[HN Gopher] Toilets in a Medieval Castle (2018)
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Toilets in a Medieval Castle (2018)
Author : Insanity
Score : 74 points
Date : 2020-09-04 11:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ancient.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ancient.eu)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| So that's what the weird shaped Lego was for!
| rachitwatts wrote:
| me (sitting in the toilet): let's read something interesting on
| hackernews. Hackernews: What about an article on ancient toilets?
| theodric wrote:
| Just last night I dreamed of my wife and I jumping through the
| garderobe's hole and into the water below to escape pursuers. The
| simulation is breaking down!
|
| synchronicities
| lb1lf wrote:
| -No history of medieval toilets is complete without reference to
| Erasmus von Lueg, 15th-century robber baron and lord of the
| Slovene Predjama castle.
|
| He allegedly met his maker while relieving himself - having made
| a nuisance of himself to the Habsburgs, they laid siege to the
| castle to no avail -as there was a hidden passageway which let
| the besieged come and go more or less as they pleased.
|
| The solution? Bribe a servant into lighting a lamp in a window
| when Erasmus went to the latrine prior to bed - a latrine the
| Habsburgs had aimed their cannon at in the daytime.
|
| The rest, as they say, is (apocryphal) history.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Would be quite surprised if 15th century artillery had any
| accuracy near that - And also if they did have such accuracy
| it's highly likely that the siege would have ended lot sooner.
| softblush wrote:
| This probably is just a urban legend type story. Or do you have
| evidence to point at?
|
| Even the Wikipedia page on Erasmus of Lueg states there is no
| evidence to back this up.
| travbrack wrote:
| That's why the they said it's apocryphal
| lb1lf wrote:
| -Thus 'allegedly' and 'apocryphal' - to the best of my
| knowledge, no reliable sources back this ever happening - but
| it is, you'll have to admit, a wonderful tale...
| ledbettj wrote:
| How about the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_latrine_disaster ?
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Do you remember the show Modern Marvels on the History channel?
| Back when it was about actual history and not reality tv...
|
| My favorite episode was on bathrooms. Did you know that during
| large gatherings at the Palace of Versailles people would relieve
| themselves in hallways, stairways, and even in the gardens? Or
| that dining room seats in medieval Germany had holes with chamber
| pots underneath so that people could go while they ate?
|
| I miss Modern Marvels.
| tzs wrote:
| This 1974 PBS documentary, "The Natural History of the Water
| Closet: A Documentary Cantata" [1], is a good musical
| documentary about the toilet.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJcFO_xF1fI
| DonHopkins wrote:
| This 1981 Mel Brooks documentary, "History of the World, Part
| I" [1], is a good comedic documentary about the portable
| toilet.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OWMB3ewpNM
| Someone wrote:
| What's _even_ about relieving themselves in the gardens, as
| compared to inside the palace?
|
| Do I miss some knowledge about French palace customs?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _What's even about relieving themselves in the gardens, as
| compared to inside the palace?_
|
| Maybe he's a horticulturalist? Whizzing on the vegetation can
| really ruin a garden. Just ask anyone with a neighbor who
| doesn't curb their dog.
| dmurray wrote:
| Yeah, if I was visiting Versailles today, I might discreetly
| relieve myself in the gardens, but I'd stop short of soiling
| the great halls.
| jakobmartz3 wrote:
| why not fertilize the flowers while youre at it
| pugworthy wrote:
| This reminds me that I should be at Burning Man right now.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Reminds me of the story of the dwarf toilet Ninja, who put the
| ass into assassination: https://jpninfo.com/47201
| tomcam wrote:
| > besiegers used just such a latrine shaft in 1203-4 CE to gain
| entry to Chateau Gaillard
|
| Wonder who got picked for that job
| grawprog wrote:
| Dunno, but it sounds pretty shitty.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > "Watch and learn, son, or you'll be passing wrenches for
| the rest of your life".
|
| https://yosefk.com/blog/the-cardinal-programming-jokes.html
| watwut wrote:
| Someone who pissed the troops leader last month.
|
| Reminds me stories from WWII about kids in camps hiding
| themselves in outside toilettes during sweeps to survive.
| beeper-beeps wrote:
| The Wikipedia article mentions that a solider named Ralph found
| the shaft, no word on whether he did the climbing though.
|
| > Following this, Philip ordered a group of his men to look for
| a weak point in the castle. They gained access to the next ward
| when a soldier named Ralph found a latrine chute in use through
| which the French could clamber into the chapel.
| krm01 wrote:
| A picture or two would have been helpful to spice up the story.
| bcraven wrote:
| http://www.stephenbiesty.co.uk/galleries_cross_sections_cast...
|
| Stephen Biesty's cross sections are my reference for most
| engineering.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| I still have that book. As fascinating today as it was as a
| child.
|
| Detail, clarity and humour. Simply gorgeous.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=castle+toilet&tbm=isch works in
| my bubble
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| One of the top images for me is a Roman communal toilet, fyi.
|
| AIR I've only ever seen single occupancy toilets in UK
| castles?
| beders wrote:
| Christianity: Be ashamed of your naked body at all times.
| NateEag wrote:
| Modern American Evangelicals: Be ashamed of your naked
| body at all times.
|
| Christianity: include a whole book about romance and sex
| in your sacred text (the Song of Songs).
|
| I really wish people would read the Bible before opining
| on what Christianity says.
| Shared404 wrote:
| Pretty sure the response was saying that not all the
| images were accurate.
| Someone wrote:
| If they don't show on the page, click the "placeholders" for a
| page showing the image.
| rosywoozlechan wrote:
| There are pictures in the article?
