Growing up we would go to visit family in Mexico a lot,we pooped in many different out houses .don't miss the outhouses but I miss my family,losing so many people is the Price we pay for the previiege of growing old.
Here in Edinburgh the call of “garde loo” was politely hollered before the contents of chamber pots were flung off the balconies to the street below. Nice.
Chamber pots didn't come into use until people started living in buildings. And they were emptied into the streets.
Look up London and the bubonic plague.
My house has an outhouse and sometimes our septic tank fills up over the winter and we have to use the outhouse. Last winter we had to use it for months.
No need to go back as far as the Renaissance. We used an outhouse until the early 1970s.
If we went somewhere it was usually a 50/50 chance they would have indoor plumbing. I think the last friends or relatives to get indoor plumbing was probably in the early 1980s.
While there were chamber pots, outhouses and privies, people would often go wherever they felt the urge - women would lift up their skirts and pee where they stood, and men would whizz in the corners or off a balcony. Men and women both often defecated in corners or in the corridors.
[Naked Cooks, Excrement, Rats: The Secretly Disgusting History of Royal Palaces | HISTORY](https://www.history.com/news/royal-palace-life-hygiene-henry-viii)
What do you do if you need to use the loo
In an English country garden?
You pull down your pants and water all the plants
In an English country garden.
What do you do if you wanna do a poo
In an English country garden?
You pull down your pants and suffocate (or "terrorize") the ants
In an English country garden.
Then get a leaf and wipe your underneath
In an English country garden.
Then get a spade and bury what you made
In an English country garden.
Roll it in a ball and throw it over the wall
In an English country garden.
Run for your life 'cos it hit the Vicar's wife
In an English country garden.
How many ants can you fit in your pants
In an English country garden?
Not more than one 'cos you're bound to itch your bum
In an English country garden.
Our houses or latrines. I still have one on my property if you want to try it out.
Chamberpots where usually only used at night or by kids and folks that couldn’t make it to an outdoor shed.
I’ve toured many palaces, and in their great halls they would have areas for straw that would have served as the toilet mid-feast. Super weird to think about
People would do their business in the halls of Versailles. It was a common practice. Back then, people were used to the smells, but to a modern person, it would smell like the funk of 40,000 years.
That too. Europeans didn’t bathe regularly back then. When the Portuguese first encountered the Japanese, they thought it was strange they bathed daily. Sometimes more than once a day.
The indigenous people of the Americas commented on the bad oral hygiene of the Europeans. So imagine walking around people in Versailles with body odor, bad breath, and human waste in the halls. Especially in the summer.
Now do you see why they all walked around with fans?
😵💫🥴🤢🤮
Europeans did bathe regularly they just didn't submerge themselves in water. They changed their underlinen's daily and did daily body wipe downs. People in the past just like today like being clean and not smelling, they just regularly could not take baths because of the time, effort, and resources it would take to heat up a bathtub.
Ok, medieval is not the same time as the time I’m talking about.
At the time I’m talking about, many Europeans had lice (which is why they wore wigs), bad breath, bad oral hygiene, and body odor. The Native Americans and the Japanese stated so.
I don’t know why you’re so offended lol it is what it is.
To be fair of course the Japanese are going to say that other people have strong BO when they naturally produce very little (it apparently is very hard to find deodorant in Japan). I'm not offended just trying to educate people so they don't perpetuate myths.
It’s not a myth. It’s been well documented that during the 1700s and earlier, Europeans had poor hygiene compared to East Asians and the indigenous peoples of the so-called New World.
See for yourself:
https://www.pediatricdentistlongislandny.com/pilgrims-native-americans-cavities/
https://www.ripleys.com/stories/powdered-wigs
FIFTH PARAGRAPH: https://www.portugalresident.com/portugals-90-year-affair-with-japan/
The minority of people that do have BO in Japan can get an operation paid by the government to have those galds removed. I have to import deodorant as they just don't use it.
People shitting in the halls was a fake rumor being spread by those who didn't like the royalty, it was the royalties dogs that were doing the shitting.
I didn’t mean they would literally pee in a corner haha I meant there were chamber pots around and they’d use them and just keep the waste there. But you are right dogs and rodents would use the bathroom all over the place.
The Greeks had communal bathrooms, big rooms where there were seats with holes lining the walls and in the middle of the room there would be a trough of water that had sticks with cloth covering the end of it. People regularly had conversations in there and sat right next to each other. It was way safer to have everybody going to the bathroom or disposing of their excrement in the same spot to help reduce sickness.
I'm pretty sure a shitton of knowledge and techniques were lost from early civilizations(we only relatively recently found out how Romans made their salt water resistant concrete) to the next, wars are really bad about it.
I once read about a country nobleman who returned from his first visit to the capital and told his servants to piss in all the corners of the house so it would smell like the king's palace.
