Public health in the Middle Ages c. 1250- c. 1500
Key dates
1230s
1276
1287-1289
1293
1301
1315-1316
1329
Piped spring water first brought to London
King Edward I gave Shrewsbury permission to tax wealthy citizens to pave
the town’s market place
16 citizens of Norwich are named and shamed by town courts for polluting
waterways
London started to pay rakers to clean streets
King Edward I gave orders for authorities in York to clean up the city
Great famine led to the deaths of many
Butchers’ guild of Winchester appoints two people to check quality of all
meat before it is sold
Key periods (c. means circa, which translates as around)
c.1250-c.1500
Medieval/ Middle Ages
c.1500-c.1750
Early Modern
c.1750-c.1900
Industrial Britain
c.1900- present
Key concepts
Agriculture
Manor
Modern Britain
Farming industry in which the majority of people worked in the Middle Ages
Basic area of countryside on which people lived. Might also be called a village
Harvest
The crops that were grown every year that people depended on to survive
1347
Summer 1348
April 1349
End 1349
Rumours of a great pestilence in Europe first reach Europe
Black Death first reaches Britain
King Edward III gave instructions to mayor for London to be cleaned
Black Death has spread over all of Britain
Rural
Church
Christendom
Guilds
1385
A warden is appointed in London to check whether London’s streets and
the banks of the Thames are clear of filth and dunghills
Local government
1419
All health regulations in London were written down in a White Book
1423
1430s
Richard Whittington left money in his will for the building of more latrines
Mayor of London organised replacement of pipes that provided spring
water
Some towns pay carters to collect and remove waste from butchers
National/ central
government
Astrology
Peasants
Meaning of the countryside; not the city or town
The organisation and management of everything to do with Christianity
All lands all over the world where Christianity was the religion
Groups of people belonging to certain trades. Guilds controlled minimum
standards for whatever they produced
Running of a particular area. In the countryside government would be
provided by a local lord. In the towns it was provided by a town mayor who
was helped by aldermen
Running of the whole country. In the Middle Ages government was essentially
the king
Study of the stars and planets for what they told about society
Lowest rung of society. Most people were peasants
1500
Key vocab
Aristocracy/ nobility
Four humours
Latrines
Rakers
Gongfermers
Large public toilets
People that raked the streets and gathered faeces
People whose job it was to empty latrines when they were full
Ergotism
Printing press
Stewes
Carters
Disease spread by eating ‘bad bread’
Device invented in late 15th century that ‘printed’ books
Large public baths
People that ran carts
Flagellants
Physicians
People that whipped themselves to try to gain God’s forgiveness
Most well trained type of doctor
Holy Days
Famine
Monasteries/
convents
Pestilence
Miasma
Markets
Pneumatic, bubonic,
septicaemic plague
Authorities
Epidemic
Small number of people (lords) below the king who helped provide local
government
Idea that human body was made up of four liquids- blood, yellow bile, black
bile and phlegm
Many were held every year- were like holidays
When people died because there was a shortage of food
Religious houses which provided help for the poor and housed monks and
nuns
A great disease
Bad air- was believed to cause disease and sickness
Places where goods were bought and sold
Airborne, spread by rats and affecting the blood respectively: types of plague
Name given to people in charge of a town or village
Disease which affects many people usually spread person to person