Everyone has to, but in historical sources there is little to be found about the logistics behind this. Archaeologist and historian Roos van Oosten was curious about the waste problem behind our faeces – where did the poop go and did it change over time – and devoted her thesis to the cesspool:the precursor to our toilet.
When people think of medieval cities, people often think of smelly narrow streets full of garbage and even dirtier canals. But to what extent is this image correct? In the Netherlands, several city councils came up with a solution to this pollution early on. Burned on clean water – for example as a basic component for the beer brewery – they prohibited the discharge of waste and excrement into the canal water.
The alternative was the cesspool (bear =poo). Most city dwellers lived in rented houses and the landlords were obliged to dig a cesspool for tenants in the basement or the garden. The richer townspeople had their own well, but the less fortunate had to share one.
Treasure digging
Archaeologists regularly find evidence of these cesspool regulations. What they uncover is a dug-in tube of brick, into which you could empty the poo bucket. You also had cesspools with a shelf on top with a hole, like a toilet seat, to sit above the well. The meter-deep pit had a closing brick dome against the stench and to prevent the toilet user from falling into the cesspool due to intoxication. You couldn't get out of that anymore and the result was horrific:drowning in the dung.
The more than 1000 recovered cesspools that Roos van Oosten discusses in her thesis date from the 13 e century to late 19 e century. “Cessholes are important to archaeologists because they say a lot about the lives of the users. On the basis of the seeds, kernels and bones left behind, conclusions can be drawn about their diet. The well also contains all kinds of discarded utensils that can indicate whether it concerns rich or poor users.”
“Archaeologists see a cesspool as an undisturbed source of information, in other words as a closed find complex. However, this is at odds with the fact that the cesspool had to be emptied once in a while.” Van Oosten decided to combine the disciplines of history and archaeology to investigate the cesspools and the logistics surrounding them.
Little archive material
Archaeologists have thus recovered many cesspools, but the written historical sources are less generous with information. Here and there in the legislation (inspection) rules regarding cesspools can be found. Among other things, Van Oosten looked at these inspections and later council reports about cesspools from seven cities. Four towards the coast (Haarlem, Leiden, Dordrecht and Alkmaar) and three more inland (Den Bosch, Deventer and Amersfoort). She discovered that each city council had its own policy regarding the cesspools and that there were differences between the coast and the interior.
The bigger the city, the sooner cesspools appeared in the regulations. Economic factors also played a major role, and this is especially evident in the Golden Age. Prosperity then increased most in the province of Holland, which meant that the cities grew, and more inhabitants meant more poo. Yet the flourishing cities of Haarlem and Leiden dealt with this problem very differently. Van Oosten:“I compared the growing number of inhabitants over the centuries with the number of cesspools in the city. You would expect them to grow proportionally, which also happened in Haarlem, for example; but this was not the case in Leiden.”
Van Oosten's explanation is the exceptionally strong growth that Leiden experienced, which meant that every square meter could be used. Had the city made the cesspool mandatory in 1463, from 1583 there are no more laws about this (which results in a clear decrease in the graph below). The result was that the old 'secret gutter' came into vogue again:a gutter across the street through which the faeces ran straight into the canal.
The city council took for granted that the stench increased. She looked at the economic benefits of more inhabitants:more workers to work in the thriving textile sector, resulting in even more prosperity. With the extra income that this generated, the canal could be dredged quite a bit more often.
Unfortunately for Leiden, in travel descriptions and pamphlets, the city is therefore not very good with regard to the stench. Van Oosten:“Visitors to the city wrote that Leiden's canals were the dirtiest in the Netherlands. No fish would have survived in the waters of Leiden. And this dirty situation was irreversible because of the toleration of the secretive gutters.”
The construction industry was another driver behind the abolition of cesspools. Van Oosten:“Landlords often built their own rented houses and they were also responsible for the costs of emptying the cesspool. The costs for this were equivalent to approximately one to three months' rent. It makes sense that they wanted to get rid of that. In addition, they could build on and rent out the vacant meters of land. Due to the enormous demand for housing, fast-growing cities tolerated this situation.”
Scented profession
An average cesspool was full after about five years and then had to be emptied. This was the work of special 'secret cleaners', also known as 'lords of the bear'. They worked in shifts in which the 'pit goer' descended into the pit on a rope. The porters then in pairs dragged the barrels of dung to the nearby barge.
The further you lived from the water, the more you had to pay as extra porters had to be used to empty the cesspool in time. The emptying only happened at night because of the enormous stench and had to be finished before dawn. It may not have been a pleasant job, but emptying cesspools paid well. So much so that the Haarlem city council in the 17 e century curbed tariffs.
In Haarlem the number of cesspools still grew, but not in proportion to the number of inhabitants. Tenants of new houses or rooms without a cesspool were made responsible for the discharge of their excrement. The legal way was to use a bucket or barrel in the house as a toilet and to take it to the barge of the secretion cleaners yourself. Picking up was also possible, but that cost double. Illegal dumping in the canal was an option, but if the discharger was caught by the secretion cleaner, it meant a fine. An extra pocket money for the secretion cleaner, who had seen his source of income disappear into the water.
Emergence of new ideas
The 18 e century was a century of decline in economics and demographics. The sources show that the number of cesspools also decreased sharply around 1800. Besides Leiden, more and more cities now also started to tolerate secretion gutters. They had fewer inhabitants, so less pollution, and many people could no longer afford the high costs of cesspool cleaning.
With the industrial revolution in the 19 e century, factories opened their doors in the old city centers. The faeces and waste that households discharged into the canals was nothing compared to the filth that came out of these factories. But this too was initially tolerated because of the employment that the new factories brought with them.
A nice exception to this dirty development was Den Bosch. The cesspool remained there for a long time. Farmers from the neighboring village of Orthen collected the bear to spread as fertilizer over their fields. The less fertile sandy soils around Den Bosch could make good use of the human manure. Van Oosten:“Probably this system reduced the costs quite a bit and the bear farmers still have until the end of the 19 e century emptied the cesspools, according to council records of the time.” But the rise of fertilizer during that same period out-competed human feces out of the market. The demand disappeared and the city again had a waste problem.
The 19 e century was also a century of new social ideas. The city government and the elite started to look differently at the waste problem, as well as at the poor working and living conditions of the workers. In addition, the lack of hygiene in the city regularly caused outbreaks of infectious diseases such as cholera. Although most of the victims were in the overcrowded slums, it was a sign on the wall for city authorities to do something about the problem. The solution was the construction of water pipes and sewerage systems, but in practice not every city was equally fast with this. Until then, the canals served as stinking open sewers. Compared to this, the Middle Ages were lemony fresh.