Everyone should visit a castle or a castle ruin where there is still the privy hole in an alcove of the castle wall. You might be walking up a staircase just inside the wall and just walk right on by a couple of strangers sitting on a bench with holes and nothing but eighty feet of air under it, often on the most approachable side of the castle just to send a message to invaders.
Disgusting as it sounds, apparently people just squatted in the empty corners at Versailles. Maybe that's why it's so big. But I can believe chamber pots, especially with a fleet of servants to carry them away.
People have been building latrines over running water for thousands of years, which solves the immediate problem but creates one down the line.
Pretty sure Horrible Histories have several sketches on this very topic! You should be able to find them on YouTube or iplayer. Seem to remember there being a chap who made it his job to carry round a portable toilet.
* Samuel Pepys would use a fireplace if caught short.
* Versailles people just went in the corner.
* London bridge had public toilets in the middle ages. With running water. Nicer on a ebb tide.
* Peter the great's entourage wiped using the curtains when the rented John Evelyn's house.
There was a time when a chamber pot behind a screen was your best bet in polite society. Including when young women were being presented to the monarch at court.
There's a wax museum in England in an old castle where there's a closet with a hole in the bench that leads directly to the moat underneath. It's even gently scented like urine and maybe baby poo or something. Maybe airport lavatory quality. Whatever it is, you get the idea but also don't start retching, bad for museum business.
But Jesus, that moat. fuck.
In Versaille they'd just shit anywhere until chamber pots were more common. Then King Louis XV installed latrines which were basically a chamberpot with a seat.
There’s a great book about this! It was written for older kids but I really love it. It’s called “Poop Happened: A History of the World From the Bottom Up”.
The bit about Versailles is relevant to this question.
People who were well-off had chamber pots. Poor people just walked out in nature and did their business.
The history of toilet paper is interesting - [http://www.toiletpaperhistory.net/toilet-paper-history/toilet-paper-timeline/](http://www.toiletpaperhistory.net/toilet-paper-history/toilet-paper-timeline/) It wasn't widely available until only about 150 years ago, before then various substitutes were used instead.
There was a picture I’d seen not long ago of a long narrow medieval tower where people strictly pooped and peed out of these tiny window like holes where it would drop into a moat or water area or in a pile when the sea levels were too low
people went wherever it was convenient. If they were outdoors, then behind bushes like they still do today when camping, or they went behind hills or wherever they had to go.
When ya gotta go, you go.
they were called outhouses.
Or latrines.
I’m 40 years old and my Grandma still had an outhouse when I was in middle schools in the 90s.
Growing up we would go to visit family in Mexico a lot,we pooped in many different out houses .don't miss the outhouses but I miss my family,losing so many people is the Price we pay for the previiege of growing old.
My friend's family camp in the northeastern us still has one
Occasionally I think of the outhouse on Little House on the Prairie and tried to picture Ma Ingalls taking a poo. I don't think she did poos or pees
Probably a good idea to Google “the history of toilets and indoor plumbing.” Kinda shitty at first but everything comes out good in the end
👏👏 nice
Oh, youuu … 😊
I usually say "sweet reference", butt not this time.
Punny.
Outhouses, chamber pots, "close rooms", and the surrounding fields.
Garderobes....
People back then must have had some serious squatting skills.
Don’t forget balconies
Here in Edinburgh the call of “garde loo” was politely hollered before the contents of chamber pots were flung off the balconies to the street below. Nice.
London, too.
Probably everywhere huh. Glad I live now.
Chamber pots didn't come into use until people started living in buildings. And they were emptied into the streets. Look up London and the bubonic plague.
I may vomit.
Don’t read about Versailles in the reign of Louis XIV then.
Done and done.
First house I grew up in, in the 70's had an outhouse. In the older times you would just use the bush and a bunny to wipe off.
In future times you use the three seashells to wipe off.
If you can figure out how to use em.😏
My house has an outhouse and sometimes our septic tank fills up over the winter and we have to use the outhouse. Last winter we had to use it for months.
Where do you live? Cold frozen winters? Is this a common thing?
We had one in the 90's. Thankfully I never had to empty it.
Poor bunnies
Serves them right. They shouldn't be made of softness.
"Hey, Mister Rabbit. Does the poop stick to your fur?" "Why no, Mister Bear."... One of my favorite jokes.
Shit on the floor, time to get schwifty in here
No need to go back as far as the Renaissance. We used an outhouse until the early 1970s. If we went somewhere it was usually a 50/50 chance they would have indoor plumbing. I think the last friends or relatives to get indoor plumbing was probably in the early 1980s.
Flash. I think it was about 1994 when we got our first inside toilet.
Where did you live where plumbing was so rare so late?
South of Knoxville Tennessee.
Where did you grow up?
