hello everyone welcome to this revision video for GCSE history people's health medieval times uh which is 1250 to 1500 in this video we're going to look at living conditions in medieval times things like housing diet water and waste we're going to talk about response to epidemics we're going to focus obviously on the black death we're going to think about what medieval people believe caused it and how they responded to it and then we're going to look at public health we're going to look at national government they didn't really do a lot we're going to look at local government particularly London after the Black Death and we're also going to look at public health in the monasteries which very much set the standard for public health during this time period so let's find out more okay so when you're looking at people's health uh you need to think about the key themes impact of living conditions sometimes known as lifestyles um response to epidemics and improving public health key factors that influence things are beliefs attitudes and values local and national government science and technology urbanization and wealth and poverty and we're going to be focusing in this video about the medieval times which is 1250 to 1500 okay so in terms of the spec for this um you need to know the characteristics and features of medieval Britain and overview you need to know about living conditions and within that is housing food clean water and waste you need to know about responses to the black death the beliefs the medieval people had for it and the actions they took and then the approaches to public health in late medieval towns and monasteries so here's just a reminder of some key words for medieval people's health a cess pit is a pit or chamber used for collecting human waste a conduit is a small fountain or water pipe a coroner an official who investigates violent or suspicious deaths darth means a lack of food such as after a poor harvest an epidemic a disease that affects a large number of people ergotism a medieval disease caused by eating infected rye bread very common among poor people flagulants people who wet themselves eg to try and c avoid catching the black death four humors four liquids that make up the human body according to Greek doctors like blood black bile yellow bile and flem a gong farmer is a person who cleans out cesspits for a living guilds an organization responsible for keeping high standards in a particular trade latrine a toilet with no system for flushing lutral salt is a 14th century prayer book myasma is an idea that bad smells cause disease miden is a dungill or pile of rubbish a monastery a place where monks live and pray would set the standard for public health during this time and pottage a thick vegetable soup so key features of medieval Britain well in terms of farming and food most people were peasants who did hard physical um work on the land in some ways that kept them health healthy but there were frequent bad harvests which could lead to famine like the great famine of 1315 to 1316 which killed 10% of the population medieval towns were fairly small by today's standards they were busy containing guilds crafts and trades towns became very busy on market days which could lead to the spread of disease in terms of religion almost everyone was a Christian and a member of the Catholic church each parish had its own church and there were many cathedrals and monasteries in larger towns and monasteries sometimes in isolated areas in the countryside as well many people believe that disease was caused by God often as a punishment for sins now when the black death hit England in 1348 to 1349 the price of candles went up and this shows that people were lighting candles to say prayers to protect themselves against the disease people are prepared for the black death by confessing their sins going to church or maybe even going on pilgrimage to a place like Walsingham in Norfolk for example so another key feature of medieval Britain is the fact that old ideas persist so the church supported old ideas of Claudia Galen who was a Greek doctor in the Roman Empire this led to the idea of the theory of the four humors blood flem black bile and yellow bile and that for people to be healthy these humors had to be in balance with each other this idea persists throughout the medieval times technology is limited with most most things being made by hand there were water mills and windmills printing presses appeared from the 1470s but had much more impact in the early modern period 1500 onwards there was no understanding of germs as no microscopes meant germs could not be seen in terms of government medieval people were ruled over by kings kings were not interested in people's health money was mainly used for the benefit of the king and his court they also use their money to fight wars so for example during the black death um king Edward III was still um going to war with France during 100 years war for example medieval governments did not see as their responsibility to look after people's health so there was very little response from the government to the actual black death 90% of medieval people lived in villages so most people worked in farming doing hard physical labor peasants would suffer and even starve or bad harvest and as we've said 10% of the population died in the great famine of 1315 1316 um when the weather basically lots and lots of rain had destroyed uh many many crops so many people were mostly Christians they believed God could punish people by sending disease for example the disease erotism was known as St anony's fire after the Christian saint they believed would cure it um they also believed in ideas such as myasma and the the four humors urgotism is actually a disease that's spread by infected rye bread or by fungus on on rye bread we should say so let's just look at living conditions in medieval times so if we compare housing in villages to housing in towns in villages the lord of the mana was in charge of the village lived in a large uh house peasant houses varied in size most peasants lived in small simple huts made of woven sticks and covered in mud animals were often brought into homes at night open hearths or fireplaces burned in houses with smoke escaping through an opening in thatch roof there were small windows that had shutters um meaning peasant houses were very dark and it would have been filled with smoke as well with all that um fire burning in the open hearth flooring would be um straw rushes most village houses um had kitchen gardens to grow vegetables and fruit in housing in towns houses were built close together in the center of towns and only the wealthy had gardens the rich had upper floors that jutted out to provide more floor space and they did have um larger accommodation workshops or craftsmen and tradesmen were often part of their homes people were supposed to clean the drains and and streets near their houses but not everyone did and as the rich lived close to the poor towns it meant that they did try to keep conditions a little bit better but obviously they were not always successful so we're just going to talk about water and waste in