Comparison Of Housing In The Middle Ages And Today

Population on earth grows more and more everyday. In the medieval ages, the population in the world was estimated at about 500 millions people while today’s population is estimated at 7. 7 billions people. The amount of people increased significantly over the time but the planet did not get bigger. Housing techniques and conditions had to keep up with the population growth. Back in the middle ages, some houses were built with arcades and often made of wood and mud. Tuff, a light stone was also used as filling. The houses were stuck, and as houses were mostly built with combustible materials the risk of fire was important. The most famous one being “the 1666 AD Great Fire of London' (abbey medieval festival) that burnt 80% of the city. The facades were in close from each other above the street, one could almost touch the hand from one house to another.

The roof consisted of a wooden frame covered with thatch and woven branches or straw, slate, or tile. The cellars were built under the ground and their windows overlooked the street. Housing techniques are totally different today, much more modern materials as cement, concrete slabs, tiles, fiber cement, or zinc are used. People leave in apartments, that take as much room on the street as a house but has different floors where different people can live in. In the medieval ages, “The average life expectancy for a male child born in the UK between 1276 and 1300 was 31. 3 years”. This number may not be totally relevant since “25% of children were expected to die before their first birthday”. Housing has a big role in this number.

The materials used being the most basic, the insulation was awful which made the inhabitants vulnerable to any weather, especially in France knowing that the temperatures can fall dramatically low the winter. Rich or poor, peasant or poor, all are succeptible to any type diseases. As could be expected “the lack of hygiene and living conditions provided a fertile breeding ground for the many epidemics of the middle ages”. Paysans living in rural sides of the cities were even using livestock animals to warm up the rooms as they would let them stay inside their house when it was cold. Today, insulation techniques are much more developed as thermal insulation, a technique used to enhance the energy performance of walls, roofing and floors. Insulation is done by laying insulation boards on the area to be insulated. These techniques prevent the cold, the water, and the humidity to penetrate into the house. There is also the air conditioning system. This allows you to control the air temperature inside the house.

It blows cold or hot air as needed and regulates the temperature of a room or several rooms. Hygiene is also something that has consequently improved over time. Only rich people can afford the luxury of taking a hot bath at home. Indeed, it is expensive, they wash in a bath whose walls are covered with a cloth to avoid splinters. These are the same ones used for laundry. The water is heated on the fire and then poured into the bath. Sometimes a curtain hanging from a wall protects from the cold and the view. The soap exists, but it is not perfumed, they spread herbs and flower in the bath. The less fortunate or the people of the countryside, take bath in the streams or in fountains. In the cities, public baths are a common practice. These baths are the heritage of the baths of antiquity. Each neighborhood can have its own ovens. It is easier and cheaper to go swimming than taking a bath at home. These baths are open every day except Sundays and holidays. The stoves take care of heating the water and when it is ready, criers announce the opening of the baths. Those baths are taken naked and in common.

In the mid 19th century middle class homes started having bathrooms. “The invention of gas water heater by Benjamin Waddy Maughan in 1868” and “the electric water heater invented in 1889 by Edwin Ruud” made showering and bathing easier and more common. Today, almost every house has a bath or a shower. People take one to three showers a day. The techniques of exploitation, circulation and use of water make it easier. Bathing and showering became more affordable. Not only the richest and wealthiest people can take private bath. Mostly everybody can afford a shower or a bath. People today know more about the human body and its needs and can adapt to what their body needs and use the most efficient soap for us while they couldn’t use soap in the middle ages. During the middle ages, they often slept on the ground. Later, the beds were simple wooden tables with feet. On their table is arranged the quilt, a large soft and oval cushion, which serves as a mattress. To sleep, they curl up in a blanket. From the 12th century, the most common bed is a simple box with feet. In the 14th and 15th century, it becomes bigger and gets higher away from the ground and is isolated from the ground by a thick board or a platform.

Therefore, protected by a curtain, softly lying on a bench and wrapped in sheets and blankets, the medieval sleeper benefits from excellent comfort. However, not everyone sleeps so comfortably. The peasants sleep on a modest bed made of straws and modest blankets that he shares with his own, while in the hotels a bed could be shared by five up to six people. It is also lying on a bed that the nobles give audience to their relatives and allies, not to remain standing. Paradoxically, lying down is a sign of a higher status. In the royal and princely courts, the bed is sometimes of extravagant size, as evidenced by the description of a “fur blanket belonging to King Charles V and exceeding 38 m²”(flandre-au-lion). In housing today, beds are mostly used for sleeping purposes. Even so we can sometimes eat, reed, or do any type of entertainment on it, the usage of beds is still different than it was. Beds hygiene is also different nowadays. We can change beds sheets whenever they are dirty. Another issue with hygiene is latrines, it consist of a stone plate with holes in it placed on a base of about ten inches high, above of an evacuation pipe.

A hole drilled in the wall is used for ventilation and for lighting. However the most modest houses do not have one and all the waste is thrown into the canal or river when there is one. In monasteries and some private homes, there are withdrawal rooms. Medieval castles also have several latrines, one for the lord, the other for soldiers and servants. They were made of stone, with ventilation and a conduit for evacuation. They are mostly always located in a separate tower or building reserved for this purpose. Some have a drain pipe in a pit, that are connected to sewers. In the rural countryside, the latrines are in the garden, at the end of a plot. Wastes evacuation system are much more developed today, people don’t have to do it them selves. We have something called a septic tank where all of our wastes are stored, and rejected as clean as possible in the nature.

The septic tank is always buried, and therefore lower than the house, to facilitate the flow of wastewater. It provides autonomous sanitation for houses that cannot be connected to a collective sanitation system. The septic tank then allows the treatment, purification and filtration of the dirty water, in order to discharge it as clean as possible into the environment. Middle Ages housing was by far different as it is today. Humans adapted well to population growth and used technologies development over the years to make housing more efficient, more comfortable, and safer than it was in the middle ages. Constructions, health, comfort, and hygiene issues have been solved. These improvements now allow us to hold 7 billions humans on this earth.