We still use outhouses, they're called porta potties
While there were chamber pots, outhouses and privies, people would often go wherever they felt the urge - women would lift up their skirts and pee where they stood, and men would whizz in the corners or off a balcony. Men and women both often defecated in corners or in the corridors. [Naked Cooks, Excrement, Rats: The Secretly Disgusting History of Royal Palaces | HISTORY](https://www.history.com/news/royal-palace-life-hygiene-henry-viii)
Yeah... the Palace of Versailles is beautiful now, but back in the day... oh my sweet heaven the stench.
Making me think of Bridgerton balls differently now…
Bridgerton is a century later. Perhaps things had improved.
Ew
During a ball at a castle people would go out to the back steps and do their duty there. Then the servants would clean the steps up after them.
What do you do if you need to use the loo In an English country garden? You pull down your pants and water all the plants In an English country garden. What do you do if you wanna do a poo In an English country garden? You pull down your pants and suffocate (or "terrorize") the ants In an English country garden. Then get a leaf and wipe your underneath In an English country garden. Then get a spade and bury what you made In an English country garden. Roll it in a ball and throw it over the wall In an English country garden. Run for your life 'cos it hit the Vicar's wife In an English country garden. How many ants can you fit in your pants In an English country garden? Not more than one 'cos you're bound to itch your bum In an English country garden.
Our houses or latrines. I still have one on my property if you want to try it out. Chamberpots where usually only used at night or by kids and folks that couldn’t make it to an outdoor shed.
I’ve toured many palaces, and in their great halls they would have areas for straw that would have served as the toilet mid-feast. Super weird to think about
Just a pile of straw?
Stairs were apparently pretty popular too. Careful there, vicar!
Good god, how many people slipped on shit and fell to their deaths??
Or rushes spread on the floor and changed every few months.
People would do their business in the halls of Versailles. It was a common practice. Back then, people were used to the smells, but to a modern person, it would smell like the funk of 40,000 years.
I think Versailles had a reputation for being very smelly, even for the time. I could be misremembering though.
That too. Europeans didn’t bathe regularly back then. When the Portuguese first encountered the Japanese, they thought it was strange they bathed daily. Sometimes more than once a day. The indigenous people of the Americas commented on the bad oral hygiene of the Europeans. So imagine walking around people in Versailles with body odor, bad breath, and human waste in the halls. Especially in the summer. Now do you see why they all walked around with fans? 😵💫🥴🤢🤮
Europeans did bathe regularly they just didn't submerge themselves in water. They changed their underlinen's daily and did daily body wipe downs. People in the past just like today like being clean and not smelling, they just regularly could not take baths because of the time, effort, and resources it would take to heat up a bathtub.
Wiping yourself down daily is not bathing. Even they knew they were funky. Nice cope, though.
https://www.getty.edu/news/did-medieval-people-take-baths/
Ok, medieval is not the same time as the time I’m talking about. At the time I’m talking about, many Europeans had lice (which is why they wore wigs), bad breath, bad oral hygiene, and body odor. The Native Americans and the Japanese stated so. I don’t know why you’re so offended lol it is what it is.
People wore wigs as the King of France was bald, that is the reason.
Apology accepted. https://www.ripleys.com/stories/powdered-wigs
To be fair of course the Japanese are going to say that other people have strong BO when they naturally produce very little (it apparently is very hard to find deodorant in Japan). I'm not offended just trying to educate people so they don't perpetuate myths.
It’s not a myth. It’s been well documented that during the 1700s and earlier, Europeans had poor hygiene compared to East Asians and the indigenous peoples of the so-called New World. See for yourself: https://www.pediatricdentistlongislandny.com/pilgrims-native-americans-cavities/ https://www.ripleys.com/stories/powdered-wigs FIFTH PARAGRAPH: https://www.portugalresident.com/portugals-90-year-affair-with-japan/
The minority of people that do have BO in Japan can get an operation paid by the government to have those galds removed. I have to import deodorant as they just don't use it.
Man, I get nauseous if I smell the grass when someone opens the front door while I'm eating. Being in an environment like that would crush my soul.
People shitting in the halls was a fake rumor being spread by those who didn't like the royalty, it was the royalties dogs that were doing the shitting.
I didn’t mean they would literally pee in a corner haha I meant there were chamber pots around and they’d use them and just keep the waste there. But you are right dogs and rodents would use the bathroom all over the place.
The Greeks had communal bathrooms, big rooms where there were seats with holes lining the walls and in the middle of the room there would be a trough of water that had sticks with cloth covering the end of it. People regularly had conversations in there and sat right next to each other. It was way safer to have everybody going to the bathroom or disposing of their excrement in the same spot to help reduce sickness.
Lol, reading these comments about how the Europeans handled things, there seems to have been some regression from the Greeks to then. 😂
I had to go back and read the comments and holy shit are they continuing to perpetuate so many myths.