medieval times in terms of water in the countryside fresh water was obtained from springs or wells or the rivers springs was sometimes shared with animals which meant that water was not always clean in terms of towns conduits were lead pipes which brought spring water to some towns the earliest conduits were built by the church water sellers also sold water from leather sacks in terms of the villages in the countryside in terms of the waste um villages um peasants would have a midden a waste heap in their garden cess pits were constructed near some village homes waste went into the pit moss has been found in cess pits which showed that they used this as toilet roll some peasants might have just had a simple hole in the ground which they would cover with ash from fire or they might just go to the toilet in the woods waste was used for fertilizer on the farms but generally waste in the countryside was less of an issue simply to to do with the fact that there was just less people there in terms of the towns the rich might have their own latrine in their homes public latrines were put up in market squares and several people would share them some latrines were lined with barrels sunk into the ground and some had no lining so waste leaked into the sellers of other houses rakers or sometimes known as muk rakers or scavengers they removed waste from the towns including just general waste and debris but also human waste as well now when cespits were full or hopefully before they were totally full they were cleared by someone called a gong farmer now their job was to take it outside the town walls sometimes they could sell it to farmers as fertilizer so it could be used on the fields but quite often they simply tipped it into streams and that made the streams and the and the rivers a horrible mucky mess and and created a lot of um horrible pollution um the waste generally in towns was more of an issue um because they were overcrowded um and they were busy and of course there was more waste on market days and trade such as tanners butchers and fish mongers created waste often going into open channels in the streets butchers in particular the entrails and remains of animals and the blood and the guts they often flowed into these open channels in the streets okay hey in terms of medieval diets bread um was really important a good harvest would lead to a plentiful supply of bread but people could starve in famines so the great famine of 1315 1316 10% of the population died the poor ate a bread called rye bread which sometimes contained a fungus that could cause a really horrible illness called urgotism which was known as St anony's fire this could kill and it mostly affected poor people um and people um believe this was caused by God rather than really being able to link it with rye bread in terms of drinks ale and cider so ale was made by boiling water which actually killed germs although medieval people didn't know that so it was definitely healthier to drink and barley which was full of nutrients cider was made using apples and these drinks were healthier than the water in towns in terms of meat and fish if people could afford it they ate a v wide variety of meat the rich consulted guides about how eating meat would affect their humors which is this idea that the body contains different humors fluids that can affect your health the church did not allow meat to be eaten on Fridays so fish was eaten on Fridays instead the rich also ate cheese eggs nuts and fruit honey was used as a sweetener some market traders sold rancid meat pies which were obviously extremely unhealthy they tried to hide the bad meat within the pie now one of the main source of food eaten by the poor was pottage it was a thick vegetable soup which was widely eaten by medieval peasants probably their staple food the diet of ordinary people was fairly limited meat fish eggs and cheese were luxuries so in terms of similarity and difference rich people ate a wide variety of foods than poor people and they were not affected by famine but the poor mostly ate pottage in villages though they had kitchen gardens to grow vegetables and fruit which is obviously not really possible for the poor in towns okay so we're now going to look at responses to epidemics and look at the black death of 134849 diseases such as typhoid and dissentry were very common in middle ages but the black death or known as the plague or medieval people called it the pestilence was the worst epidemic and it hit England in 1348-49 and it killed 50% of the population which could have been as much as 3 million people it to it took 200 years for the population to recover now the black death came to England via Asia and Europe along trade routes such as the silk road the plague was mainly spread by fleas living on black rats but medieval people did not know this now there are really three types of plague there's the bubonic plague where there's main swelling with bubos there's a fever and high temperature and blisters which were fluid fililled death in a few days there's the septtomic plague um which involved bleeding diarrhea and vomiting fingers toes and nose would turn black pneumonic plague symptoms coughing up blood chest pains and trouble breathing death in two days now medieval people did not understand the causes of a black death so this meant that the approaches they took to deal with it had a very limited impact so the black death um people didn't understand the true cause medieval people believed that um God was punishing people for their sins that was the main belief really but some even explained it through unusual movement of planets some believed in myasma and invisible poison in the air that created bad smells um some believed the poisons were released by earthquakes these myasma poisons people got the plague if their humors were out of balance that's what some people believed such as eating a poor diet or having too much blood in your body and some people believed you could catch the plague through eye contact but the two main beliefs really are that that God was punishing them and they believed in this idea of myasma now myasma this idea that bad smells um invisible poisons in the air create illness will last all the way until the 19th century so what treatments did medieval people try tying live toads or chickens to the bubos to draw out the disease bloodletting removing blood to balance the humorus praying to God for forgiveness such as lighting a candle or distancing themselves from others there are stories of the rich moving to the countryside to find pure air lodgers and even children were forced out onto the streets now the government response was really limited now King Edward III who was the king of England during the Black Death um he wrote a letter in April 1349 to the mayor of London and it said in this letter um cause the human feces and other filth lying in the streets and lanes to be removed with all speed to places far distant and to cause the city and suburbs to be cleansed from all odor and to be kept clean as it used to be in the time of preceding mares so that no greater cause of mortality may arise from such smells this is