In all of Medieval England, few places were as rancid and smelly as the banks of the Thames near “Butcher’s Bridge.” Butchers of the day would take bundles of refuge and carcasses to the bridge and dump it in the river. Animal entrails, stinky, diseased animal parts and blood littered the bridge. For 500 years this practice continued.
Complaints in 1369 had little effect, a law against it changed nothing. And the stench of rotting flesh made it so that no one could live there. However, not only butchers fouled the waters of the Thames, every Englishman in proximity would dump sewage and waste into the river.
The Black Death was the King Kong of Plagues
The medieval period was racked with epidemics, plagues, and disease, but none were as merciless as the Bubonic Plague, or what we know as the Black Death. Between 1328 and 1351, it tracked trading routes, wiping out a full 50 percent of Europe’s population, killing 200 million people. That is equivalent to the entire U.S. population in 1967. Life expectancy plummeted to age 17.
The pandemic brought symptoms that included high fever, delirium, vomiting, bleeding in the lungs, and, most notably, painful swelling in the lymph nodes. The painful swollen boils in the neck turned red and eventually black—large black boils oozing with pus and blood—hence the name. It was transmitted by fleas on vermin to humans.
When it Rained it Reeked
Since the first municipal sewage systems were not built until the 1840s, waste removal of human and animal excrement in medieval towns was abysmal. As we’ve said, it was nonexistent. Of course, castles had moats, others had the Thames, but peasants in fields dumped their chamber pots out in the pathways.
As disgusting as that was, the rain made it worse. Dirt and cobblestone streets became rivers of sludge and urine, washing the filthy stench through town. It really was as bad as it sounds. And we don't mean it took light flooding to cause this; any amount of moisture on the ground exacerbated the issue.
Soup to Stop Spoiling Food
While none of us would like to travel back in time to the Middle Ages, there is one life hack we can borrow from our medieval counterparts. Since the first “true” fridges were made in the early 20th century, medieval people didn’t have many ways to preserve food. Common food preservation practices included using salt to dry out meat or to dunk things in vinegar and syrup to stop them from spoiling.
Another common practice was soup. When vegetables, bread, and meat were going off, these folk boiled them in water to save them before they went completely rancid. As weird as it sounds, everything that could spoil could go into a pot, meaning there were plenty of interesting recipes around but probably few we’d dare taste.
Unappetizing Love Potions
In the 21st century, we have dating apps and aromatic fragrances to combat the single blues. In the Middle Ages, they had love potions, sweaty cakes, and an obvious lack of personal hygiene by today’s standards. Of course, there was not just one love potion recipe back then, but a common one was sweaty cakes.
As unromantic as it sounds, if a person back then were vying to capture the attention of their one true love, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see them baking a cake using ingredients like blood, sweat, and other bodily fluids. The rationale behind these “sweaty cakes” was that once the intended sweetheart munched on these “bodily” ingredients, they’d fall madly in love with the owner of the ingredients. It’s probably safer to skip these.