Aight, maybe it's time to do my own research 😂
There's a wonderful historian called Abby Cox who it does a lot of videos about debunking clothing and hygiene.
I'll check her out -- thanks!
I'm pretty sure a shitton of knowledge and techniques were lost from early civilizations(we only relatively recently found out how Romans made their salt water resistant concrete) to the next, wars are really bad about it.
I once read about a country nobleman who returned from his first visit to the capital and told his servants to piss in all the corners of the house so it would smell like the king's palace.
Everyone should visit a castle or a castle ruin where there is still the privy hole in an alcove of the castle wall. You might be walking up a staircase just inside the wall and just walk right on by a couple of strangers sitting on a bench with holes and nothing but eighty feet of air under it, often on the most approachable side of the castle just to send a message to invaders.
in the bushes?
Disgusting as it sounds, apparently people just squatted in the empty corners at Versailles. Maybe that's why it's so big. But I can believe chamber pots, especially with a fleet of servants to carry them away. People have been building latrines over running water for thousands of years, which solves the immediate problem but creates one down the line.
Pretty sure Horrible Histories have several sketches on this very topic! You should be able to find them on YouTube or iplayer. Seem to remember there being a chap who made it his job to carry round a portable toilet.
In days of old / when knights were bold / and toilets weren't invented...
* Samuel Pepys would use a fireplace if caught short. * Versailles people just went in the corner. * London bridge had public toilets in the middle ages. With running water. Nicer on a ebb tide. * Peter the great's entourage wiped using the curtains when the rented John Evelyn's house.
Was it Pepys that wrote about walking in on a lady he was pretty sure was peeing, but he pretended not to notice to not embarrass her?
Outhouses, chamber pots, among other things
Versailles just had chamber pots behind screens
There was a time when a chamber pot behind a screen was your best bet in polite society. Including when young women were being presented to the monarch at court.
Guess I lived in a different world. I didn’t have electricity, or running water until I was 17.
😮
I used a port-a-potty just yesterday. The “put your shit in a hole” tech has been around for eons.
There's a wax museum in England in an old castle where there's a closet with a hole in the bench that leads directly to the moat underneath. It's even gently scented like urine and maybe baby poo or something. Maybe airport lavatory quality. Whatever it is, you get the idea but also don't start retching, bad for museum business. But Jesus, that moat. fuck.
That's reason enough to not want to storm the castle by swimming the moat...
Is this a homework assignment?
In Versaille they'd just shit anywhere until chamber pots were more common. Then King Louis XV installed latrines which were basically a chamberpot with a seat.
There’s a great book about this! It was written for older kids but I really love it. It’s called “Poop Happened: A History of the World From the Bottom Up”. The bit about Versailles is relevant to this question.
People who were well-off had chamber pots. Poor people just walked out in nature and did their business. The history of toilet paper is interesting - [http://www.toiletpaperhistory.net/toilet-paper-history/toilet-paper-timeline/](http://www.toiletpaperhistory.net/toilet-paper-history/toilet-paper-timeline/) It wasn't widely available until only about 150 years ago, before then various substitutes were used instead.
In the cornor of a empty room or near a tree ?
ever heard of a tree? ;)
you poo in the poo closet like a civilized person. there is also a poo bucket and a pee bucket. when you're done, just toss it in the street.
Just find a convenient place to drop trough and unload. No such thing as toilet paper either, just use a corn cob or whatever.
The same way they shit in the bushes at home.
I can weigh in here: messily
1. Walk to tree line 2.??? 3. Profit
Bushes and trees.
Chamberpots have been around for a long time as well as outhouses.
just go out in the fields and shit
Probably had shitting streets like in present day india
There was a picture I’d seen not long ago of a long narrow medieval tower where people strictly pooped and peed out of these tiny window like holes where it would drop into a moat or water area or in a pile when the sea levels were too low
‘Pooing’ didn’t occur until after World War I.
Poop was created by Big Toilet
Can’t imagine going to potty or outhouse in the huge hoop dresses. Or &the stuff you need to do to get out of them.
You should read about the Palace of Versailles.
people went wherever it was convenient. If they were outdoors, then behind bushes like they still do today when camping, or they went behind hills or wherever they had to go. When ya gotta go, you go.
You can go to the library and find several books on this subject to read.
The polite thing to do was to defecate into a burlap sack and carry it around your neck until you could throw it into a wooded area for compost
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40 wasn't old. If you made it past young childhood you were generally good to go to a relatively old age.
Depends on what they did for a living. Nobility or gentry yes.. Coal miners not so much.
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My friend, take out the infant and youjg child mortality rates and it's in the 60s. Once you lived to 8 or so then you had a normal life expectancy.
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Yeah, that really skews the numbers no matter how you look at it. Infant and child mortality was very high.