Causes of illness and disease – WJECMedieval towns

Medieval towns were much smaller than today but were particularly unhealthy. Some towns did introduce regulations to keep streets clean, and employed scavengers and rakers to remove waste, but most attempts to keep towns clean failed.

Streets

• They were a breeding ground for disease.
• The upper storeys of houses jutted out into the street, limiting light and air.
• There were no sewers, so household waste was thrown into the streets.
• There were large numbers of animals in towns, so there was a lot of manure left to rot down.

Houses

• Houses were unhealthy too and damp.
• The smoke from fires filled the house, causing respiratory problems.
• Wattle and daub walls and straw on floors attracted rats, lice and fleas, which spread diseases.
• Clean water for washing was hard to come by, so most people smelled and were dirty.

Before 1050, nowhere in Wales could be considered urban, but over the next 300 years many Welsh towns were established, like Bala in 1309. These towns grew in both size and wealth, although probably less than 1 in 10 of the population lived in them, as Wales remained overwhelmingly rural.

Cardiff, with perhaps 2,200 inhabitants in 1300, was almost certainly the country's largest medieval town.