Being Privy to Tudor Privies

If I ever find a time machine (other than my own imagination) to take me back to Tudor times I know one sure thing - I would be very cautious whilst walking mornings down narrow streets of any Tudor city or township. For early mornings saw many good Tudor housewives emptying their family's chamber pots out windows of their homes. Actually, methinks I would be tempted to apply my cautiousness to all times of the day. When people of this time had to go they mostly found a suitable corner and just went- the fact that women wore no underpants probably made it easier to discretely lift their skirts from the ground, squat a little and do.

Even at the beautiful palaces of this period there were 'pissing areas' allotted for members of the court. In their first weeks at the court of Henry VII, it shocked Catherine Aragon's Spanish ladies, and no doubt sixteen year old Catherine herself, to witness courtiers attending to their bodily needs when and wherever necessary. (I) The huge fireplaces seemed a popular choice for men to urinate in, but, as the years went closer to the ascension of James I, such behaviour began to upset people more and more. In 1573, Thomas Tusser wrote in his 'Five hundreth Goode Pointes of Husbandrie:

Some make the chimnie chamber pot to smell like Filthie stink,

Yet who so bold, so soone to say, fough, how These houses stink? (ii)

Cringing? Remember that the people of Tudor England- despite their own human complexity- lived in a simpler time. Plumbing in houses- if it did exist- was very primitive, though most homes of the well to do did provide a type of inside toilet. Probably based on the same principle found in castles, a narrow, cell-like room was situated against the outer wall of a house. Found inside this room- called, amongst other things, the 'jakes' or garderobe- was a seat with a hole, placed over an internal shaft. The shaft was angled in such a way that human waste went down to an outside cesspool. (iii)

The monarch's 'Privy Chamber' is thought to come by its name because of its proximity to the royal 'privy, ' their 'little room' enclosing a 'close stool, ' a boxed seat containing a fitted chamber pot. When Elizabeth I ventured out into her kingdom on one of her progresses, she took not only her portable bath but also her 'portable' loo, a closed stool, covered with lush, red velvet, befitting her rank of Queen-. Her father also possessed a liking to have his 'latrines' velvet covered, his chamber pot or 'jordan' enclosed in a close- stool covered with black velvet, decorated by ribbons, fringe and a few glint-headed nails- two thousand to be exact! (iv)

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