose dung would be used as compost. • House holders were supposed to keep their gutters and street drains in good order, but not everyone did. Rain water could go stagnant in puddles, adding to the smell. • WATER AND WASTE: • Clean water was not piped into houses, some had awell, • but most had to collect water from the conduit, • or buy it from the water carrier. • People were allowed to put waste in the street for 3-4 days, and if it was not taken away they would be fined. Human waste was more of a problem. The rich may have had a latrine in their house, but for most it was outside. • Most waste was dropped into a cesspit. Unfortunately some may leak into cellars or overflow. • When a latrine was full a gongfermerwould scrape out the mess and take it away, this could involve climbing into the pit. Gongfermerswould cart the waste out at night and sell it to farmers, or simply tip it into streams like the one outside Exeter, known as Shitbrook.

7. Britain 1250-1500 MEDIEVAL EPIDEMICS • GOD’S PUNISHMENT: • In the medieval period everything happened by the will of God. • Plague or disaster was a punishment or the Devil testing their faith. • People would pray for healing, ask a priest to pray for them with a lit candle. In 1349 so many candles were being used that wax prices soared. • To claim God’s favour people did many things: • · Priests urged people to confess their sins. • · At special services people ate holy bread, blessed by the priest. • · The king ordered bishops to organise large processions of priests through cities, confessing the nation’s sins and praying the plague would disappear. • · Groups of flagellants came to England from • northern Europe. They went around • whipping their backs. They believed that if • they suffered on behalf of others, • God would take away the plague. • Other causes of the plague believe during this time was: • · Blaming the unusual movement of the planets, • or earthquakes in distant lands. • · Miasma theory, that bad air was common • when the air smelled or was full of sin. • · They believed miasma could enter through sweaty skin. So they thought it was dangerous to bathe or exercise. People carried around flowers to purify the air. • · Some thought you could catch it by looking a victim in the eye. • · The most vulnerable were those whose humours were out of balance due to a bad diet. • THE BLACK DEATH • ARRIVAL AND SPREAD: • Epidemics were common because of the poor food and dirty living conditions. Such as: Ergotism, typhoid and dysentery, but none compared to plague. • The deadly disease from China arrived in England in 1348. Within weeks it had struck London and Bristol. No one was safe, and by 1349 it had spread to Wales, Northern England and Ireland. • Plague was caused by Yersina pestis, and it was a germ which lived in the guts of fleas. When the flea bit its victim it spreads the disease. Black rats carried the plague, and medieval people did not make the link between plague, flea and rat. • HORROR AND HELPLESSNESS: • The plague came in 3 main forms: • Bubonic plague: from a flea bite, causes painful buboes in the armpits and groin, an intense fever and blisters over the body. Death follows after a few days. • Septicemic plague:is caused when the infection reaches the bloodstream. There are no buboes but the victim bleeds freely and the fingers, toes or nose turn black and begin to rot away. • Pneumonic plague:caught by breathing in cough droplets from someone who is already infected by plague. The victim violently coughs up blood and may be dead within two days. • There was no cure for the plague, but many treatments were tried. • They were so desperate for a cure they even tied live toads or chickens to the buboes. • Letting blood flow was common for any illness involving a fever, and aimed to restore balance to the four humours, but would make the patient weaker. • Nothing worked, and by 1348 the number of wills made in London was 15 times higher than it had been in 1347.

8. Britain 1250-1500 MEDIEVAL EPIDEMICS • OVERWHELMING IMPACT: • No matter what people did to protect themselves, the plague could not be stopped. • Historians believe that the death toll was around 60% • 3.5 million died in two years. • The death rate impacted on daily life: • with priests unable to give ‘last rites’ to dying victims, so the Church relaxed its rules. • Individual burials stopped, and instead people were buried in mass graves. • Some priests were too scared to visit the sick and lead funerals. Instead they fled their parishes. • Towns were worst hit, and people forced ill family members, even children, out onto the street. The rich moved to the countryside hoping to find pure air. Others locked themselves up in their homes, and threw waste out of the window, including the bodies of victims. • In April 1349 King Edward III wrote to the Mayor of London • telling him to clean up the streets. Apart from this, • the government did little to deal with the crisis. • CONSTANT THREAT: • The Black Death in England died down during 1350, but it struck again in 1361-62 and there were twenty more outbreaks before 1500. • Even though people believed it was God’s punishment, plague became a constant fear, and skeletons representing death became a common image in pictures, jewellery and tombstones of the period. • After 1400 plague was restricted mainly to the towns. This meant that mayors and councils were encouraged to keep towns clean, but it wasn’t easy.

