How Would The Middle-Ages Smell?

AB Editor | 13:23 Mon 19th May 2014 | History

45 Answers

The assumption is that the middle-ages would absolutely reek of muck, ammonia and general rot - as this is how the world appears on TV and in film.

But would it really?

Would anyone care to share their thoughts of how the middle ages might have smelt?

An Independent Scotland?

Rbl

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EDDIE51

After the Middle ages but people used to store their urine in pots and sell it .It was used in the tanning of leather. If you were so poor you had to do this you were '*** poor' . But if you were so poor you could not afford a pot you
'didn't have a pot to *** in'
Tannerys were known for being extreamly smelly even by the standards of the day.

DrFilth

well i would think manchester was a nice place in them old days because there was not much here to make any smells , this is a picture of a model of the town of manchester in 1650

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2lnjn7k&s=8#.U3ofAyhQNTs

sandyRoe

I went to primary school for a couple of years in Eliza Street in the markets area of Belfast. There was a slaughterhouse nearby. Sometimes you'd see trucks with piles of steaming cow hides on them and there was a smell, which I now think was blood, in the air most of the time.
The people who lived nearby must have got used to it. Probably the same with the middle ages, they'd not have notice.d

DrFilth

deffo a nice place in the old days people from scotland use to come camping in manchester
> In 1745, Charles Edward Stuart and his army entered Manchester en route to London ..... Worsley and his descendants lived at Platt Hall, Rusholme

pastafreak

It would not have smelt much better indoors,as well into the 18th c it was common for folks to squat in a corner of a room.

Ellipsis

Mrs. Pants: But what about the privies?
Blackadder: Um, well, what we are talking about in privy terms is the latest in front wall fresh air orifices combined with a wide capacity gutter installation below.
Mrs. Pants: You mean you crap out the window?
Blackadder: Yes.
Mrs. Pants: Well in that case we'll definitely take it. I can't stand those dirty indoor things.

Peaspeculiars

I went to the Jorvik viking centre in York on a school trip over 25 years ago - they pump in the 'smell' to make you really think you are there on the tour. It's a smell I have not forgotten - In a word - Rank.

Mosaic

I'm hurt by some of the misapprehensions passed on to good Abers by bad teachers. Or dodgy research.
PP: changes between the 1500s and the 1840s of Dr. F's extract were immense. Manchester, alluded to in the article, was a small market town even at the start of the 1700s. And in these smaller settings, disposing of waste and sewerage didn't pose major problems. Most was recycled straight onto the surrounding fields. And the path of the River Medlock is a bit more complex than you describe. I think you mean the Refuge Building, not the Pru.

Habits of personal cleanliness actually declined after the 1500s, possibly in step with growing protestant extremism which was very uneasy with nudity and body functions. So 18th century gentry were dirtier than their medieval counterparts.

Pasta: 'squatting in a corner'.....well people were as modest as circumstances and society demanded. Popping out to pay a visit in the nearest stable or cowshed was the 'village way'.

emmie

reeked,

zoe76

Didn't they throw their 'bedpans' out of the window in the streets in those days? I think it would have smelled pretty atrocious. I also read somewhere that the royal family took a bath just once a year (no idea if that's true) but if it is, I can't imagine what people must have smelled like

whiskeryron

// It's like those dire old days when men and people didn't wear deodorants - stinky armpits was just accepted as horrible, but normal.//

Were women called people in those days boxie ?

Mags22

Maybe as clothing was made of natural fibres it absorbed the smells better than man made stuff, and as knickers weren't worn perhaps fresh air to the 'parts' helped them smell better

jno

Queen Elizabeth was famous for having a sensitive nose; hence the story that she bathed every month whether she needed it or not. (The Romans bathed a lot but the habit died out during the dark ages.) She was always carrying pomanders, and she made her courtiers chew peppermint. No surprise that she installed one of the earliest water closets.

Probably most people didn't notice such normal, everyday smells as other people and horses, just as we don't notice the smell of car exhausts unless they're unusually strong. But in towns, smelly industries like tanning were usually ordered to move downwind somewhere.

jno

Mosaic, courtiers at Versailles were said to squat in dark corners, inside the palace, because it didn't have many facilities; it wasn't just villagers.

seadogg

Go to parts of rural India and you get the idea.

askyourgran

I imagine it would smell terrible what with the lice and fleas it must have been a miserable life. From what I can remember of history lessons the upperclass men and women had nosegays made up of flowers and herbs to smell when in crowded places (or in times of plague). In the hovels it was home to the family cow/sheep/pig etc as well as your family.

Canary42

Last weekend I took the Globe Theatre tour, and the guide told us, amongst other things, that people in Shakespeare's day rarely washed, they thought it removed protective natural oils from the skin. There were NO TOILETS in the original Globe theatre apparently (and in the intervals at the present one you usually have to queue for them !)

mikey4444

If you visit the Yorvik Centre in York, or the Museum of Immigration in Liverpool, they use some kind of smell-generator, that is truly awful...poo, pee and the rest !

mikey4444

For Immigration above, read Migration !