When I mentioned to a friend that I intended to devote one of the chapters of this book to the consideration of sanitation in the Middle Ages, he hinted that as there was no such thing this would partake somewhat of the character of the famous chapter on Snakes in the _History of Ireland_. In this opinion I hope to prove that he is wrong.
There are many conflicting accounts of the general sanitary condition of a walled town in the Middle Ages, but although some have painted the condition of early London in a very unfavourable light, there is sufficient evidence on the other side to induce us, in taking a general survey of so large a subject, to be careful not to use too dark colours for our picture. Probably the town was healthier in ordinary times than the country, because the regulations were stricter, but in time of pestilence it was doubtless worse, from the confined space and the want of fresh air, caused by the closeness of buildings.
We do not hear much of the health of London between the periods of pestilence, but occasional information shows how great was the mortality among infants. The vast disproportion between the births and deaths made the influx of immigrants from the country necessary to keep up the population.
As a sign that the general conditions of life were unhealthier then than now, we may note that the expectancy of life in the Middle Ages was much shorter than at present. It is said that as large a number of persons died at forty years of age as now live to seventy. Queen Elizabeth was the first of the twenty-three sovereigns of England after the Conquest who attained the age of seventy, although Edward I indeed lived to his sixty-ninth year.
Dr. Jessopp gives a vivid picture of the frightful condition of town populations. He writes: 'The sediment of the town population in the Middle Ages was a dense slough of stagnant misery, squalor, famine, loathsome disease and dull despair, such as the worst slums of London, Paris or Liverpool know nothing of.'[126]
Dr. Charles Creighton, in his monumental work on epidemics,[127] takes the view that we must receive with some scepticism the extremely unsatisfactory accounts of the condition of old London. He points out that, while Erasmus gives a most repulsive description of the state of the houses, his contemporary and friend, Sir Thomas More, takes a much more flattering view. Dr. Creighton says: 'Some part of the rather unfair opinion as to the foulness of English life in former times may be traced to a well-known letter by Erasmus to the physician of Cardinal Wolsey. There are grounds for believing that Erasmus must have judged from somewhat unfavourable instances.' Dr. Creighton further points out that William Harrison (_Description of England_) gives proof enough that the filthy floors described by Erasmus had no existence two generations later, even among the poorer classes.