Watching 'Tony Robinson's History of Britain' on channel 5, the episode about the middle ages.
A 🧵
2 minutes in.
Oh come on.
You start by reinforcing this old stuff?
Yes, I know, it did happen, the middle ages lasted 1000 years and there were some dirty folks here and there.
But the middle ages are unfairly renowned for it, it happened sometimes when cities became overpopulated, in some neighbourhoods, and people got really upset about it.
But it also happened in Roman cities, but do presenters mention the Romans were renowned for that mucky stuff?
By telling it like this you're reinforcing a bit of a stereotype that makes it sound like this was common and accepted during the middle ages, all of the middle ages, everywhere.
Sticking this image to that era while forgetting to mention it while describing other eras is rude
To illustrate they use the old 15th century 'Ship of Fools' story that's about eejits being punished for playing music at night when people try to sleep.
It does not illustrate people randomly emptying chamber pots because they felt like it.
Phew, at least they mention that most people just used the toilet in the backyard.
No, this is not someone going to the toilet in-between two houses, this is someone who fell through the floor of a nice indoor toilet.
Quite the story, I'll make a thread about it some day.
Excellent, it's mentioned that the cesspits were emptied and their content dumped outside town.
Some people still think the waste was just left around the streets.
That is quite a cesspit!
They sadly don't mention if any straw was found, I have a wacky theory that they used straw to wipe and that this may have made the toilets like modern dry compost toilets... that don't stink much ;)
They found this condiment dish in it, isn't it gorgeous?
Nice to hear about what happened to people who dumped human waste were they weren't allowed to... it's almost like people didn't like muck everywhere :)
Anyway, more about that subject here;
fakehistoryhunter.net/2019/09/10/med…
The Joan of Leeds story is excellent.
Nice to hear monasteries be described thusly;
The stories about the jester, armourer and Alice the spinster are nice as well.
But did they really have to illustrate the phrase hot potato by roasting potatoes?
Anyway, you can watch the episode here (although you may need VPN):
channel5.com/show/tony-robi…
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