| kilroy123 wrote:
| Also didn't work for me on iPhone/Safari.
| omnibrain wrote:
| They don't load on iPhone.
| mrcarrot wrote:
| Also not on iPad, but they do load, on a stand-alone page,
| if you click on them.
| 4ad wrote:
| Nor on Safari, on macOS.
| bdash wrote:
| It looks like the article attempts to embed images in
| different formats for different browsers, but the source
| images aren't of the image type they expect which results in
| broken images for some browsers. <picture>
| <source srcset="/img/r/p/500x600/8862.jpg.webp?v=1599098401"
| type="image/webp"> <source
| srcset="/img/r/p/500x600/8862.jpg.avif?v=1599098401"
| type="image/avif"> <source
| srcset="/img/r/p/500x600/8862.jpg?v=1599098401"
| type="image/jpeg"> <img loading="lazy"
| src="/img/r/p/500x600/8862.jpg?v=1599098401" alt="Medieval
| Castle Latrine" class="in_text_image" width="500"
| height="375"/> </picture>
|
| Firefox and Google Chrome both select the image with the
| image/webp content type, and those URLs do appear to be WebP
| images.
|
| Safari selects the images with the image/jpeg content type,
| but those URLs appear to point to AVIF images (i.e., image
| data encoded using AV1 and stored in an HEIF container). AVIF
| is only supported by Google Chrome. This results in the
| images appearing as broken placeholders in Safari.
| peterbmarks wrote:
| Thanks for that. I'm using Safari on macOS and got no
| images in the article - the ads work flawlessly though.
| Clicking on them works. I assumed the site had been
| Hackernews'd
| [deleted]
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| In the article:
|
| >Walls were sometimes whitewashed with a coating of lime-plaster
| which maximised the light coming from the small window and
| because lime kills off bacteria. //
|
| Surely not. Bacteria weren't part of the mindset of UK castle
| builders!?
|
| I'd expect there right about making it lighter in the garderobe,
| and possibly over time it was noticed it made the room less
| smelly?
| pengaru wrote:
| You don't have to know the _why_ to appreciate lime plasters
| stay clean /grow less mold in dank environments through
| experience.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Doesn't "because" say they knew why. If it just said "which"
| instead of because then I'd agree with you.
|
| Perhaps there was some mediaeval theory relating lime and
| pestilence?
| pengaru wrote:
| I don't see a problem with the author using a more modern
| terminology for "cause" than would have existed at the
| time, to describe what anyone working with lime plasters
| appreciates on a basic level; the stuff stays exceptionally
| white and clean.
|
| Personally I don't like their saying just that it kills off
| bacteria. It's an antimicrobial/fungicide in general
| because of its elevated Ph.
|
| I'd prefer the article take the opportunity to educate me
| about the practical value of lime plaster than restrict
| itself to the limited education of medeivil minds.
| cgriswald wrote:
| You might not see the problem, but it's _factually
| inaccurate_ because there is an attribution error.
|
| Oddly in this case where the author could have made a
| correct attribution he used the word "which" which does
| not ascribe a cause. If he had simply switched "which"
| and "because" we probably wouldn't be having this
| conversation, because the sentence wouldn't have been
| false. It makes me wonder if the author swapped around
| the rest of the sentence after writing it originally.
|
| I don't think anyone is suggesting reducing the
| information content. Even wanting more is just fine and
| dandy, but the proper way to do that would be to
| correctly attribute the reasoning of the time, and then
| add something along the lines of "which we know today
| does $x."
| xapata wrote:
| Either way, I'm glad we can agree that it's important to
| be precise with words. Thanks for making my day a little
| brighter.
| dmurray wrote:
| The sentence is mangled and syntactically incorrect anyway
| - there's no other reason before the "and". Maybe it
| originally said "and kills off bacteria" before a "because"
| was added during the editing process.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| The other reason before the "and" was that it maximised
| light reflection (and hence ambient light levels in the
| room).
| dmurray wrote:
| But that reason is stuck in a descriptive clause
| modifying "lime-plaster" or "a coating of lime-plaster".
|
| You wouldn't write "Walls were sometimes whitewashed with
| a coating of lime-plaster which was white and because
| lime kills off bacteria." The longer sentence makes it
| less jarring until you try to parse it carefully, but
| still very poor style.
|
| I don't think I'm being some kind of prescripivist
| grammar Nazi here: the rest of the piece is written
| reasonably professionally and I'm sure the editors would
| fix that if they spotted it.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| A lot of things were done in h the past despite people not
| knowing why. The because should be read as a retrospective
| reason. The originators of the practice at have just found
| it dealt with odor and so they did it, in retrospect we can
| add the actual reason it helped.
| svrb wrote:
| I think even this gives too little credit in a way. Why were
| the walls whitewashed? To grow less mold and generally stay
| cleaner. That's the only _why_ for doing the action, and it
| seems to have been perfectly well understood. The only thing
| the modern biochemical understanding does is tell us why this
| worked. At best this can help us find more effective methods,
| but it doesn 't really add anything to the practice. Put
| another way, if you were put back in time, what would the
| most effective means of accomplishing this goal be? Probably
| the same lime whitewash actually used.
| throw0101a wrote:
| If anyone is interested in medieval-y topics the _Shadiversity_
| channel run by Shad M. Brooks is pretty good:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/user/shadmbrooks/videos
|
| He's done a few videos on castles specifically.
| arkitaip wrote:
| Everyone should give Shad a follow. Dude is planning on
| building a medieval experience park on land he've recently
| purchased and it's going to be fun to follow his journey.
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(page generated 2020-09-05 23:00 UTC)