Such animals as the householder might own would share the "comforts" of the home with the family.
The furniture would hardly compete with what a modern camper- and a stoic at that - would consider the absolute minimum; a trestle table, a wooden bench, a couple of stools, the beds mere ledges with straw-filled palliasses. One can imagine with what joy the medieval family would welcome the end of winter and the approach of spring, with the prospect of escape from these miserable surroundings into the fresh air.
In the better- class town houses one might find wooden floors and in the wealthiest even stone paving or tiles. Furniture would include a few wooden chairs and stools, and probably big chests both for seating and for storing household vgoods. Rushes would still be strewn on the floor, unless the owners were able to afford an imported rug or two. The wooden bed- frames would have a criss- cross mesh of rope netting to support the feather mattresses, and for the richer a four- poster canopy with hangings would help to keep out the injurions night air after bedtime.
In the poorer houses wooden platters and bowls would be used at tables with the minimum of cutlery- the normal eating implements in most homes were knives and fingers. The middle- class Londoner would use pewter plafes and mugs, and perhaps a spoon made of cow's horn. His wife might also be the proud possesor of a piece or two of glazed eartheaware- but one imagines this would be kept "for best". There are some examples of green glaze and of brown and yellow slipware in the Guildhall Museum.
The top - class merchant would probably have provided his house with tapestries or some form of fabric wallhangings. There might be down - filled cushions on the wooden chairs and rugs on the floor- perhaps even a skin or two if he had a friend in the fur trade. There would be plenty of good wax candles in sconces or lanterns. If his wife still scattered rushes as a floor - covering, she would mix some sweet - smelling herbs among them.
If the house were suitably placed, for instance backing on to the Walbrook, it might have a privy or latrine discharging straight into the stream - a very refined adjunct not enjoyed by many citizens.
Even such sophisticated furnishings as these, however, would not spell comfort to us; no interior-sprung mattresses, no upholstered armchairs, no electric light or gas fires, no washing up liquid kind to your hands', no running water, and no draught-excluders!
The streets - The streets of medieval London must have been unbelievably sordid. When they were paved, which was by no means general, they were cobbled, and the surface sloped inward from the sides to a runnel down the middle.
There were no pavements for pedestrians; these were not considered necessary until the comparatively modern method of draining the roadway from the centre to gutters at the sides was introduced.
Householders were supposed to bring their slops out of the house and empty them into the runnel, but often the temptation to throw them out of an upper window was too great. Kitchen refuse was thrown out to rot in piles in the streets, blocking up the channel and sometimes causing foul-smelling floods which would seep over the door sill if the housewife had not taken the precaution of fitting a foot-high board in the doorway to prevent it. The butcher did their slaughtering in the streets, and the offal and blood added to the awful tide. You probably know that the Great Fire of 1666 broke out in Pudding Lane running from Eastcheap down the hill towards the river; but the name apparently has nothing to do with the cooking of delectable puddings. The 16th-century chronicler Stow says it was so called because ''
the butchers of Eastcheap have their scalding houses for hogs there, and their puddings and other filth of beast are voided down that way to the Thames dung boats''
In those days of no refrigeration butchers and fishmongers could not hope to keep their wares fresh in warm weather; and this added to the noisome condition of London's streets.
This disgusting state of affairs was in no way due to neglect on the part of the city fathers. They did what they could, issuing innumerable ordinances against the fouling of the streets and taking action against offenders whenever possible, but almost to no avail. In this matter of cleanliness the medieval Londoner was his own worst enemy.
There is a story of man known as a rakyer who was employed by the ward of Cheapside to collect the dung and filth in the ward, but who found it easier to shove it over the boundary into the adjacent ward of Coleman Street. He was prosecuted, but this example could probably be multiplied a thousandfold. In 1421 another citizen was present [that is, summoned] for 'making a great nuisance and discomfort to his neighbours by throwing out, horrible filth on to the highway the stench of which is so odious that none of his neighbours can remain in their shops'.
The City Corporation appointed scavengers to supervise street cleaning. Originally they had been Customs officials of the same standing as Chaucer was at one time, responsible for overlooking the unloading of imported goods at the wharves and quays. They were given the additional task of supervising the cleaning of the streets; then they were made responsible for the repair of the pavements; and later they undertook the supervision of fire precautions in new buildings. Carts were supplied to take the city's garbage to laystalls outside the walls, and boats to clear the rubbish from the riversideareas. By 1400 special had been appointed on which houschold rubbish was to be put outside house does for collection by the rakvers. But all these efforts were fruitless because of citizens'lack of cooperation, and London remained an easy prey to the epidemics of plaque and lesser visitations throughout the Middle Ages.
Although the City has been largely rebuilt several times and has received face-lifts in the way of roadwidening here and there, many of the streets are still the same width as they were in medieval times. Walk along Cannon Street of King Williams Street and look down the side turnings. This, plus your imagination, will give you some idea of the roadways of medieval London.
Food - With 50,000 inhabitants, medieval London was a large and prosperous sales district for food producers, and its supplies came from a much wider area than the meadow and pasture immediately outside the walls. Also, a large tract north and cast of city was reserved as a royal forest ['forest' in this connection meant an uncultivated region used as a royal hunting ground and not necessarily a wooded area] and produced little in the way of food.
Meat - It is clear that meat was an important part of the diet, and cattle probably provided 60 per cent or more of it. The quality seems to have varied, from fat beef cattle reared for the market and driven long distances to be fattened and shaughtered in the London area to lean old plough oxen and worn-out cows from points nearera hand. But all found a market, regardless of quality.
The supply of meat was seasonal because supplies nof winter-feed for cattle were very limited and many animal, had to be slaughtered in the autumn. The medieval Londoner had no means of keeping meat fresh, so most of the surplus autumn meat was either smoked or salted in casks of brine. Beef and mutton were usually salted; pork was often smoked for ham and bacon. Another problem was the provision of the large quantities of salt needed to preserve meat on such a scale, and some places on the coasts of Essex and Kent flourished on the extraction of salt from seawater. This led in turn to the slaughtering of cattle and their salting down for transport to London as ready-prepared meat.
Game and poultry - Game such as deer, hares and rabbits were a welcome source of fresh meat to relieve the winter monotony of salt meat, but it is doubtful whether anyone but royalty, nobility, and poachers tasted much venison-and the penalty for poaching deer from the royal forests was usually death.
