People in the Middle Ages Tossed Their Waste Out in the Streets
There is a popular idea that in the middle ages, people tossed their waste out of the window. While we can’t prove that this happened often, what we can look at are some of the written laws that were passed during this time. For example, in the early 14th century, tossing anything out your window into the streets of London meant that you would have to pay a 40p fine.
With modern inflation, that’s closer to $142. Around that same time, there was a case of a woman named Alice Wade who connected a pipe from her privy to the outside gutter. This would get stopped up with filth, and smell so horrible that her neighbors complained. She was ordered to remove it.