9. Britain 1250-1500 MEDIEVAL IMPROVEMENTS • PUBLIC HEALTH IN TOWNS AND MONASTERIES • In the 13th century, the church set the highest standards in hygiene. • They would have infirmaries for the ill, latrines above the river to flush waste away, fresh spring water piped into the kitchens and washing areas. • This was because they needed fresh water for: • · It was blessed and used in baptisms and other services. • · Mixed with the wine sipped during mass. • · Used to wash the silver cups after mass. • · Used to wash sacred linen altar cloths. • · It was used by monks and nuns to wash, and bathe. • It provided drinking and washing water, as well as baths for sick townspeople being treated by the nuns. • Bringing water over long distances was expensive. • A cathedral however could afford pipes, and so town conduits were extensions from the • cathedral pipes. • By 1500 this was changing, and standards in monasteries began to drop and towns became richer, and willing to spend money on health and hygiene. The diagram above shows public health care in 6 English towns, 1250-1348.

10. Britain 1250-1500 MEDIEVAL IMPROVEMENTS • TOWN AUTHORITIES AND HEALTH • Towns were dirty in the Middle Ages, but there were efforts to clean them up. • London led the way in public health in England. • It piped spring water to its citizens since the 1230’s, possibly the first city in Western Europe to do so. • Despite the Black Death, the population grew from 25,000 in 1250 to almost 100,000 in 1500. • The city was crowded and dirty, and it was the duty of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to run London’s affairs. Many were wealthy, and members of the Guilds.

11. Britain 1250-1500 Did anyone really care about health in medieval England? Overview: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Living Conditions: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Epidemics: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Improvements: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

12. Britain 1250-1500 Did anyone really care about health in medieval England? Beliefs, attitudes and values: Disease was God’s punishment… ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Urbanisation: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Wealth and Poverty: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Science and Technology: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Local and National Government: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

13. Britain 1250-1500 Did anyone really care about health in medieval England? Imagine that someone tells you that medieval people were stupid and uncaring for not looking after their health. Write a clear, organised and well-supported reply that agrees and disagrees. Include as much evidence as possible. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

14. Britain 1250-1500 Did anyone really care about health in medieval England? Give one example of the way in which medieval people reacted to the Black Death. [1] ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Write a clear and organised summary that analyses peoples living conditions in the Middle Ages. Support your summary with examples. [9] ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

15. Write a clear and organised summary that analyses people’s living conditions in the Middle Ages. Support your summary with examples. Living conditions in the Middle Ages were different depending on who you were and where you lived. In the countryside, the Lord of the Manor would live in a much larger house than the peasants who worked on his land. There was also difference between the types of houses peasants lived in. For some, their homes were basic huts with walls woven from sticks and covered in mud. Others lived in timber framed houses which were larger. These timber framed houses would keep a fire burning which could make the house quite smoky but provided warmth and a way of cooking (commonly pottage, a thick soup). Peasants had meat and bread to eat, the smoke from the fire would be used to preserve the meat. However, whilst there were many similarities there were also a number of differences between life in the countryside and life in towns. Houses in towns were very different from the countryside as they were larger and only rich people could afford them. Often, the top floors would jut out to make more space in the house which meant the streets underneath would be very dark. Very few houses in the centre of towns had gardens but further out gardens were common and often had flowers to purify the air as well as growing vegetables to eat. The diets of people in the towns and countryside were very similar, however, there was more variety available to people in the towns due to the presence of the market. In towns water would be available from a wider variety of sources than in the countryside. As well as rivers and streams there would often be a conduit in the centre of the market square as well as water sellers going door to door. As this comparison has shown, medieval living conditions varied depending on factors such as wealth and location. This answer is top level 3 because the candidate has included a wide range of characteristic features of the time which demonstrates thorough subject knowledge. The examples used by the candidate have been clearly explained rather than just identified. The summary has been well organised with clear indication of second order concepts (comparison between town and country) and there is a logical coherence to the answer by comparing different elements of living conditions in first the countryside and then the towns.