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They used rivers as toilets.
If you ever travel back to the medieval age, don’t take a sip from the rivers. They served as public bathrooms.
Without water closet toilets or running water, people had limited options. Some high-income households had latrines, while others relieved themselves in nearby bodies of water. As you would imagine, water hygiene became a problem pretty quickly. Most surrounding water bodies were too dirty for drinking.
So, what did the average person living in the medieval age drink? Well, they definitely didn’t drink from the lakes or ponds – that would make them sick. Instead, they mainly chugged alcoholic beverages. Some writers in the 15th century encouraged pregnant women to drink wine over water.
Their houses had no concrete floors.
Straw mixed with herbs was strewn across the ground.
This would stay on for a long time, but cleaning wasn’t easy as dirt and moisture would build up, giving the entire house a musty smell. Also, straw floors were excellent hiding places for rodents and other pests. The plague soon had people looking for better floors. Wooden floors became popular because they were much easier to clean. People used rugs, animal hides, or carpets over their wooden floors.
They emptied chamber pots in the streets.
People often had chamber pots beside their beds to relieve themselves through the night.
What they did with its contents the following day might make you shudder. Residents would throw the contents of their chamber pots over their balconies into the streets.
If you were walking through the streets without paying much attention, you might miss the warning and end up drenched in overnight urine.
In some cities, people will throw poop from their balconies too. The pandemic made us familiar with wearing face masks in the streets, but in the medieval period, they wore nosebags for different reasons. All that waste thrown into the streets would remain there for a while. The nosebags contained flowers to help people deal with the stench.