How was sanitation in medieval times compared to modern day times?

Answer 1

This is a difficult question, and different people give different answers.

It seems medieval people bathed a lot. They believed that cleanliness was next to godliness, and so they took care to be clean.

But they had no idea at all of how disease vectors operated, and so they were very ineffective in trying to control the spread of disease. They believed that disease could be borne by bad air, so they were rather intolerant of bad odors. But they simply had no idea that fleas and rodents spread the plague, for example, and so they put their efforts into the wrong places.

There are things written about the Middle Ages and hygiene that are quite possibly not true, and we have to be careful to assess these things rationally.

For example, I have read that they threw human waste into the streets. Given the fact that they regarded foul odors as disease vectors, I find this hard to believe. It is easier to believe reports that night soil was collected and sold for fertilizer. I have seen drains that go directly from the houses to street gutters, but it makes better sense that these be used for gray water than for human waste.

I have seen reports that the water was bad, and they knew it, so they drank beer and wine. At the same time, I have seen other reports to the effect that every manor had wells and springs, and the water was used for drinking. Also we have records and artifacts of the water infrastructure of London, which took water from various springs, wells, and brooks, and delivered it to the people. Only poor people, it is thought, took their water from the Thames.

It is very hard to find good source materials on this subject, especially since it is the sort of thing people would exaggerate about for fun. The image of a professional cook scraping a running sore with the knife he was using for cooking, in the Canterbury Tales, is clearly intended to be shocking to the reader, a fact that should tell us not that it was common, but instead that the readers of the time would have found it disgusting. But good sources, objectively describing conditions, are lacking.

There are some links below.

Answer 2

The medieval world was a stinky, dirty, smelly, place. There was no sanitation and garbage was thrown out of windows into the street, dead animals floated in rivers with sewage, the streets were muddy, dirty, and full of feces from horses and other animals. People didn't wash, clothing wasn't washed, and there was no inside Plumbing. There could be dead bodies as well in rivers or on roads and in streets. This was really true when the plague hit. As many as 6,000 a day were known to die.

Answer 3

The streets were very dirty and they would dump out all the poo and pee in the streets because of no sewer lines or pluming. It was very stinky and dirty.

Answer 4

they would go to the bathroom in a chamber pot then the pot was taken out side and emptied in the streets