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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Bazile

Well they didn't have Jeyes or Dettol liquid - so it cant have smelt particularily good up the nostrils

sandyRoe

In days of old, when knights were bold, and toilet paper hadn't been invented...nor had toilets.
It would have ponged something awful. Even in the early 19th Century people were still using items like these in the link to try and mask the smell.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Vinaigrettes-/107441/i.html

AB Editor

Question Author

Yes, so no petrol, plastic, tarmac, cleaning products, rubber etc - so with these absent, what would you smell?

Frank97

Well I don't suppose there would be many gardens full of flowers in the towns and cities, so that might make a difference. Living in the countryside, as I do, I don't think that there would be that much difference though.

AB Editor

Question Author

So everyone smelt like French dressing?

Lie-in King

In days of old, when knights were bold, before toilets were invented, they left their load along the road and walked away contented.

Probably smelt better indoors...

stewey

I was going to ask if you meant old-agers not middle, but then I realized you said "ages".

Mosaic

It depends entirely on where you were. For example, given the opportunity, people bathed. Streams and pools in rivers were popular in hot weather. The notorious 'stews' of London's South Bank began as bath-houses with stem rooms. Muck meant money, so carting away filth and refuse would be worthwhile for most of the time. The foul muck-laden streets of the worst of later medieval and Tudor London would have been the end part of a long process of change and accumulation. There'd be a fair amount of wood-smoke and some 'sea-coal' smoke as well, from cooking and from processes such as dyeing (which would stink) and glassmaking (ditto). On the topic of what people smelled like - people only stopped smelling like people after the 1950s. Open any museum display case with garments from the past inside, and you'll detect the faded smell of armpits, attempts at deodorant, mothballs and tweed - which Terry Pratchett points out, smells of wee. Nowadays we are brainwashed into finding human smells offensive but in the past people relished the scent of others.

sunny-dave

Horse Dung, Cow Dung, Pig Dung, Chicken Dung, Human Dung ... I think you get the picture - fine in fields, smelly in town.

The Builder

Lavender sellers have been doing good business for hundreds of years for obvious reasons.

Lavender ... from the latin "lavare" ... "to wash"

DrFilth

think mosaic sums it up well
>Mosaic
It depends entirely on where you were. <

the more people you get living near each other the more muck and smells you will have. rivers that once had fish become open sewers

this is from 1832 before that it would have been green fields as you walked out of the town centre

Old_Geezer

When I reached my first 'middle age' birthday, I still used my nose.

Clanad

But... but, I've friends that live at cattle feeding pens... the ones where younger steers are taken to fatten them up... often by the thousands, as well as acquaintances that work at a city recycling location and they never complain about the odors. I suspect one gets used to the surrounding "air" and really never gives it a second thought since it's there interminably...

Peter Pedant

awful - just awful

The whole of Versailles had no bogs so you just went out into the woods, along with everyone else.

No sewers,one flushing bog in the country - JOhn Hartington and the Queen shared as far as I can see. cess pits - no system for clearing them, and not only did your own reek but all the others in the neighbourhood.

Oh my dear, and the flies......

boxtops

However rank it was, Ed, nobody would realise - because normal people didn't have anything to compare it with.

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

stewey

And don't forget the ubiquitous malodorous middle-age middens.

boxtops

...and in the Middle Ages, underpants hadn't been designed....

Peter Pedant

The useful quote from Dr Filth ( whose monicker I STILL covet ) looks as tho it is from 'Condition of the working class 1844' by one Friedrich Engels.
yes he of Marx and Engels fame.
He wrote in simiilar terms of Manchester behind the 'wall of factories' and the area enclose by the beginning of Oldham Rd and Gt Ancoats St. SOme of the buildings are still there.

Of Dr Filth's quote - you can still trace the route.
Start at Picc Station and the Medlock is about 100m away.
The line of the river is parallel to Whitworth Street.
The Medlock then crosses Oxford Rd at the old Pru Building directly under the raised rail section that crosses Oxford rd.

have fun everyone - doesnt smell too bad these days