Many had drainage ... to the moat. So yeah, you definitely didn't want to be in that water. I doubt you would smell the vomit, over the smells of the stable.

by Anonymous 5 years ago

Yep, in fact, all of Europe, especially London, was a pig-sty.

by Anonymous 5 years ago

Absolutely correct. All of the great European cities, Rome, London, Paris, Vienna, etc...were absolutely disgusting by today's standards. Horrible. Revolting. Totally gross. Raw sewage ran through the streets slowly making it's way into the rivers. All the waste produced by butchers, tanneries, fish markets, etc,,,was also dumped into the river so in the heat of summer the stench rising off the Seine and the Thames was actually visible to the naked eye. Since fire was the only form of energy those same businesses fouled the air with a constant fog of acrid smoke. Besides the large population of horses needed for labor and travel there were also pigs, goats, chickens, etc kept within the city. That means lots of stables and pens and animal sh*t. And there were also stray dogs and cats, rats, mice, bats, snakes, birds, and various wild creatures like raccoons and possums all of which were peeing and pooping and dying and decaying in the streets of Paris and London. People were literally walking through human and animal waste all the time, and they were tracking it everywhere they went, including into their homes. There were cemeteries over flowing with corpses buried in less than two feet of dirt with out embalming or a casket. The smell of rotting flesh would have been horrific from many blocks away and all that putrefaction would have added to the outbreaks of cholera that were common in those cities. There was no real personal hygiene. so the people stunk as badly as the city itself. No one bathed or brushed their teeth. There were no sanitary products like toilet paper or tampons. Clothes were worn for weeks or longer before being cleaned. (Washed in dirty water without detergent.) They had lice and fleas and every known parasite one contracts when living in filth. Rotten teeth, infections, boils, puss, dysentery, cholera, and eventually the black plaque! And castles were no better since most of those same things would have been kept inside the walls. Kings and queens had more clothes and most castles had some form of laundry, but royalty didn't bath, wash their hair, or brush their teeth either, so they stunk just like everyone else, They did rinse their fingers in water from a finger bowl before eating, but after a day of peeing and pooping in buckets and not once washing their hands, a quick splash in a communal bowl of water is meaningless. Eeeew... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU0d8kpybVg

by Anonymous 5 years ago