one of the few government actions that is taken um to combat the black death obviously this is pretty limited it's only in London it's not a massive response um and it's really important in terms of your analysis to know that the response from the government in England was very ineffective unlike in places like Italy where they used quarantine and did pass laws to clean up the streets the plague would return again in 1361-362 and there were 20 more outbreaks before 1500 um however the government throughout medieval times did nothing to combat the plague so how did medieval people protect themselves from the black death well some people ran away um this was particularly rich people in towns moved to the countryside hoping to find pure air some priests even ran away in terms of pure air people burned herbs like rosemary to purify the air in their houses people burnt candles and people carried poses of flowers posies like a pocket of flowers or a bunch of flowers flagulants were people who whipped themselves in order to try and gain God's forgiveness the idea was if they whipped themselves they'd showed that they were sorry for their sins and then God would take away the disease now this was much more common in Europe a group of flagagulants did come to England from Europe but a few English people copied this the church was really important and they encouraged people to confess their sins and ask for forgiveness the king ordered bishops to arrange large processions of priests through cities confessing the nation's sins which would actually have been a really unhelpful action before the black death people went on pilgrimage to places like Walsingham in Norfolk and they bought holy water to spray on their food put on their food or put on their doorways to try and protect them the prices of candles went up as so many people were buying candles for prayer and priests delivered last rights but many priests actually died themselves from the black death some people shut themselves away in their own homes believing um particularly in things like eye contact and some householders forced lodges or even children out onto the streets if they showed any sign of the disease okay so we're now going to look at public health and late medieval towns and monasteries and we're going to think about how monasteries affected public health now monasteries needed clean water and this had a huge impact on public health religious communities like monasteries they needed clean water for religious ceremonies like baptisms for example as well as the day-to-day washing of linen and uh people it was a Christian duty as well to care for the sick cleanliness was seen as being next to godliness um religious institutions were often rich and powerful so they could actually pay for water pipes to be laid over long distances to bring pure water from the hills some monasteries had hospitals or infirmaries attached to them as we've seen there it was a Christian duty to care for the sick they would often look after sick people remember though this is more about hospitality than genuine sort of medical care so for example one of the things um that they did was they would have two patients sharing a bed but monasteries do set the standard for good public health with clean water fountains Abbey is a good example of a medieval monastery it's in North Yorkshire they had latrines for example over the river which would take waste away however by 1500 monasteries were much less wealthy many monasteries were affected actually by the uh black death and standards in monasteries had dropped by the end of medieval times so that's a really important focus in terms of change that we have a changing standard in the quality of public health in monasteries so we're now going to talk about changes made to public health in towns now as towns grew wealthier citizens gave money to improve public health instead of the church towns grew as respect for the church was in decline as a result some wealthy townsmen began to fund the development of new conduits and public toilets and local government did take action before the black death of 1348 by 1500 as we've seen standards in many monasteries had dropped and respect for the church had somewhat declined so let's talk about some of the things that towns did before the black death so in terms of the problem of filthy roads and marketplaces there was paving of marketplaces paid for by taxation happened in Shrewsbury in 1301 lanes to better trade and ideas um and the idea of this spread to other towns dung heaps were moved to the edge of towns that happened in Bristol and York as well as other towns linked of course the idea of myasma but the actual effect meant there was less chance of bacteria spreading so it did have a positive impact on health in terms of dumping waste name and shaming waste dumpers that happened in Norwich in 1287 to 1289 that improved um water supplies and then in terms of poor quality meat we talked about how there was the problem of selling rancid meat pies guilds which are associations of um different trades representing different trades guilds of food producers set standards and find producers who did not meet them this happened in Winchester in 1329 leading to safer meat and safer food okay so after the black death um London led the way in public health it provided pipe water to its people since the 1230s despite the black death its population grew from 25,000 in 1250 to 100,000 in 1500 the Lord Mayor of London and the older men were responsible for keeping the sea healthy now guilds also had an increasingly important role in public health and raising standards of health within different trades so different trades at the time like tanners or butchers or fish mongers they would had a guild that would represent them and in order to trade in that you'd have to be part of a guild and they would kick people out if they had low standards so let's have look at some specific actions in London after the black death so in the year 1385 a warden was appointed to check whether London streets and the banks of the river temps were clear of filth and dung hills in 1415 the mayor of London ordered the rebuilding of a latrine at Morgate because it had been flooding neighboring properties with sewage in the 1430s the mayor of London John Wells extended the pipes that supplied London with clear spring water he and other rich citizens left money in their wills to improve water supplies and build new latrines their toilets 1478 London expelled toyers which were animal skinners for dumping waste into the temps but that actually had the effect of just moving the problem to the suburbs of London in 1479 gong farmers and London formed their own guild to repair road surfaces and ces pits gong farmers tend to be well paid and in 1488 London has called for butchery to be banned from the city it led to the butchers guild building expensive underground passage to carry water from the shambles which is the place where animals were killed to the river temps okay thanks for watching that revision video about people's health medieval times 125 to 1500 for OCRg history uh and good luck with your exams bye-bye